Episode 36: An Irresponsible Meta-Book Review of Joshua Greene's "Moral Tribes"

I'm a very good man just a very bad wizard. Welcome to very bad wizards. I'm Tamelr Summers from the University of Houston. Dave, I just went to New Orleans for four days for a conference. I must have put on at least ten pounds while I was there. Would you push me off a bridge to save five people?

David Pizarro from Cornell University. And I didn't want to say anything, but I kind of noticed. So ever since I started studying moral psychology and moral judgment, moral philosophy, I've tried my best to develop that freakish circus skill of estimating people's weight by just looking at them, so that if I ever get into that situation, I'll know exactly whether or not to push you. In this case, actually, I might push you and not be quite sure why.

You could be doing it for any number of reasons.

If there was no train, there was no train, there was no one stuck.

And if it was, it would be like that's just gravy. That's just like icing on the cake.

Come my defense trial, I'll be like, oh, yeah, that was why are you.

Saying, sir, that the reason you pushed him off the bridge was to save those five people? There were five people. Yeah, that's exactly why I pushed him.

We'll talk about this in a bit, but I think that.

Is going to relate to our topic for today, which is we're going to be talking about well, we're going to be talking about Josh Green's new book with the caveat. Well, let's tell the caveat later. It's a somewhat embarrassing caveat, really. We're talking about two reviews of Josh.

Green's book and then just arrogantly relying on what we're pretty sure the book said.

Well, if both of us know Josh Green's book really well, or the work not the book really well, but his work really well, his views really well. I interviewed him for the book version of Very Bad Wizard, and we talked about a lot of the issues that are being brought up in the review.

Right. And he's a friend and all of.

That stuff, so, yeah, he's a great guy. It's been a while since we've read an email, responded to one on the air, although we tried to respond to them in our inbox, but I want to read an email. And then also, we just got an itunes review that might be my favorite compliment that we've ever gotten. And then read an itunes review that I don't understand, but maybe you can explain it. So the one that I love, it's titled Addictive Content. By the way, rate us on itunes, and even if you don't like the show, you could rate us right now. There's.

Don't jinx it. Don't drink it.

Suspicious number of five star reviews don't encourage well, do you think it'll look better? Like, now it just looks know one of us has, like, a huge family or something. Like, here's the here's the great compliment. What would you get if Howard Stern taught philosophy? You'd get something similar to very bad wizards. When listening to the podcast, I feel like I'm eavesdropping on two guys in the bar who happen to be college professors, and both make tons of sense. That last part, that might be sarcastic, but I don't know. The podcast is good enough to be labeled philosophical pornography. Like, the two best compliments that we've ever gotten, the Howard Stern comparison and philosophical pornography.

He could very well have meant them both as an insult, but whatever. But I love it. I love it. Thank you, philosophical layman. So are you Howard? I'm Robin. I want to be Robin.

Robin. You're Robin?

Yeah, I'm Robin. I'm the straight man, which probably is the worst, or at least I haven't.

Actually listened to it in a while. I used to love it, though.

Yeah, me too. When it was on TV and I was too young to be watching stuff like that. It was, like, the best thing in the world, college.

And right after college was my huge Howard Stern like obsession, and I think I would love it right now. I just for some reason anyway, here's the one I don't understand. The five star review. Okay. Podcast Very Bad Wizards is by far and away the best podcast I listen to. Preferable both to silence and most other sounds. Tamler and David take breaks. These are real professionals. The conversation that happens between breaks, arguably the show itself, is intellectually engaging and often hilarious. VBW is on some level, probably nothing more than pro tenure, pro Big Bang propaganda. Highly effective at that, as I was on the fence about both before listening. Wow.

I took this one as a compliment, given the five star review, but I love some sort of set theory that he the preferable to both silence and most other sounds. I want a diagram of that.

Most other sounds a little vague. I want to know what percentage of.

Other sounds birds singing.

What are these sounds that are supposedly better than us? Is it partially examined life? Is it just like two people having sex? Is it like a dog licking its balls?

Or that squishy sound when vomit is hitting the bottom of a toilet.

Probably most sounds are bad anyway. It's rare to get a good sound, period.

Oh, I got to play. I'll play a little bit.

Every noise has been used at least five times or something. What do you mean? Because there's only so many noises in the world. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about.

No, there's only so many what do.

You mean, every noise has been used five times?

This is a postmodern itunes review. I really enjoy it. Well, so thank you. And thanks to all who have rated us and given us reviews and who.

Have purchased wilder and philosophical layman. And we have other great ones that are very complimentary and we're very grateful. Let me read now an email that challenges us a bit.

Yeah, this is sort of a theme that returns. This is from Larson landis, and he's basically taking us to task about our views on revenge and forgiveness. In particular, the example we often use, which is if somebody killed or raped your daughter or your sister or your mother, how would you reply? And we sometimes use this sort of loosely as a justification for the intuition that revenge is important. And he says, Selection says, I think it's fair to say that in dealing with this scenario, you've presented the quote unquote rightness of seeking revenge as obvious. And you've implied, I think, that when a man you've adopted a very masculine stance in dealing with the topic, fair enough doesn't seek to avenge serious insults and injuries and inflicted on his family, it's because he's cowardly or disloyal or otherwise inhuman. And then Larson goes on to tell this story that was relayed in the Radio Lab podcast episode on Blame about a man whose adopted daughter was raped and murdered. After the rapist and the murderer was incarcerated, the father of this girl developed a friendship with the man in prison. And they wrote they were pen pals for years. And he sort of learned about the horrible upbringing that the criminal had, and he ends up forgiving him. And Larson says, essentially our position seems to be that this person is less of a man. He's less right. He is showing weakness by showing forgiveness. But Larson, he wants to hear our thoughts on this example. And forgiveness, he says, is Black. The last name of the father is Black's example of forgiveness. Kind of like Singer's Utilitarianism, that you can accept its force, but at the same time dismiss its applicability to your own life because it's simply too much to strive for? Or do you guys think that Black's response is less right than seeking vengeance? And then he says that Black's response to him elicits moral fortitude and courage. So I think it's fair, I think, that we maybe are correcting for the view that it's obviously wrong to seek revenge. We probably come from a background in a tradition and we're surrounded by people who think of revenge as actually quite morally wrong.

I think that's absolutely that's one part of it is that our environment, when we're not talking to each other,