The Examined Year: 2022

Ray Briggs
Welcome to Philosophy Talk the program that questions everything…

Josh Landy
…except your intelligence. I’m Josh Landy.

Ray Briggs
And I’m Ray Briggs. We’re coming to you via the studios of KALW San Francisco Bay Area.

Josh Landy
Continuing conversations that begin at Philosophers Corner on the Stanford campus, where Ray teaches philosophy, and I direct the Philosophy and Literature initiative.

Ray Briggs
Today, it’s The Examined Year: 2022—our annual look back at the significant events that shaped the last 12 months

Josh Landy
Because the unexamined year is not worth reviewing!

Ray Briggs
So Josh—no insurrections at the capitol this year!

Josh Landy
No, but another institution in Washington DC has been the site of controversy. It’s the US Supreme Court—there’s been a string of rulings that have got many people questioning the role and legitimacy of the nation’s highest court.

Ray Briggs
Later in the program we’ll ask Stanford Law Professor Bernadette Meyler about the Year in Supreme Court Controversy. But of course, Supreme Court decisions weren’t the only thing to make our jaws drop this year. I mean, you’ve seen some of those images coming from NASA’s James Webb telescope.

Josh Landy
Oh Lord yes, those are so fantastic. And that’s why we’ll also be talking to Nick Riggle from the University of San Diego about The Year in Deep Space Photography. We’ll ask Nick how images like these may change the way we think about the universe.

Ray Briggs
This year has also changed the way we think about war, thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many of us found ourselves asking questions about the first all-out armed conflict between two European nations since World War Two.

Josh Landy
In a moment we’ll talk to Tamsin Shaw from New York University. Tamsin writes extensively about disinformation and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. We’ll talk to her about the Year in Developed Nations at War.

Ray Briggs
But first, we’ll hear some of the sounds from the conflict in Ukraine.

Unknown Speaker
Madame Speaker, the President of Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Dear Americans: I thank you for your efforts in helping Ukraine to defend our freedom.

Unknown Speaker
Now, we go live to Russia.

Vladimir Putin
Specifically, I would like to start by saying that the modern Ukraine has completely was completely created by Russia. Ukraine is not just a neighbor—neighboring country to us. It is an inherent part of our own history, culture, spiritual space.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Russia could stop its aggression, if it wanted to. Russians are still poisoned by the Kremlin.

Unknown Speaker
Do Ukrainians know about these choices? Do they understand that their country has become not even a protectorate—now it’s a colony with puppets at its helm.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Against all odds and doom and gloom scenarios, Ukraine didn’t fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking.

Ray Briggs
Now, Josh and I may not be able to offer much in the way of battlefield strategy or negotiation tactics. But philosophers have come up with some tools for thinking about the ethics of war—like Just War Theory.

Josh Landy
Tamsin Shaw is professor of European and Mediterranean studies and philosophy at NYU. We asked her what Just War Theory could tell us about what’s happened this year in Ukraine.

Tamsin Shaw
I think Just War Theory tells us pretty unambiguously that Russia is waging an unjust war in an unjust way. Because Ukraine was no threat to them at all. They invaded isn’t that purely of aggression to take over Ukraine sovereign territory, and the way that they’re behaving in the war has also really been a breach of ethics in terms of just war theory. It hasn’t been in any way, proportionate or humane, they’ve acted with extreme brutality and also expressed some genocidal intent from the Kremlin. Whereas on Ukraine side, they were just invaded and they’re fighting an entirely just war against the Russians to defend themselves. And they’ve done it in ways that are proportional, they seem to have been treating their prisoners properly in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Yeah, they’re fighting a just war against an extremely unjust aggressor.

Josh Landy
So that’s very helpful and seems like a very clear way of applying just war theory, both to Ukraine and to Russia. But what about its application to other actors? So there are plenty of allies who are supplying arms to Ukraine does just what is just what do you have to say about those allies? Because presumably those allies aren’t defending their own citizens, are they justified in in aiding Ukraine in this conflict?

