James Wilson on Real World Ethics
Philosophy Bites
Nigel Warburton
4.6 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2019
⏱️ 20 minutes
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Summary
Are thought experiments the best way of doing practical ethics? Not according to James Wilson. He thinks we need the rich detail of real cases or complex imaginary cases not a simplified version of reality to make sense of the moral problems we face.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is brought to you with philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me |
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| 0:14.0 | We live in an increasingly uncertain and complex world |
| 0:18.0 | with a casual attitude towards objective facts. |
| 0:20.0 | Citizens often don't know what the truth is or where to find it. |
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| 0:46.0 | and that's Mark with a C. M-A-R-C-Sanders Foundation |
| 0:52.0 | dot org. What's the best way? Sanders Foundation.org. |
| 0:53.0 | What's the best way to do practical ethics? |
| 0:57.0 | What's the best way to work out how we should behave morally in different scenarios? |
| 1:01.0 | Some philosophers like to start by developing principles, |
| 1:04.9 | often through the use of imaginary examples called thought experiments. |
| 1:09.3 | James Wilson, who teaches at University College London, believes this gets things the wrong way round. |
| 1:15.0 | James Wilson, welcome to Philosophy Bites. |
| 1:18.0 | Hello? |
| 1:19.0 | The topic we're going to focus on is real world ethics. |
| 1:22.0 | Now obviously all ethics in some senses in the real world but |
| 1:25.3 | what do you mean by real-world ethics? I mean helping us to make wise decisions |
| 1:30.1 | about real life situations. Very often philosophers can talk about thought |
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