Stephen Darwall is Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is a world-renowned moral philosopher who has worked broadly across the ethical landscape, making important contributions to Kant scholarship, legal philosophy, deontology, and countless other areas. In this episode, Robinson and Steve talk about Steve’s strabismus (a visual impairment) and how it affects the way he sees the world, violence and human dignity, second-personal ethics, and Steve’s work on the relationship between philosophy and the heart. This is Steve’s second appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In his first, episode #49, Steve and Robinson discussed the history of modern ethics, beginning with Hugo Grotius and traveling up through Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Bentham, and Smith before ending with Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche’s attack on morality. Check out Steve’s book on second-personal ethics, The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability (Harvard, 2009).

Steve’s Website: https://campuspress.yale.edu/stephendarwall/

OUTLINE:

00:00 In This Episode…

00:35 Introduction

3:57 Creative Pursuits and Strabismus

26:57 Violence and Human Dignity

56:42 Cognitive Science, Violence, and Dignity

1:05:55 What Is Second-Personal Ethics?

1:15:54 Moral Obligation, Recognition, and Second-Personal Ethics

1:27:57 Philosophy of the Heart

1:52:58 Chattel Slavery, Reparations, and the Heart

2:04:22 Steve and the Heart

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.