Tamsin Shaw
It’s a trickier question to think about what the allies are justified in doing on each side, because of course, Russia now has a pretty strong alliance with Iran. And I would say that the NATO allies of Ukraine, by arming Ukraine, insofar as they are fighting a just war, and following the rules of just war, it seems reasonable to help to arm them. And to do that, you might think that we have an obligation to do that, because they are simply the victims of unjust aggression. And there’s potentially a disastrous humanitarian situation there. So people might think that that is debatable. The trickier area is where you would get into an escalation that involves open conflict between Russia and the NATO powers, that’s more difficult, there were debates early on about the no fly zone, and whether it would involve having to shoot down Russian planes, which would completely change the status of the war. I think from the point of view of Iran, and being an ally of Russia, they’re an ally of a power that is waging an unjust war. So they’re not themselves justified.

Josh Landy
So what about this other theory, the so called Golden Arches Theory was proposed by Thomas Friedman in 1996. And the idea was no two countries that have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other. And I think the thought was supposed to be, we shouldn’t really expect that to happen. Because, you know, capitalist consumer, countries have a vested interest in a certain degree of stability. And so they’re unlikely to go to war with each other. Now, that now looks like it didn’t really hold up. And I’m sort of wondering why did we ever believe that? I mean, did. Did we assume human beings are rational agents, which is always a bad bet? Or, or did we fail to imagine a different kind of rationality that might lie behind the actions of a Putin like what what went wrong with our thinking?

Tamsin Shaw
I think part of the problem was that people used to think that free market economies naturally tended to be liberalizing, so that they would create liberal democracies. And that just hasn’t turned out to be the case. In fact, we’re now seeing some liberal democracies going in the other direction towards authoritarianism. And we’re also seeing the creation within liberal democracies of enormous monopolies because people can see that it’s in their interests, to create those huge monopolies rather than to defend competition, as Peter, Peter Thiel has said, competition is for losers. So at that level, I think we had unrealistic expectations. But also, yes, someone who, like Putin, I think we weren’t expecting a modern leader, to be prepared to put his own people through so much. So we thought of states acting rationally, in terms of the interests of their own people, whereas Putin isn’t behaving rationally in that sense.

Ray Briggs
I agree with you that just because like Putin hit has invaded Ukraine, doesn’t mean that it was a good thing to do. And that’s just a mistake. But I think there’s this like, big question about, like, what does any of the rest of us do about it? So on the one hand, you don’t want to have somebody who can just bullying li walk into a country and take their stuff and have no repercussions. On the other hand, he’s very powerful and has nukes. That’s terrifying. Like, how should the rest of the international community respond to this situation?

Tamsin Shaw
Well, I think we have an obligation to help Ukraine insofar as we can, I mean, a moral obligation, because they are being threatened with pretty much genocidal war from Russia. But of course, we also have a moral obligation not to escalate this to the point that there is nuclear war, either a regional nuclear war or obviously a more global nuclear war. So it has to be weighed very carefully, and we have to proceed very cautiously. But I don’t think we can just leave the Ukrainians to accept this or tell them that we’re rate of escalation. So you just have to let Russia do what they want.

Josh Landy
Something that’s been a little surprising to me has been to see some commentators in the West argue that the Russian invasion of Ukraine wasn’t totally unjustified. And that’s something that’s, I found a little bit shocking. People point to, for example, the expansion of NATO as either a factor or even perhaps a justification for Putin invading Ukraine. So what’s going on with that?

Tamsin Shaw
Right, I found that shocking as well, although it is Kremlin talking point number one, so it wouldn’t be shocking from their point of view. But there are people that subscribe to a view called political realism or Neo realism. Who would think that there is a way of explaining international affairs, which is not a normative view, it doesn’t involve just war theory. But it just says that you have to have a balance of powers in order to have peace. So if a country feels threatened, you expect them to act aggressively. And that means peace breaks down. And so some of those people think that the expansion of NATO was a threat to Russia. John Mearsheimer is one person who’s expressed this view, but so of many others, and that we should therefore have expected Putin to defend himself by say, annexing more territory, or, you know, a number of other things that he could do to neutralize the threat, when in fact, Ukraine was no threat to him. And NATO was just a defensive organization. It’s not an offensive organization, where if one of the powers goes to war than the others will follow. It’s just to prevent attacks, originally, specifically by powers like Russia, and Russia has armed itself to the hilt with tactical nuclear weapons over the last decade. So to say that Russia is no threat to its neighbors would also be a little naive.

