Episode 329: Why We Suffer
Very Bad Wizards
Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro
4.8 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David and Tamler return to the work of Richard Shweder and colleagues, focusing this time on his foundational paper "The "Big Three" of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) and the "Big Three" Explanations of Suffering. What are the various ways that people explain suffering and illness across cultures? What do we lose when we only emphasize biomedical explanations? Why can't social psychology be more like this?
Plus a new Chalmers (not that one) paper argues that monogamy is impermissible. Hello ladies!
Join at the right Patreon tier and vote on an episode topic! [patreon.com]
Chalmers, H. (2019). Is monogamy morally permissible?. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 53(2), 225-241.
Harry Chalmers' Substack post on Monogamy
Shweder, R. A., Much, N. C., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1997). The "big three" of morality (autonomy, community, and divinity) and the "big three" explanations of suffering. In A. Brandt & P. Rozin (Eds.), Morality and health (pp. 119–169). Routledge.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Vizarro, |
| 0:06.0 | having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. |
| 0:09.4 | Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, |
| 0:13.6 | and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. |
| 0:16.8 | I said to him, you are aware that I am not really a wizard. |
| 0:23.6 | And he said, yes, I am aware of that. |
| 0:25.6 | What I want you to do is to use your acting skills to portray the wizard. |
| 0:31.6 | The maiden must has spoken. |
| 0:38.3 | Play no attention to that man behind the curtain. |
| 0:43.3 | Who are you? |
| 0:49.3 | Who are you? |
| 0:51.3 | I'm a very bad man. |
| 0:53.3 | I'm a very good man. I'm a very good man. |
| 0:55.0 | Good man. |
| 0:56.0 | They think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. |
| 1:03.0 | May no attention tonight, man. |
| 1:06.0 | Anybody can have a brain? |
| 1:13.3 | You're a very bad man. |
| 1:16.1 | I'm a very good man. |
| 1:17.7 | Just a very bad wizard. |
| 1:20.6 | Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. |
| 1:21.9 | I'm Tamler Summers from the University of Houston. |
... |
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