• Kant on Respect for the (Moral) Law
    Aug 20 2025

    Today’s excerpt comes from Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant distinguishes acting from duty (from respect for the moral law) from acting merely in accordance with duty out of inclination or in pursuit of specific outcomes.

    Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com, or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15.

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    16 mins
  • Stocker on Ethical Schizophrenia
    Aug 13 2025

    Today's excerpt comes from a paper titled ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’ by Michael Stocker.

    One quick correction: though Socrates famously denies one can do what he knows to be worse, many philosophers think otherwise!

    Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com, or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15.

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    15 mins
  • Cora Diamond on the Ethics of Vegetarianism
    Aug 8 2025

    Today's excerpt comes from a paper in which Cora Diamond explores an argument often heard in conversations about vegetarianism: the charge of speciesism. She pushes back on its success as an argument and offers an alternative.

    Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com, or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15.

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    17 mins
  • Williams on One Thought Too Many
    Aug 6 2025

    Today's excerpt is a follow up from Williams’ Persons, Character, and Morality. Here, he discusses how moral thinking – thinking about moral theories and ideas – is supposed to figure into our decision making.

    Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com, or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15

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    20 mins
  • Williams on Categorical Desires
    Aug 2 2025

    Today's excerpt comes from Bernard Williams' paper, Persons, Character, and Morality. Williams discusses why, if at all, we ought to fear death and what this means for our conception of ourselves.

    Join the conversation and share your insights at community.alifeofthought.com, or explore the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15.


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    15 mins
  • Wittgenstein on Experience and Forms of Life
    Aug 1 2025

    Today's excerpt comes from the very beginning of Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology -- A Fragment. Wittgenstein explores the complexities in our application of terms like 'hope' or 'grief' -- and what they require from us in terms of our form of life.

    Join the conversation and share your reflections at community.alifeofthought.com, or dive deeper into the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15.

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    15 mins
  • Strawson on Resentment
    Jul 30 2025

    Today's excerpt comes from an essay called Freedom and Resentment. Philosopher P.F. Strawson explores a chestnut of a philosophical question – the debate over free will. But he comes at it from a different and unique angle, asking what our emotions like resentment, anger, or love, can tell us.

    Join the conversation and share your thoughts at community.alifeofthought.com, or explore the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15.

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    17 mins
  • Williams on Self-Indulgence
    Jul 26 2025

    Today's excerpt comes from a paper by Bernard Williams, in which he explores the charge that we sometime levy upon people who refuse to do something because they find it “morally distasteful." Are such people self-indulgent.

    Join the discussion at community.alifeofthought.com, or read the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15.

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    16 mins