Ray Briggs
So one of the like, few positive things that I’ve seen come out of this situation is some of the displays of solidarity between Ukrainians, and at least some Russians. So the Ukrainians have this amnesty program where Russian soldiers can surrender. And then there’ll be sort of treated well, and hopefully repatriated, like, I think they’re like, there’s some difficulty implementing this in a warzone. But just the idea that you have the citizens of these two countries cooperating, even though one of their governments is trying to, like, obscure from them the nature of what they’re doing, is kind of encouraging. Do you think that there’s any sort of positive lesson to be drawn from that?

Tamsin Shaw
Right, as I said before, I don’t think these are populations that wanted to go to war with each other. And the Ukrainian leadership didn’t want to go to war. It’s really just the Kremlin. And I think dragging your own people into a war that they don’t really want, even if they’re prepared to go along with it, to some degree, is a moral harm to those people. And it’s very good to see that some of them are responding by just trying to maintain an alliance with the Ukrainians, and that this is a reciprocal relationship on the ground where people just want to help one another.

Josh Landy
And what do you think the long term consequences of this conflict are likely to be? Do you do you think that perhaps it could shore up international alliances and an ultimately lead to a greater degree of peace? Or, on the contrary, do you think that it’s there’s going to be sort of copycat invasion so we might see more conflicts between OECD nations?

Tamsin Shaw
Well, of course, that’s the big question of whether China is going to take Taiwan and obviously, they’re looking very closely at how the West responds to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. And of course, what Putin has done is introduced this idea of a nuclear attack. And for the first time in a very long time, people are worried about nuclear war. And of course, you know, we have a number of nuclear powers China included, and nobody wants to see nuclear escalation. I personally think it’s unlikely and Putin has walked back his language about a first strike, although he constantly wants to keep us on our toes with that because the way nuke Where threats and nuclear deterrence work is by making people believe that you’re prepared to do that. So I think it has altered that balance. I think in terms of nuclear deterrence. There’s definitely been a shift in global power relations that might be important in the future.

Ray Briggs
Well, here’s hoping things turn out for the best. Thank you so much for joining us, Tamsin.

Tamsin Shaw
Thank you for having me. It’s been great talking to you guys. And let’s hope next year brings better news.

Ray Briggs
Tamsin Shaw from New York University on the Year in Developed Nations at War. You’re listening to Philosophy Talk, and we’re taking a philosophical look back at events and ideas that shaped the last 12 months. It’s The Examined Year: 2022.

Josh Landy
Coming up: when the US Supreme Court breaks with long standing precedent, how should we think about the legitimacy of its decisions? And should new pictures of the starry heavens above us fill us with awe and maybe a sense of humility?

Ray Briggs
Courting controversy and contemplating the cosmos—when Philosophy Talk continues.

Welcome back to Philosophy Talk. It’s The Examined Year” 2022. I’m Ray Briggs.

Josh Landy
And I’m Josh Landy, we’re taking a philosophical look back at some of the big ideas and events of the past 12 months—because the unexamined year is not worth reviewing

Ray Briggs
For the US Supreme Court, this was a year of controversial and unprecedented rulings.

Journo 1
We’re coming on the air for what will be a history making day at the US Supreme Court.

Journo 2
After that blockbuster session of rulings on abortion and gun rights.

Unknown Speaker
The court now handing down consequential decisions on immigration

Journo 3
The EPA’s power

Journo 4
Crimes against Native American victims

Journo 5
Prayers on the 50 yard line

Journo 3
Gay rights and free speech.

Kentaji Brown Jackson
I have a seat at the table now.

Journo 3
Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson making history and bringing change to the Supreme Court at a divisive time.

