Rosmaund Young’s The Secret Life of Cows made me think of how Hume did not so much elevate the animals to the supposed level of humans as claim that much human “reasoning” is no more rational than that of other animals.
ReadThere is space for a kind of moral seriousness that sees importance in doing the right thing without believing we can ever have a formula for specifying what the right thing is. Many moral philosophers are at work in this space, trying to show that even if we can’t tidy up every inch, there are more or less rigorous ways of muddling through.
ReadMandela was not risking his life primarily for an abstract cause or principle. He risked it for his people. His individual life was worth risking because he never existed as a pure individual, only as a member of that people. He stood up for others because it was because of others that he was able to stand up at all.
ReadWhat unites both sides in the old “truth wars” is more important than what divides them.
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