Philosophy Bites PDF
Preview Philosophy Bites
PHILOSOPHY BITES This page intentionally left blank PHILOSOPHY BITES DAVID EDMONDS & NIGEL WARBURTON 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton 2010 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd., St Ives plc ISBN 978–0–19–957632–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 To Liz, and to Anna This page intentionally left blank PREFACE This book began as a series of podcast audio interviews. We have selected—with some difficulty—twenty-five of these to include here from a total of well over a hundred. In the first three years of the podcast we’ve had over 7 million downloads, fan-mail from all over the world, and many requests for transcripts—hence the book. One distinguished philosopher whom we asked for an interview turned us down because he disapproved of the Internet. But hap- pily he proved a rare exception. For the most part those we’ve approached have been remarkably cooperative and supportive. For us, one of the principal benefits of running Philosophy Bites has been our free weekly seminar. So our first debt is to our interviewees, and not just those who feature in this book, but all the philosophers who’ve succumbed to our gentle interroga- tions. It has been a privilege for us to meet so many interesting and significant thinkers. Our second debt is to our listeners. We’ve had an amazing amount of feedback—emails of support every day, often with recommendations for whom we should interview next. This has been very gratifying. For this volume, the interviews with Peter Singer and with Michael Sandel were originally recorded for the Open University’s podcast series Ethics Bites (www.open2.net/ethicsbites) and we are grateful for permission to reproduce them here. vii PREFACE Several of the interviews were recorded in the Institute of Phil- osophy, London, and we are very grateful for their collaboration with that. Thanks to Hannah Edmonds, whose former life as a proof- reader/editor has been exploited once again. And thanks too to our agents Veronique Baxter and Caroline Dawnay. David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton www.philosophybites.com viii CONTENTS Introduction xi What is Philosophy? xiii ETHICS 1. Julian Savulescu on ‘Yuk!’ 1 2. Simon Blackburn on Relativism 10 3. Peter Singer on Animals 18 4. Michael Sandel on Sport and Enhancement 29 5. Alexander Nehamas on Friendship 38 POLITICS 6. Kwame Anthony Appiah on Cosmopolitanism 47 7. Miranda Fricker on Credibility and Discrimination 58 8. Anne Phillips on Multiculturalism 68 9. Will Kymlicka on Minority Rights 77 10. Wendy Brown on Tolerance 88 METAPHYSICS AND MIND 11. A. W. Moore on Infinity 97 12. David Papineau on Scientific Realism 105 13. Barry Stroud on Scepticism 117 14. Hugh Mellor on Time 126 15. Tim Crane on Mind and Body 134 16. Timothy Williamson on Vagueness 142 ix
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