Unknown Speaker
There are six relatively young Supreme Court justices who feel incredibly emboldened to move American law to the right

Journo 6
Supreme Court justices met for the first time since the leak of a draft opinion that could overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Samuel Alito
The leak made those of us who were thought to be in the majority targets for assassination, because it gave people a rational reason to think they could prevent that from happening.

Journo 7
What should we make of the fact that the Supreme Court just—that a Supreme Court justice is having dinner with donors that could influence major decisions in front of him?

Elana Kagan
The thing about judicial decision making is that you can throw the bums out. I and my colleagues, the way we behave, is what fosters public confidence or what doesn’t.

Ray Briggs
But beyond the apparent breaks with precedent, what else can be said about the process that yielded these rulings

Josh Landy
Bernadette Meyler is professor of law at Stanford University and author of “Theaters of “Pardoning. We asked her how the Supreme Court’s decision making process has changed in recent years.

Bernadette Meyler
I would say that certain things have changed in the way that decisions are reached by the current super majority on the court, there is a move towards an even more restrictive form of originalism than had previously been practiced. And also maybe a move even away from originalism towards a values based decision making process. There’s also another change in the process, which is that there has been a great growth in decisions that are not decisions with full argument and opinions rather decisions on the so called Shadow docket, which is not part of the main process of the court. So there have been more efforts by the court to kind of reach out and decide cases, outside of the regular argument calendar.

Ray Briggs
I’m a little worried about some of these developments, particularly the shadow docket thing and the values based decision making. So one view of legitimate governance that a lot of philosophers like to advocate is this idea that you should have a public reason for any decision that you’re making, that affects the public, you should be able to justify it to everybody based on shared reasons. So having like an unshared set of values that you’re using, or having no reason seems like it’s kind of worrying from a public reasons standpoint.

Bernadette Meyler
Yes, I think that this question of legitimacy is really at the core of what’s happening today. So one way of thinking about it is in terms of public reasons, and certainly the shadow docket isn’t unprecedented, right? There’s always been cases where there’s a last minute To appeal from a death penalty case, and then there’s an unsigned opinion or else a just a summary judgment about denying the last minute appeal. And also in the lower courts, there has been a practice of having what are called unpublished opinions, which can’t be cited for precedential value. But there have been continuous critiques of those practices, precisely on the grounds that the court isn’t using reasons that it’s accepting could be used in further cases. I mean, I think maybe the most prominent example of this might be the case of Bush v. Gore, where the Supreme Court made a decision for the individual case, but said that that decision wouldn’t be precedential. So I think that part of this idea of using reasons and having a public justification within the judiciary has to do also with the concept of precedent and whether a decision can be relied on going forward as part of a set of reasons for upholding or striking down a particular law.

Josh Landy
Yeah, I mean, I share this worry about legitimacy. I think there’s a common, a misapprehension, that the worry about legitimacy just comes from people who are unhappy with the decision and split. I think it’s, as you say, it’s more about the way in which those decisions are articulated, it seems, at least to my untrained eye, as though there’s a certain kind of inconsistency between various rulings so that, you know, the case of Dobbs, there was an appeal to states rights, whereas in the case of Bruin, which said New York state can’t regulate certain kinds of guns, it seems like we don’t like state’s rights so much. There’s the issue of recusal. A lot of people are worried that Clarence Thomas didn’t recuse himself from cases concerning the January 6 insurrection. There’s the fact that he kind of barrel was appointed very, about a week before an election, whereas Merrick Garland was denied a hearing to 93 days before an election. This justice is making speeches before partisan fora. Do all of these things add up, in your opinion to a legitimacy crisis? And if so, what’s the real danger here? If a majority of Americans no longer see the Supreme Court as being legitimate?

