VIDEO 1: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_and_rebecca_newberger_goldstein_the_long_reach_of_reason
This video features the prominent psychologist Steven Pinker and his philosopher wife Rebecca Goldstein. You may need to read the transcript or watch it more than once, but the big picture is quite simple. It turns out our modern day human society is vastly less violent than it used to befor example, we used to routinely use torture and engage in total warfare. (Even hunter-gatherer societies were incredibly violent compared to todays standards. The chance of dying a violent death was much higher then than now.) The question is: what has changed? Why are we far less violent than we used to be? The argument given in the video is that moral philosophynamely ethicshas played a large role.
Note: Many find it very hard to believe that we are far less violent than we used to be. This is because as long as there is any violence left in the world, it will be reported on. And so people have the false impression that we havent changed. But compare the civil warin which 620,000 Americans diedto, for example, the recent assault on the capital, which led to the death of 5 people. Obviously, its incredibly bad any time anyone dies from violence, but, statistically its a marked drop.
In this course, many videos will be taken from the widely acclaimed Justice series by Harvard professor Michael Sandel. His course is very engaging, professionally produced, and was turned into a PBS series special.
VIDEO 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MUgyqd6-MA&t=1s&ab_channel=CriticalThinks-BACKSTAGE
VIDEO 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNCkBnD7bnw&ab_channel=CriticalThinks-BACKSTAGE
I suggest that each page be a summary for each video, not to include the cover page and the refernces.
