Check us out Wednesday and Thursday in Portland
中国伊朗亚洲杯比赛直播

17 June 2007

Be sure to check out the Philosophy Talk team this week in Portland. We'll be doing two events. On Wednesday, June 20th, we'll do a live taping aPowell's City of Books on Burnside. The show starts at 7:30. Our guest will be poet and philosopherTroy Jollimore, winner of theNational Book Critics Circle Award in Poetryfor his collection of poemsTom Thomson in Purgatory. Come and be part of the audience. After the show, Troy will be signing copies of his very fine book. Plus you can meet and greet the entire Philosophy Talk team. We're really looking forward to it. Some come on over to Powells.

The following day, Thursday June 21st at 8pm, we'll do the show LIVE from the studios ofOregon Public Broadcasting. We're really looking forward to interacting with listeners from all over Oregon in real time. So call in Oregon at 503-452-4373. Our topic will be Philosophy through Humor. Our guests will be Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, authors ofPlato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes.

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Thursday, July 5, 2007 -- 5:00 PM

This is nonsense. We need to look at evolution to

This is nonsense. We need to look at evolution to develope a model of moral behavior. Since we are essentially self reproducing machines, all moral behavior should be directed toward the perpetuation of Life (the process, not the individual).
For Homo Sapiens this is a particularly complex problem because, in order to propagate our own specie, we must at a minimum preserve those upon which we depend. Additionally, since we are capable of destroying life on earth (and we are very close), we must assume the stewardship of Life on the planet. Otherwise, we have no idea how the chain of events will play out.
还有一个问题是,我们每个人继续生活的动力是什么。这是一个可以被问及每一种生命形式的问题,我认为,它将我们与其他所有生物联系在一起。我想你可以说这是性,但这对我来说有点简单了。如果性是我们活着的唯一目的那么我们的后代如何生存呢?毕竟,它们也需要活到生育年龄。在我看来,经验(我喜欢禅宗这个词)是关键。我们所渴望的、爱的、恐惧的、恨的,正是那些能让我们活得长久、让我们的下一代幸福的东西。
这是一种新的道德范式(冒着不谦虚的风险),因为什么是“好”是由环境决定的。在犹太人和古典文明时期,个人的简单生存是保证人类生存的必要条件。随着高效医学的出现,一切都发生了翻天覆地的变化。现在,太多的个体存活了太长时间,而出生率保持不变,太多的婴儿存活到成年,繁殖了太多更多的婴儿。In this manner, Humanity demands too much of the earth's physical capacity and will finally surpass its capacity to sustain us (and maybe Life itself)
So what is moral now? In a word, I think you may say MODERATION! More than two children per couple is immoral. Living beyond the age of independence is immoral. Promoting the idea of eternal life is immoral; we must live our lives in a way that assures the continuation of Life on the planet not our own survival. In short, in our time, if Granny Smith can't make it on her own, she's detracting from the well being of the children and she needs to go. At a later time the idea of "Good" will change again, but rest assured it will never be static.