Bernadette Meyler
I do absolutely think that we have a legitimacy crisis. And I don’t think it’s entirely a bad thing. So there’s a question about the legitimacy of individual justices. Right. So there were a lot of outcry against confirming justice Cavanaugh after the revelations in his confirmation hearing process. There were a lot of outcry against justice Barrett, because she was appointed at a time towards the very end of President Trump’s presidency and appear to be rushed through in the wake of Justice Ginsburg passing. So there are issues with the legitimacy of the members of the court. Then, as Ray pointed out, there’s their issues of legitimacy with the modes of reasoning, right. So are we endorsing shared reasons that the court is giving? Or is there some other form of reasoning now? I think the court makes an effort to look to original meaning as a way of legitimizing its own reasoning, right, saying, well, it’s not us. It’s actually the founders and the origins of our constitutional system. That leads us to this result. Now, I would just want to point out that heart of the legitimacy crisis, I think, is a good thing, because we have this very interesting Supreme Court commission report that was commissioned by President Biden, where he asked a number of scholars and lawyers to come together and report on potential ways of rethinking the Supreme Court. And they lay out a menu of options without endorsing any but I think that every American should go and read that Biden Supreme Court commission report and think about whether there are ways of reforming the Supreme Court in the wake of what’s been happening that would make it more accountable to everyday Americans.

Ray Briggs
So you said that the Supreme Court has been both more originalist and not originalist. And I wanted you to unpack what you meant there.

Bernadette Meyler
Absolutely. So the currently dominant form of originalism is what has been called original public meaning originalism. So the idea there is that we have to look at what the original understanding of the Constitution would have been by those who ratified it. And so implicit in that is a kind of democratic legitimation story, right that the Constitution was ratified at the time of the founding, and that it has kind of governed us in a kind of social contract terian way ever since then, of course, there is a lot of debate about, you know, how certain does the original meaning have to be in order for the court to go back to that original meaning? At the same time, I think that the decisions in the spring really moved To weigh from originalism in particular ways. So one aspect is that they were especially Bruin and Dobbs were looking at the original meaning of the 14th amendment. So they were examining, not founding era history, but rather 19th century history. But also jobs in particular wasn’t really an originalist decision. It relies on a reasoning from an opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist a few decades ago, Washington against glucksberg, that basically looked at how long standing and how widely accepted a Liberty interest had been, in order to determine whether it was protected by the constitution. So that kind of inquiry is not saying, Well, did the founders think this would be protected or not? But instead of saying, like, is this a long standing Liberty interest that should be protected under our constitution? So in that inquiry is very malleable, it’s susceptible to a lot of different ways of interpreting it. So you could say, well, if you frame the abortion question differently, is it a question of, you know, control over one’s body and the ability for others not to interfere with control over one’s body right in that case, or the ability to seek medical treatment, we would see a long standing protected interest. But the way that Justice Alito framed it was very narrowly in terms of was there an right to procure an abortion in the 19th century? And in order to answer that question, he looked at state statutes from the 19th century, which were all passed without the participation of women. So that again, kind of comes back to a legitimacy question. If you’re looking at sources that themselves excluded huge constituents within the contemporary population, how much can we be bound as a society by those sources today?

Ray Briggs
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. It’s The Examined Year” 2022. And we’re thinking about the Year in Supreme Court Controversy with Bernadette Meyler from the Stanford Law School.

Josh Landy
This is a question philosophers been thinking about for a long time: what—why does legitimacy matter? Why does it matter that that there’s a, at least a plurality of folks within a nation that believe in their institutions and believe that people were justly elected or justly appointed to make certain important decisions, and worry that if there isn’t enough trust in institutions and in leaders, then things can start to fall apart? What’s the argument against that?

Bernadette Meyler
Absolutely. I mean, I in general, I believe in legitimacy, what I think is that the Supreme Court has acquired a kind of super legitimacy that has tamped down the processes of the rest of government. So basically, I think someone like Jeremy Waldron, who critiques judicial review and critiques written constitutionalism has at least a little bit right. You know, he’s often right about many things, but in his position on this point is very controversial. But I think he’s right that in some ways, allowing the Supreme Court to be and the courts in general to be the main institutions in which we debate our rights is a mistake. I think that a more robust legislative discussion of rights and legislative treatment of rights is salutary. And we’ve ceded too much power to the Supreme Court. And just let me give an example of that, right. So under the Reconstruction amendments, the 13th 14th, and 15th amendments, all of those say Congress shall have the power to enforce this amendment. So that means that equal protection, due process of law, all of these things Congress is supposed to have the power to enforce. Now, in a decision, not that many years ago, the Supreme Court held in the case of city of Bernie against Flores, that Congress couldn’t over enforce these provisions. Right. So it couldn’t exceed the kinds of protections that the court itself thought were necessary when deciding how to protect due process or protect citizenship or protect individuals equality. So I think that’s a problem when the court basically says we’re going to not only protect rights, but we’re also going to define the extent to which rights can or cannot be protected, and which rights those are, then that takes a lot of that discussion out of the political process and leaves it up to another unelected body.

