The Relevance of Philosophy

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The idea that thinking about how to live should make your life better is a very attractive plausible one. But the line between moral philosophy ethics and what would nowadays be thought of as self-help, pretty blurry. In Midlife, you remind us all of three questions that Kant asked: What can I know? What should I do? And what may I hope?

Sam Harris speaks to Kieran Setiya about the relevance of philosophy to living a good life. They discuss the existence of objective moral truths, being happy vs living well, our response to grief, the difference between "telic" and "atelic" activities, the power of reframing, FOMO, bias toward the future, regret, the asymmetry between pain and pleasure, and other topics.

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