Political, Personal, & Pastoral | What to Do With Moral Truth?

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In this postscript to his anthropology and ethics series, Dr. Jacobs examines why people experience discomfort when confronted with moral assessments that challenge their preferred behaviors or beliefs. He draws parallels between objective aesthetics and ethics, arguing that humans possess default intuitions about justice and fairness that create psychological tension when their actions conflict with moral reality. Dr. Jacobs discusses the problems of confirmation bias and social pressure in ethical reasoning, advocating for beginning moral inquiry with foundational metaphysical questions rather than applied ethics. The episode concludes with practical considerations for personal ethical development, distinguishing between philosophical assessment, political implications, and pastoral guidance in the gradual cultivation of virtue.

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00:00:00 Intro 

00:01:24 Objective aesthetics 

00:05:25 The human yearn for justice 

00:15:39 Resisting confirmation bias 

00:23:26 Analyzing at level 4 

00:26:59 The cognitive minority 

00:36:52 Deciding how to live

00:40:19 Politics and morality 

00:43:06 Forming in virtue