Each week I try to listen to a couple of podcasts which apply rational principles to issues of everyday life.

Philosophy in Action – This week Diana Hsieh and co-host Greg Perkins answer questions in-depth on whether an egoist should be willing to torture others to benefit himself, whether juries should be present during trials (as opposed to say receiving transcripts of all the accepted testimony), and whether it is necessary for people to share an interest in philosophy in order to have a good romance. They also did “rapid fire” questions on Clive Bundy, the existence of the CDC and whether democracy is a bad idea.

The first question took the largest share of the program and one interesting thing I took away from it, not exactly to the point, is that the scenarios that are presented on this question are almost always situations that can never happen in reality. One of the examples given was whether you should be willing to cut off your pinky to save the lives of 20 million strangers. Such a situation is unlikely to happen, but this type is what is often used to challenge egoism (understood as rational self-interest). Any attempts to make the situation win/win rather than win/lose often lead to the person proposing this type of question altering the scenario to keep it win/lose. The correct answer to this is basically, as Greg put it, I live in reality where this sort of thing cannot happen. You cannot base your ethical system on such situations, another example of which is the lifeboat dilemma.

Peikoff.com Episode 322 – Leonard Peikoff covers questions on the morality of having children if there is a chance of their inheriting a potentially debilitating disease (Tourette syndrome in the specific case), offensive words, the difference between spontaneity and whim worship, biblical heaven, and why people who claim to be for consensus decision will often oppose the consensus decision in some cases.

I still have not completed Leonard Peikoff’s Principles of Grammar course as I have not made the time to do the final homework. I had hoped to do it today, but ended staying in bed sick. Hopefully tomorrow will give me the opportunity to finish this up and start in again on his logic course.

I have also been doing some of the courses at the Ayn Rand Campus which are fun as well. I am just starting part two on the new Objective Communication course. I have the audio recording it is based on as well as the book by the same title that is also based on it.

Daily commutes are still being used to listen to Leonard Peikoff’s lecture series The Philosophy of Objectivism. During one part I listened to last week he talked about the common ways in which people attempt to evade the law of cause and effect which gave me some insight on an issue I have been wanting to write a blog post about, namely how rights are being deliberately misunderstood today. Hopefully that will become clearer in my mind soon and see the light of day.