This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Mola, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Benjamin Litzkam is professor of philosophy at Houghton University. He earned his PhD from the University of Notre Dame.

He is an accomplished scholar and author who specializes in contemporary ethical theory and the history of philosophy

with a particular focus on issues of character formation.

His recent book, The Women Are Up to Something,

tells the story of four women who reshaped ethics and philosophy in the 20th century.

And that book is the topic of our conversation today

Professor Lipskin welcome to thinking in public. Oh thanks for having me on it's a

pleasure to be here. You know I have to say I think your book title is one of the very best of any recent release

certainly in the field of intellectual history and philosophy. You entitled the book,

the women are Up to Something.

So first of all, who are they and what in the world are they up to?

I should give credit to my acquaintance at the University of Chicago,

Candice Vogler, who said, this is what your title should be.

But I love it too.

The women are Elizabeth Anseum, flip afoot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch, who all meet up at Oxford right at the beginning of the second world war.

They're born right after the first world war and this sets them up to be about 18 about when war is

breaking out again and they cross paths there under really unusual circumstances when the men have volunteered or been conscripted away, and suddenly

the character of the university changes overnight, and they get a kind of mentoring and encouragement, possibilities open up for them that I think it's

reasonable to say wouldn't have if it had been five years earlier even.

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