Teaching Virtue in Part by Acting Like a Virtuous Person

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You can teach virtue in part by just acting like a virtuous person. Even if you don't really feel it, I'm just going to start tipping every time I go out 20% instead of 10%. And then in a couple months, maybe I actually feel guilty if I don't tip 20% because my new virtue standards have been risen. That's exactly right. Near the end of the next, to the last chapter of the quest for character, it goes into what works and what doesn't work to improve our own car or virtue.

In this episode Michael Shermer speaks with the stoic philosopher and evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci on how to apply the ancient wisdom of stoicism to our personal lives and to our society.

Shermer and Pigluicci discuss: his journey from Rome to New York • evolutionary biology • stoic philosophy • can there be a science of meaning and morality? • ultimate questions • desire, action, depression, suicide, anger, anxiety, love, and friendship • practical spiritual exercises • how to react to situations • teaching virtue to politicians • philosophy and politics • character and leadership • the nature of evil.

Massimo Pigliucci is the K. D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. The author or editor of sixteen books, he has been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Salon, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. His books include: Making Sense of Evolution; Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk; Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem; Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life; A Field Guide to a Happy Life; A Handbook for New Stoics; How to Be a Stoic; The Quest for Character.