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About Robert Talisse

Robert Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.

NBN Episodes hosted by Robert:

Philosophy May 3, 2021

The Epistemology of Groups

Jennifer Lackey

Hosted by Robert Talisse
We commonly ascribe beliefs and similar attitudes to groups. For instance, we say that a foreign government believes that members of the press are spies, or that a corporation denies …
Philosophy April 1, 2021

Being Evil

A Philosophical Perspective

Luke Russell

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Evil is among our everyday moral concepts. It is common to hear politicians and others condemn certain acts, purposes, people, or even populations as evil. But what does it mean …
Philosophy February 1, 2021

Overcoming Necessity

Emergency, Constraint, and the Meanings of American Constitutionalism

Thomas P. Crocker

Hosted by Robert Talisse
A core duty of government is keeping those it governs safe. However, in modern democratic states, government is structured by a Constitution, which establishes constraints and checks on the power …
Philosophy January 4, 2021

The Ethics of Microaggression

Regina Rini

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Seemingly fleeting and barely legible insults, slights, and derogations might seem morally insignificant. They’re the byproducts of ordinary thoughtlessness and insensitivity; moreover, insofar as they inflict harm at all, the …
Philosophy December 1, 2020

Unconscionable Crimes

How Norms Explain and Constrain Mass Atrocities

Paul C. Morrow

Hosted by Robert Talisse
The moral horrors of genocide and mass atrocity lead us to wonder how such things are even possible. A common and understandable reaction is to see events of this kind …
Philosophy November 2, 2020

Lost in Thought

The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life

Zena Hitz

Hosted by Robert Talisse
We live in a culture that tends to view thought with a degree of suspicion. Thinking is frequently associated with uselessness, idleness, laziness. These suspicions can be somewhat allayed when …
Philosophy October 1, 2020

No Refuge

Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis

Serena Parekh

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Discourse in wealthy Western countries about refugees tends to follow a familiar script. How many refugees is a country morally required to accept? What kinds of care and support are …
Philosophy September 1, 2020

The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs

Lisa Bortolotti

Hosted by Robert Talisse
There is something intuitive about the idea that when we believe, we ought to follow our evidence. This entails that beliefs that are the products of garden varieties of irrationality …
Philosophy July 1, 2020

Grandstanding

The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk

Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke

Hosted by Robert Talisse
College courses in Ethics tend to focus on theories of the moral rightness or wrongness of actions. This emphasis sometimes obscures the fact that morality is a social project: part …
Philosophy June 1, 2020

Free to Move

Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom

Ilya Somin

Hosted by Robert Talisse
When we think of democracy, we typically think of voting; and when we think of voting, we ordinarily have elections and campaigns in minds. In this intuitive sense, voting is …
Philosophy May 1, 2020

The Meaning of Travel

Philosophers Abroad

Emily Thomas

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Travel has been a topic lurking in the background (at least) of a lot of philosophy. Socrates was keen to remind his jury as well as his interlocutor Phaedrus that …
Philosophy February 28, 2020

Utopophobia

On the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy

David Estlund

Hosted by Robert Talisse
It is tempting to hold that any proposed principle of social justice is defective if it demands too much of people, given their proclivities. A stronger view, one that many …
Philosophy January 31, 2020

How to Be Trustworthy

Katherine Hawley

Hosted by Robert Talisse
It is obvious that in our day-to-day lives, a lot hangs on trust, and thus on whether those around us are trustworthy. Yet there are several philosophical issues surrounding trust …
Philosophy January 2, 2020

Automation and Utopia

Human Flourishing in a World without Work

John Danaher

Hosted by Robert Talisse
The future is a constant focus of anxiety, and we are all familiar with the pressures that come distinctively from automation – the transformation by which tasks formerly assigned to …
Philosophy December 5, 2019

The Duty to Vote

Julia Maskivker

Hosted by Robert Talisse
When asked what democracy is, many of us instantly think of elections, and thus voting. Although we tend to see voting as central to democracy, we also think that voting …
Philosophy November 1, 2019

John Stuart Mill and the Meaning of Life

Elijah Millgram

Hosted by Robert Talisse
According to an intuitive view, lives are meaningful when they manifest a directedness or instantiate a project such that the disparate events and endeavors “add up to” a life. John …
Philosophy October 1, 2019

The Shared World

Perceptual Knowledge, Demonstrative Communication, and Social Space

Axel Seemann

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Much of what we are able to accomplish in our day-to-day lives depends on the ability to act and think in concert with others. Often this involves not only the …
Philosophy September 2, 2019

Philosophy of Sex and Love

Patricia Marino

Hosted by Robert Talisse
For those who think that philosophy must speak to everyday experience and ordinary life, it would seem that philosophical questions occasioned by love and sex should take center stage. Moral …
Philosophy August 1, 2019

Vices of the Mind

From the Intellectual to the Political

Quassim Cassam

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Sometimes people are blameworthy or otherwise not admirable because of what they believe. And sometimes they are blameworthy or otherwise not admirable because of how they believe – broadly, their …
Philosophy July 1, 2019

Why Free Will is Real

Christian List

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Given our modern scientific view of the world, how is freedom of the will possible? That is the classical problem of free will. Strategies for addressing this problem include the …
Philosophy May 31, 2019

Just Words

On Speech and Hidden Harm

Mary Kate McGowan

Hosted by Robert Talisse
We’re all familiar with the ways in which speech can cause harm. For example, speech can incite wrongful acts. And I suppose we’re also familiar with contexts in which a …
Philosophy May 1, 2019

The Ethics and Practice of Refugee Repatriation

Mollie Gerver

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Moral and political theorists have paid a healthy amount of attention to states’ rights to determine who may reside within their territory. Accordingly, there’s a large literature on immigration, borders …
Philosophy April 1, 2019

What's the Point of Knowledge?

A Function-First Epistemology

Michael Hannon

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Epistemologists working traditional modes have sought to discover the necessary and sufficient conditions under which one has knowledge. This has led to several tricky philosophical problems. Perhaps most notorious of …
Philosophy March 1, 2019

Problems of Religious Luck

Assessing the Limits of Reasonable Religious Disagreement

Guy Axtell

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Our lives are shot through with contingency – where, when, and into what circumstances we are born is largely a matter of chance. And yet those features play determining roles …