Patrons Only: Jesse Interviews Philosopher Justin Tosi On Moral Grandstanding, The Social-Justice Culture Wars In Philosophy, And More

Blocked and Reported

Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal

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4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2020

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today's patrons-only episode, Jesse interviews Justin Tosi, a philosopher at Texas Tech University and the author, with Brandon Warmke, of the new book Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk. After discussing the book, Jesse and Justin move on to a broader conversation about the current, precarious moment for open inquiry in academia, as well as the turn toward activism in philosophy that has Justin worried about his field.

Show notes/Links:

Amazon: Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk - https://www.amazon.com/Grandstanding-Use-Abuse-Moral-Talk/dp/0190900156/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Twitter: A student gets a meeting with her dean after complaining about a syllabus that doesn't have the right racial breakdown - https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1300126499215937538

YouTube: Gender Critical | Daniel Kaufman & Jesse Singal [Sophia] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ9MzhwflI4

Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ergo/12405314.0005.014?view=text;rgn=main

Jesse referenced the wrong NBA player in the episode -- it was Stephen Curry, not Steve Nash. See: "It tacitly communicates that at no point in time is Paige like Hillary Clinton or Catherine McGregor or any other woman (for whom she would be used); and likewise, that at no point in time is Paige like Stephen Curry or John Oliver (for whom he would be used). In short, if we use he or she for anyone, we either risk misgendering Paige with he or she, or we go back to the inegalitarian option of using a third catchall."

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.blockedandreported.org/subscribe

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, you are listening to a Patrons Only episode of Blocked and Reported. I am Jesse
0:04.9	single. I am without my trusted, arguably trusted, partner Katie Herzog because this is an interview
0:11.8	episode. I recently spoke with Justin Tozi. He is a philosopher at Texas Tech University and the
0:18.0	author with Brandon Warmke of Grandstanding, the use and abuse of moral talk. This is a really
0:24.2	interesting book that captures so much about online life and I'm not going to Prattle on Further.
0:29.3	So I hope you enjoy this interview. The first half of it is about the book. The second half is
0:33.9	about some of this culture war stuff going on with philosophy. The first half will also eventually
0:38.6	be released for everyone. So you'll hear that in an upcoming episode. Thank you guys and I hope
0:43.6	you enjoy. Justin Tozi, how are you doing today? Great, how are you Jesse? Good. Could you do my
0:51.3	job for me and tell listeners a little bit about yourself? Sure. I am an assistant professor of
0:56.7	philosophy at Texas Tech University where I teach and write about moral legal, social, and political
1:03.5	philosophy. And you are the author with Brandon Warmke of Grandstanding, the use and abuse of moral talk.
1:10.6	Correct. That's right. You got the right right guy. Okay good. I was what if you'd said no,
1:15.2	that would have sort of torpedoed the interview. So this book came out in July correct? Yeah,
1:22.6	yes, it's now available in Kindle and Hardcopy and in Audio Book if that's your thing.
1:27.8	I have my hard copy with me. I don't know if you guys can hear that, but this is proof.
1:32.4	No other book would make those particular noises. So the key concept here is moral grandstanding.
1:40.4	And some of the work you do in the book is to separate out moral talk in general as you call it,
1:46.7	which is just sort of claims about what's good, what's bad, stuff like that from this very
1:51.2	particular type of moral talk called grandstanding. And how do you guys define that?
1:56.5	Yes, if you want just a simple, non-technical definition of grandstanding, it's the use of moral
2:01.9	talk for self-promotion. So one of the things that we try really hard to do in the book is to point
	...

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