Podcast Episode Analysis

.pdf

School

University of New South Wales *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

MISC

Subject

Philosophy

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

pdf

Pages

Uploaded by zoyafox

Episode Title: What does it mean to be a moral parent? Words: ● Didactic ● Teleological - focus on ends. ● Abrogation ● Acquiescent ● Nihilistic ● Virtuosity Themes: Family, Parenting, Childhood ● More Task B oriented Notions: ● Imposing of moral convictions from parent to child ● Teleological nature of moral education ● The importance of preserving the carefree nature of a child Questions: ● E.g. religion? Insights: ● Role of education in moral, democratic emotional formation of the child ● Differentiated responsibility of well run educational institutions and the child’s parent ● What does it mean to be a moral parent? Is being a moral parent different to being a good parent? ● If childhood runs from 3-14, during that time, to what extent should and can a parent urge (some element of coerciveness) their moral convictions on a child? They go beyond the basic fundamental duty of care e.g. not being with strangers, not going out late at night. ● E.g. going to school on time, truth telling, doing their homework, self sacrifice to the benefit of others, empathy ● E.g. veganism - by watching documentaries, moral conviction, imposing practice, talking about it at the table. ● Ralph Waldo Emerson: the neutrality of children ○ Not the same as children are free of sin or age before children can be culpable of wrongdoing or evil ○ He means free from stress and anxiety and is equal to the wildness of the world ○ Incubatory stage of childhood: freedom from responsibility ○ Is it a bad form of parenting to fill them with fears of the world to make them live in a self doubting way ● Emotional relationship between parent and child can lead to imposition and domination e.g. moral heavy handedness and corrections. When does it become morally counterproductive?

● Answer is contingent on the nature of the child. ● There are teloi - ends - in morality. If there is an agenda driven interaction it can lead to suspension. ● Interaction being carefree is the primary good - more important when they are adolescents ● Witkinsteins philosophical investigations: one tries to give justifications for why one does what one does. E.g. asking why? Constantly. You reach a point where you can just say it is just what I do. ● As a parent you reach a point where you realize that you reach bedrock. Send an invitation - let me know if you want to know more. ● Strategic ways of sharing moral conviction e.g. linking with specific peers, providing them with resources, make the end appealing to the child ● Socratic parenting doesn’t work ○ Not as much authority ○ Steady drawing out of questioning when parent is involved is emotionally inflected ● Luara Ferracioli - associate professor in political philosophy at Sydney University ○ Personality of child is important for moral education ○ For some children reverse psychology, whereas others idolize their parents ○ When does the imposition of moral convictions become morally impermissible? ■ When it makes it difficult for children to enjoy childhood and their ability to be carefree ■ Deprives child of skills they need to become autonomous - they should reserve the right to later on analyze these moral convictions are things they want to retain ■ Critical thinking, imagination and creativity to make decisions later in life ■ Carefree way to share your convictions e.g. funnel children toward vegetarian options at a restaurant ■ Child-driven curiosity should be supported by childhood ○ Acquiescent child is desperate for parental approval and will do anything ■ Pascalian point that moral convictions will follow ■ But this can result in resentment - their parents affection may be contingent on the child's conviction ■ Parents should empower the child to make their own decisions ○ Montanya: not sure if he was a virtuous person because he knew he was just a good person without any evil intentions ■ Defiance in some amounts and a certain degree of non-conformism in a parent-child relationship can be important if a parent cares about autonomy. This needs to be tethered to some sort of conviction that a child shares. (principle defiance) ■ Defiance for defiance sake is nihilistic ■ Some parents don’t care about autonomy but this does not make them back ■ A good parent is not necessarily a liberal parent

○ Each parent will have a different answer to what does it mean to live a good life ○ Religious schools and even homeschooling limit the development of autonomy - public, compulsory, secular schools are more appropriate ○ Religious parents should not get in the way of children being able to make their own decisions in adulthood ○ Religious education on the side, on the weekend is okay Paragraph:

