Richard Kraut / Tanner Lecture One - The Richness of Human Experience
The Tanner Lectures consist of two lectures, each followed by a distinct discussion seminar.
This year's Tanner Lectures are given by Richard Kraut, Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University.
Series Abstract: To show that virtue is a component of well-being, Plato and Aristotle looked to the inner life of a good human being. Kraut argues that this is only correct path to this conclusion, committing him to what might be called “experientialism,” and so he offers a defense of that doctrine, as well as a series of observations regarding the inner life of a good person. This leads to a discussion of Nozick’s experience machine, often regarded as a refutation of experientialism. Another thought experiment plays a role in his argument: McTaggart’s claim that the life of an oyster (containing nothing but the mildest and simplest kind of pleasure) would be better than any human life, however rich – provided the oyster’s life was sufficiently longer than the human life.
Lecture One: The Richness of Human Experience
Wednesday, April 19 5:30-7pm
This lecture introduces the historical problem of the connection, if any, between well-being and virtue. It then turns to an extended discussion of McTaggart’s puzzle and various solutions to it. A major topic is the contribution made by pleasure to the value of an experience. Nozick’s puzzle is introduced but postponed. Other topics will include:
- Plato: the effect of justice on the soul.
- Aristotle: virtue, sleep, activity.
- Nagel: “what is it like”: phenomenology.
- A weakness in Aristotle’s function argument.
- Aristotle’s rational egoism (eudaimonism) rejected.
- Diminishing marginal value as a response to McTaggart
- Incommensurable superiority and the richness of human life
- Mill’s distinction between the quality and quantity of pleasure
- Aristotle on the pleasures of childhood
- Do plants lack moral standing because they lack consciousness?