Hello! I’m Sean Illing, Vox’s interviews writer filling in for Ezra while he’s on book tour. My guest today is Martin Hägglund, a philosopher at Yale and the author of This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, which I consider to be one of the most ambitious and important books in the last several years.

We begin by discussing what it means to live a free and purposeful life without regret or illusion. For Hägglund, this life is all we have. There is no heaven, no afterlife, no eternal beyond. We live and we die and that means that the most important question any of us can possibly ask is, “What should we do with our time?” 

We end by talking about the limits of capitalism, namely why it doesn’t really allow us to own our time in the way we ought to. And thus why, for Hägglund, democratic socialism is the only political project that takes the human condition seriously. 

This is an unusual conversation, but, I have to say, I loved it. I appreciate and admire Hägglund’s willingness to tackle the biggest questions any us can ever ask, and I think by the end of it you will, too.

Book recommendations:

Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the other animals by Christine Korsgaard

On the Soul (De Anima) by Aristotle 

Phenomenology of Spirit by G.W.F Hegel 

Follow Sean Illing at Vox or on Twitter @seanilling

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Credits:

Guest host - Sean Illing

Producer - Jeff Geld

Researcher - Roge Karma

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