Episode Title: Bonus episode The 2022 Simone Weil Lecture on Human Value Words: ● Fraternal Recognition. ● Tabloidization. ● Graceful distance. Themes: Social media, Political Discourse, Democracy, Black Lives Matter, Civility, Air, Poetry - More Task A oriented Notions: ● Democracy and commonness. ● Poetry, human value and commonness. ● Contempt as eroding democracy. ● Technology and communication. ● Commercialisation/ commodification of news. ● Social media and discourse. ● Consumption and conspiracy. ● Distance as facilitating underserved moral absolution. ● Reduction of human value. ● Life as sacred ground. ● Common language is essential to democracy. ● Democracy is fragile and vulnerable to contempt. ● Symbols are important. Questions: ● What does proper objects of love mean? Insights: ● Democracy most of all affiliates with the open air - Walt Whitman Poet and philosopher. - The idea that the air, that is common to all of us, that we all inhabit is an embodiment of democracy. - We do not breathe well, there is infamy in the air - Ralph Waldo Emerson (American essayist). The air as a witness to a conspiracy. This idea is contextualized in the idea that the North is a co-conspirator in slavery, through consumption. “The sugar they raised was excellent, no-body tasted blood in it”. This idea could be connected to the modern day example of sweat-shops and fast fashion, and how our ‘graceful distance’ allows us to separate ourselves from the greedy corporations but we are co-conspirators. ● The poet is a joiner, who sees how things join - Walt Whitman in the leaves of Grass. - Not referring to poets as we typically mean them but those that work and cultivate words so that the spaces in between people can be fertile soil that allows people to remain morally intelligible to one another. The poet stands between people and places all beings on a common level despite all other properties. By his address the poet calls for both the president and the slave to be seen as worthy of one’s regard - he transforms both parties into proper objects of love. - The poet is a parable of humanities commonness - Stanley Cavell American Philosopher.

- Language itself is therefore a necessary prerequisite of democracy. ● Contempt is a virus - Zadie Smith. - Contempt is worse than hate. Hate requires a full recognition of a person’s moral reality. Contempt is far more common, and allows for the reduction of a person to a thing. It makes people into things, tools, calculated losses to whom respect, dignity or justice need not apply. This excludes you from the structures, communities and essentially turns you into nothing. - The murder of George Floyd as an act of contempt. ● Technology was predicted to increase empathy and fraternal recognition. Technology was expected to be a peacemaker and civiliser → This was Walt Whitman’s response to the Trans-Atlantic cable. - BBC motto: Nation shall speak unto nation. ● Commodification of news leads to spreading hate and hostility by the newspapers in order to increase traction and secure commercial gain. ● Words without the goal of meaningful human communication can suffocate the air, and render real human communication just as superfluous as machines made workers. The idea is taken from Soren Kierkegaard. ● The reduction of a human to a mere thing. A person becomes a corpse before anybody or anything touches them because their life is meaningless in the eyes of another. ‘The most insidious is the force that does not kill just yet’ - Simone Weil in her essay on the Iliad. ‘Soul blindness’ because a person killing another without hesitation does not recognise the other as a fellow human being. ● John Dewey 'democracy is neither a form of governance nor a social expediency but is a metaphysic of the relation of humanity and their experience in nature'. The practices that maintain democracy are those that allow for recognition of the commonness between men, this is what brings democracy to life. - Dewey wrote that anything that ferments intolerance and mutual suspicion, anything that bars freedom and fullness of communication, anything that sets up barriers that divide human beings into sets and cliques should be regarded as treason to the democratic way of life. ● There is nothing outside of democracy that guarantees it. - Contempt is the enemy of democracy. It separates the citizens of a nation into separate fractions, this degrades the relations between the people until they are morally intelligible to each other. If they enter into such a state, then democracy cannot be continued. This reduces people to a caricature, a stereotype and separates them from their humanity. - Attentiveness prevents the above and is the refusal of contempt. It requires the willingness to have our political goals redefined for the sake of mutual understanding and hope of mutual transformation. It requires seeing the other person not as an obstacle to our goals, or a means to an end. - This could be connected to the words of Jesus requiring us to love our enemies, because if you love your enemy you cannot wish for his destruction but rather yearn for your mutual salvation. This could be extended to the idea of loving your political enemies.

● Symbols do not guarantee anything, but that does not mean they are arbitrary. Symbols do not initiate the relationship nor do they guarantee its health. They cultivate the conditions of the relationship so that it and the symbols themselves acquire depth. This allows the relationship to grow like a plant. These are the views of Simon Weil. - The idea that symbols are important for democracy. ● Politics should be, in the philosophical tradition of Aristotle and Plato, about taking care of things and people, not just about order, and structure. - John Stewart Mill views politics as analogous to marriage. Two people bound together by nothing more substantial than reciprocal devotedness, discover through the peculiarity of their life together the ethical conditions that allow their life to persist. ● Weil insists that attentiveness, like consent, equality and justice itself is ultimately a work of love. ● Social media has made us unreal to one another. Leading us to despair or deny that we could have any real connection to those with whom we radically disagree, or share a shared future at all. ● Democracy is an aspiration that requires for its bringing to reality, a mutual understanding, attentiveness - the refusal to fall to contempt, and ultimately love. It requires a willingness to be transformed, and a moral recognition of another. It doesn’t lead to justice but necessitates it because ultimately love and justice are inseparable. Paragraph: - Paragraph on democracy as fragile. - Paragraph on democracy as requiring attentiveness, and refusal of contempt. - Paragraph on social media and its deleterious effects on democracy. - The importance of language to democracy.

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version