Spencer Case is a philosopher specializing in moral realism, ethics, and political philosophy. He’s the author of Why It’s OK to Be Patriotic and has published extensively on the relationship between epistemic and moral reasons.

We talked about whether morality is something real or something we made up, his argument that if we have reasons to believe things then we have moral reasons too, why the error theorist position collapses under its own logic, whether ethical veganism is as airtight as philosophers claim, Peter Singer’s drowning child argument and why Singer himself softened his conclusion, whether doing philosophy is morally justified when you could be doing something more directly useful, mathematical realism and what the trillionth digit of pi tells us about discovery, moving from Mormonism to atheism to hopeful agnosticism, and why you should see your own views as a lifelong draft you never stop revising.

0:00 Hook

0:24 From Epistemic Reasons to Moral Reasons

6:34 Are Moral Truths the Same Type of Thing as Factual Truths?

7:36 Mathematical Realism and the Language of Discovery

15:34 The Case for Ethical Veganism

22:45 Vampires, Puppies, and Weird Thought Experiments

31:55 Are Philosophers Intellectually Honest?

37:12 Is Doing Philosophy Morally Wrong?

40:30 Life Isn’t Meant to Be Minmaxed

43:45 Mormon to Atheist to Hopeful Agnostic

46:29 Spencer’s Advice