Episode 108: Mariam Thalos discusses freedom
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What is the central question about freedom that frames the episode?
Hey, Matt Techman here from Elucidations. Before we get going, I just thought I'd put in a quick plug for Pippa. We've been doing our hosting with them since two thousand sixteen. It's been a fantastic experience. So if you have a podcast You might check 'em out. They have great analytics, the service is free, and they make it easy to migrate. So if you're curious, visit their website at PIPPA dot IO. All right, thanks.
Hello and welcome to Elucidations, a philosophy podcast recorded at the University of Chicago. With us today is Miriam Thalos, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah, and she is here to discuss freedom. Mariam Thellos, welcome.
It's wonderful to be here.
So freedom is a nice big juicy philosophical topic, but like many big juicy philosophical topics Probably different people who write about it mean slightly different things by freedom. So I thought maybe we could just begin by figuring out what exactly are we interested in in this discussion? What are we taking to be the phenomenon of freedom? Before we then go on to say something about what we think freedom is.
Well, what do we care about when we talk about freedom, when we use the l language of freedom? Most people think well, most philosophers think that what we care about is a feature of Either how a person lay Deliberates about their life. Or about the character of the actions that they perform when they are Living a life. Some actions are free, but Supposedly. And other actions are not free. And the free ones are Perhaps if we're lucky, they possess features that
How do we define “freedom” and what phenomena does it refer to?
are manifested in the deliberation process that leads up to the action. Or at least leads up to the first launching of the action. we're not likely to find something that characterizes all unfree actions. So what we're after is a characterization of what Characterizes the process that leads up to the A free action.
Okay, great. So yeah, I think we all have some kind of intuition that there's a difference between things we do freely and things we don't do freely. So if I quit my job because I don't like it Then I do that freely. But if I quit my job because somebody blackmailed me with scandalous photos, then I didn't do it freely. Right. What do you think is the most important defining feature of freedom?
People disagree about the to of uh the reasons we should care about freedom or at least the issues that are important to keep in one's mind when one is trying to articulate an account of freedom. Even people who are very close in philosophical orientation can differ very widely about what they think is important to care about. in our account of freedom. So for example, the difference between Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, both of whom stand in the existential tradition or pioneers of the existential tradition. Sartre seemed to think that that we all have the same share of freedom, as it were, the same kind of sovereignty over our lives. all of us have the same not only kind but quantity of sovereignty over our lives.
Whereas Beauvoir saw various differences among groups of people in respect to degrees of sovereignty over their lives. She in particular was sensitive to the ways that women were uh other groups as well, women, black people uh Jews. And actually later on in his career Sartre appreciated this difference, but it took him some time. uh to appreciate the differences between groups with regard to how they can govern their lives.
Yeah, it's interesting, right? So on the one hand you might think that if you're in jail, you have less freedom than somebody who's not in jail. on the one hand. On the other hand, you might think that no, like every person has this just radically infinite degree of freedom so that no matter what situation they're in, they're free to interpret it however they like and No matter how bleak their situation is, there's always a new sort of spin they can give on it. Uh so there's no way to really take away from a person's freedom.
Right. Yeah, and and this characterizes an important feature of freedom really, the whether you think of it as all or nothing.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central question about freedom that frames the episode?
0:00–2:07
2
How do we define “freedom” and what phenomena does it refer to?
2:07–6:30
3
Why does the guest argue that self‑conception is essential for acting freely?
6:30–11:56
4
How can shaping our self‑concept (e.g., “civic‑minded”) influence future behavior?
11:56–17:45
5
What does the research on stereotype threat and self‑concept tell us about freedom?
17:45–23:56
6
How might policy and choice‑architecture manipulate self‑concepts for better or worse?
23:56–30:43
7
What is the guest’s broader philosophical view of freedom as the ability to craft one’s self‑concept?
30:43–34:54
8
How does this conception of freedom differ from the popular “no‑boss” notion and what are its practical implications?
34:54–35:52
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Elucidations
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