The Role of Moral Philosophy

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Bhut: People often grapple with what the role of moral philosophy is. They think that we don't have free will, but there are two points of view from which it might matter. My moral reactions to other people depend on not just what they're doing, but why they're doing it. If a person only gives me correct change because he's afraid of the police or something, then i don't like my relations with him. He's got a bad attitude toward me. And i judge him negatively. That he has that attitude and it's expressed in his actions is a fact. Whatever the cause of it might be,. It might be determined by the big bang, right?

T. M. Scanlon, one of the world's preeminent moral philosophers, was Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University until his retirement. In his seminal work, What We Owe to Each Other, Scanlon gives a liberal account of how to reason through what it takes to act justly in matters of morality as well as politics.

In this week’s conversation, T. M. Scanlon and Yascha Mounk discuss the true meaning of tolerance, how to decide whether an action is morally right or wrong, and why the question of free will isn’t as important as you might think.

This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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