Owen Flanagan, “The Geography of Morals: Varieties of Moral Possibility” (Oxford UP, 2017)
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Hello, and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor of the University of Iowa, and I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talese of Vanderbilt University. Today's interview is with Owen Flanagan, James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. His new book, The Geography of Morals, Varieties of Moral Possibility, is just out from Oxford University Press. What is it to be moral, to lead an ethically good life? From a naturalistic perspective, any answer to this question begins from an understanding of what humans are like that is deeply informed by psychology, anthropology, and other human-directed perspectives as these are constrained by evolution.
In The Geography of Morals, Flanagan sets out to clarify the landscape of moral possibility for actual human beings. He defends a perspective on human morality that he describes as an autology based in naturalism gleaned from comparing Western, Chinese, and Indian moral traditions, as well as his investigations into psychology, anthropology, and other cultural studies. Flanagan considers how diverse moral traditions converge on some features basic to moral psychology, such as compassion, and yet they differ in other ways, such as whether anger is a justified and beneficial moral emotion, or whether it should be extirpated. He also examines different views of the self, including the Buddhist tradition in which there is no self.
The book is full of insights from the traditions that Flanagan has investigated for decades, so there's a lot to talk about. Let's turn to the interview. Hello, Owen. Welcome to New Books and Philosophy. Oh,
thank you, Carrie. Nice to be here.
So to start off the interview, it's always a good idea to provide listeners with some idea of the background of the book, which can include a number of different things. But I think in this case, because you described the book as a sequel to to your previous book, Varieties of Moral Personality, maybe you could give us an idea of the genesis of this book by referring to the book that it is a sequel of and your longstanding interest in these areas as evidenced by these two books.
Great. Well, thank you. Right. So in the early 90s, well, actually going back to the beginning of my career, as you know, I've always been interested in philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology. from the point of view of different views about human nature. At the beginning of my career, I was interested pretty much in the kind of straight arrow philosophy of mind issues in terms of the mind-body problem, free will, And so on. But thanks to serendipity of being around a really interesting group of young philosophers in Boston back in the 80s, I got involved in a moral psychology group.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–10:57
2
What is the premise of Owen Flanagan’s “Geography of Morals” and why does it matter?
10:57–25:47
3
How did Flanagan’s early work on moral personality lead to his new cross‑cultural project?
25:47–43:00
4
Why does Flanagan argue that traditional moral psychology is too parochial?
43:00–1:04:43
5
What does the book say about the moral emotion of anger across different traditions?
1:04:43–1:05:37
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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