This week, we approach one of the most infamous ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche: the dual-prehistory of the morality we follow today. Throughout his career, Nietzsche had an inkling that the origins of our moral ideas did not follow a clean, neat pattern -- a single course of development from a single origin. Rather, we have inherited moral ideas that come from ... Show More
Apr 28
139: Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations, pt 2
In our continuation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, we'll discuss Wittgenstein's arguments against the possibility of a private language, which culminates in the position that all subjective experiences of sensations are not communicable. Thus, language must be do ... Show More
1h 25m
Apr 21
138: Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations, part 1
In this episode, we're finally talking about a book near and dear to my heart, Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" (this book took second place in a Patreon poll, and I decided it was time). What is language? How is the meaning of words determined? Wittgenstein initiall ... Show More
1h 43m
Apr 2025
Schopenhauer on Ethics (Part One)
On The Basis of Morality (1840), Part III: "The Founding of Ethics," Ch. 5: "Statement and Proof of the Only True Moral Incentive." Everything up to this point in the book has been negative: Morality can't be founded on pure reason as Kant thinks, or on the idea of the good life ... Show More
1h 4m
Jun 2025
116 TEASER | Are We Losing our Morality? Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue and the Nihilism of Modern Society
<p>In this episode, we discuss Alasdair MacIntyre’s landmark book <em>After Virtue</em>. MacIntyre, an ex-Marxist and committed anti-liberal, offers a defense of the Aristotelian tradition and its search for the truly common good against the dominant tendency of liberal societies ... Show More
10m 7s
Jun 2025
Why Morality Feels Broken
In a world of conflicting values, polarized opinions, and ever-shifting cultural norms, it’s no wonder morality feels... broken. In this episode of Rethink, Anderson, Sayenne, and Jose explore how our traditional moral frameworks are being challenged—from the decline of religious ... Show More
55m 8s
Jun 2025
Ep. 368: Hume on Reason in Ethics (Part One)
We talk a bit more about David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), and add some parts of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739): sec. 3 "Of the Influencing Motives of the Will" within the third part of Book II, "Of the Passions," and the first two sections of ... Show More
44m 56s
Nov 2025
Episode 148, 'Divine Commands' with Paul Taylor (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion)
Most people believe in moral facts – that is, there's something about torturing and murdering innocent people that makes it wrong, which goes beyond just a feeling. Yet it's hard to locate morality anywhere in the natural world. For this reason, many have understood God to be the ... Show More
37m 53s
Oct 2025
Episode 148, 'Divine Commands' with Paul Taylor (Part I - The Euthyphro Dilemma)
Most people believe in moral facts – that is, there's something about torturing and murdering innocent people that makes it wrong, which goes beyond just a feeling. Yet it's hard to locate morality anywhere in the natural world. For this reason, many have understood God to be the ... Show More
31m 41s
Nov 2023
Beyond Good and Evil-Friedrich Nietzsche 2
"Beyond Good and Evil" is a pivotal work by Friedrich Nietzsche, published in 1886. In it, Nietzsche critiques traditional morality, introduces the concept of the "will to power" as a driving force in human behavior, and distinguishes between master and slave morality. He also em ... Show More
40 m
Nov 2023
Beyond Good and Evil-Friedrich Nietzsche 9
"Beyond Good and Evil" is a pivotal work by Friedrich Nietzsche, published in 1886. In it, Nietzsche critiques traditional morality, introduces the concept of the "will to power" as a driving force in human behavior, and distinguishes between master and slave morality. He also em ... Show More
1h 6m
Jan 2017
Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morality - A Polemic, which he published in 1887 towards the end of his working life and in which he considered the price humans have paid, and were still paying, to become civilised. In three essays, he argued that ... Show More
48m 3s