Today's excerpt comes from a paper titled ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’ by Michael Stocker.

One quick correction: though Socrates famously denies one can do what he knows to be worse, many philosophers think otherwise!

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Today's excerpt comes from a paper in which Cora Diamond explores an argument often heard in conversations about vegetarianism: the charge of speciesism. She pushes back on its success as an argument and offers an alternative.

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Today's excerpt is a follow up from Williams’ Persons, Character, and Morality. Here, he discusses how moral thinking – thinking about moral theories and ideas – is supposed to figure into our decision making.

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Today's excerpt comes from Bernard Williams' paper, Persons, Character, and Morality. Williams discusses why, if at all, we ought to fear death and what this means for our conception of ourselves.

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Today's excerpt comes from the very beginning of Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology -- A Fragment. Wittgenstein explores the complexities in our application of terms like 'hope' or 'grief' -- and what they require from us in terms of our form of life.

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Today's excerpt comes from an essay called Freedom and Resentment. Philosopher P.F. Strawson explores a chestnut of a philosophical question – the debate over free will. But he comes at it from a different and unique angle, asking what our emotions like resentment, anger, or love, can tell us.

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Today's excerpt comes from a paper by Bernard Williams, in which he explores the charge that we sometime levy upon people who refuse to do something because they find it “morally distasteful." Are such people self-indulgent.

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In this episode, "Freud on Transience," we look at a thoughtful piece Freud wrote just after World War I. He's wrestling with something we've all felt - why does knowing something beautiful won't last forever make it harder to enjoy?

Freud makes an interesting point: beauty doesn't become less beautiful just because it's temporary. The real problem is how we handle knowing it will end. Instead of letting that knowledge ruin our experience, he suggests we might actually appreciate beautiful things more because they're fleeting.

It's one of those ideas that makes you think about bigger questions - like how we deal with the fact that nothing lasts forever, including life itself. Freud's take might change how you see those moments when you're enjoying something but can't stop thinking about how it won't be around forever.

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