Massimo Pigliucci on Doubt, Moral Courage, and Living Without Illusions
6/20/20261 hr 34 min
What does it mean to live well when certainty is unavailable?
Michael Shermer speaks with Massimo Pigliucci about moral character, ancient philosophy, and the difficult art of making decisions without easy answers. The conversation moves from Cicero and Stoicism to the legacy of the New Atheism, asking why rejecting religion is not the same as having a philosophy of life.
They discuss virtue ethics, moral dilemmas, effective altruism, faith, free will, democracy, human flourishing, and the uneasy relationship between facts and values.
From the trolley problem and Peter Singer's drowning child thought experiment to the ethics of charity, the limits of utilitarian thinking, and the dangers of tribalism, this episode asks how we should act when rules fail, consequences are uncertain, and good intentions are not enough.
Massimo Pigliucci is a bestselling author, philosopher, evolutionary biologist, and the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His work spans evolutionary biology, philosophy of science, pseudoscience, and practical philosophy. His latest book is How to Be a Happy Skeptic: The Power of Doubt in a Meaningful Life.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMassimo Pigliucci· Guest0:00
Two of the major schools in Greco-Roman times were the Epicureans and the Stoics. They both had an answer to the question of what does it mean to have a good character, but their answers were different. They both said that what you want to do is to, quote, "Live according to nature," meaning that you want to ask yourself what kind of an animal is a human being? And on the basis of that, the answer to that question, you're gonna decide what is a good life for a human being, what is a flourishing life for a human being, and then you're gonna try to act accordingly. The big difference between the Stoics and the Epicureans was in their major conclusion of what that good life looks like. The word ethics comes from the Greek, not surprisingly, ethos, which has to do with character, so with goodness of character. So somebody who is ethical is somebody who has a good character. When Cicero translated the word ethos into Latin, there was no word in Latin for that kind of concept, so he picked Morales. Morales, in Latin, had a slightly different understanding. It had to do with the morals, with the habits of a community, right? So when you put the two things together, it turns out that to be ethical or moral means to have a good character within the context of your social group.
Michael Shermer· Host1:12
[upbeat music] All right, everybody, it's Michael Shermer. It's time for another episode of "The Michael Shermer Show." My guest today is Dr. Massimo Pigliucci. He's the author, blogger, and podcaster, and philosopher, and evolutionary biologist, as well