Summary: What does Thomas Nagel's control condition for moral responsibility really mean? Does it set an impossible standard? Have others noticed and capitalized on this problem? I answered these questions and more in this discussion of Chapter Three of my book, Responsibility & Luck: A Defense of Praise and Blame.

Tags: Academia, Aristotle, Common Sense, Crime, Egalitarianism, Epistemology, Ethics, Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Justice, Law, Luck, Metaphysics, Moral Judgment, Moral Luck, Philosophy, Politics, Responsibility, Responsibility & Luck

Question: What's so bad about the philosophy of Immanuel Kant? In academic philosophy, Kant is often regarded as the culmination of the Enlightenment. According to this standard view, Kant sought to save reason from skeptics such as Hume, he aimed to ground ethics in reason, and he defended human autonomy and liberty. In contrast, Ayn Rand famously regarded Kant as "the most evil man in mankind's history." She rejected his metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, saying that "the philosophy of Kant is a systematic rationalization of every major psychological vice." Who is right here? What's right or wrong with his philosophy?

Tags: Epistemology, Ethics, History, Honesty, Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Universality

Question: Should a person want to be a "moral saint"? In her classic article "Moral Saints," Susan Wolf argues that a person should not wish to be morally perfect, i.e. a moral saint. What is her basic argument? What's right or wrong about it? Does it apply to rational egoism?

Tags: Altruism, Christianity, Duty Ethics, Egoism, Ethics, Immanuel Kant, Moral Saints, Perfection, Philosophy, Pride, Sacrifice, Susan Wolf, Utilitarianism

Question: What are Immanuel Kant's views on sex? In your June 30th, 2013 discussion of studying philosophy in academia, you said that Immanuel Kant has some very distinctive and revealing views about marriage, sex, and masturbation. What are they? What do they reveal about this ethics? Have they been influential in academia or the culture?

Tags: Academia, Ethics, Immanuel Kant, Love, Philosophy, Relationships, Romance, Sex

Question: Are arguments of the form "what if everyone did that" valid or not? Often, people will claim that some action is wrong on the grounds that not everyone could or should act that way. For example: it’s wrong for a couple not to have children because if no one had children, civilization would collapse. Or: it’s wrong for you not to donate to charity for the poor because if no one donated, lots of innocent people would suffer. Or: it’s wrong for any doctor to limit his practice to concierge service because if every doctor did that, most people would not have access to medical care. What’s right or wrong with this kind of argument?

Tags: Duty Ethics, Ethics, Immanuel Kant, Justice, Personal Values, Universality

Question: Was Immanuel Kant evil rather than just wrong – and if so, why and how? I understand that Kant's ideas are very wrong, even evil. But couldn't he have been honestly mistaken, perhaps not taking his own work seriously? Given that he never advocated or did anything even remotely comparable to Hitler's genocide, why should he be regarded as evil, if at all?

Tags: Ethics, Immanuel Kant, Judgment, Justice, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Summary: Does God's perfection entail his existence? Via his Ontological Argument, Anselm of Canterbury, argues that it does. Here, we consider the argument and the decisive objections against it.

This podcast is part of ReligionCasts – my series of podcasts on the philosophy of religion.

Tags: Anselm of Canterbury, Christianity, Cosmology, Creationism, God, Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Religion, Theology, Thomas Aquinas