Ray Briggs
So actually, concerning like the courts versus the Supreme Court, I wanted to ask about how the supreme court treats the decisions of lower courts. And is that a good thing or a bad thing? Like is the Supreme Court concentrating more power from lower courts?

Bernadette Meyler
Yes and no. So the courts docket has been shrinking over the past decades. So it’s not considering as many cases on the merits, which means that there are a lot of issues that kind of are simply left to the lower courts. So this was what happened to a lot Have abortion cases prior to jobs that because the court was so divided and didn’t necessarily want to weigh in on the issue, it allowed a lot of lower court decisions to stand, which meant that there was a kind of disparity across the country, between different areas where the appellate courts would go in different directions on certain kinds of provisions or certain kinds of laws targeting abortion. So I think that, in that way, the court stayed out of weighing in on what was happening in the lower courts. Now, I think, partly because of the shadow docket and other techniques. Recently, the court has been reaching out more to overturn lower court decisions without argument or on a thinner basis than they would otherwise have. And so that’s not increasing the merits docket, but it is reaching out and intervening in lower court decisions where at the same time, I would say that lower courts have also started reaching out more broadly. And there’s the very kind of controversial issue of nationwide injunctions which we saw ramping up during the Trump administration and kind of continuing subsequently where a particular district court will enter an injunction against a government actor nationwide. And then that has to be potentially stayed by an appellate tribunal or and then go up to the Supreme Court. So this idea that, you know, one district judge can suddenly affect what’s happening with governmental policy across the country, is worrisome, as well. So I think it goes both ways that there are some changes on the side of the Supreme Court. But there are also some changes going on in lower courts.

Josh Landy
So Bernie, we have talked about what happened in 2022. Let’s take our courage in our hands and look forward, only in one sense. We’ve got a decision that’s going to be reached about independent state legislature theory. So what’s that about?

Bernadette Meyler
Yes, so I would also just flag that the case coming from Harvard involving affirmative action is going to be a major decision as well, this coming term, but the independent state legislatures case is bringing forward what had been an extremely fringe argument before quite recently, that there could be no state constitutional control over what states do what state legislatures do in terms of election procedures for federal elections, because the Constitution and the elections clause gives the state legislatures the power to determine the time place and manner of elections. And the argument is that that means that they have plenary power, disregarding any form of constrained by state constitutions, right. So if state constitutions say you have to do this in a non discriminatory way, the argument would be well, no, the state constitution has no control over at the State Judiciary has no control of it, only the state legislature gets to decide on state election. So this could be a major shift in how elections are conducted from the oral arguments. It didn’t sound as though Chief Justice Roberts or justice Kevin, or Barrett, we’re going to go along with the extreme form of the argument, which at least two of them would be necessary for that kind of rulings. But if something like the independent state legislature doctrine were adopted, that would be an extremely radical revision of how we hold elections in the United States.

Ray Briggs
Bernie, if you could give our listeners one piece of advice about something they can do to keep our political processes legitimate, and to participate in them meaningfully, what would you tell them?

Bernadette Meyler
I would tell them to go ahead and read the Biden Supreme Court Commission Report, and then to contact legislators in their area to advocate for one of the forms of court reform.

Josh Landy
That sounds like great reading for the new year. Thanks so much for joining us today, Bernie.

Bernadette Meyler
Thank you so much for having me.

Ray Briggs
Bernadette Meyler from the Stanford Law School on the Year and Supreme Court Controversy. You’re listening to Philosophy Talk—it’s The Examined Year” 2022.

Josh Landy
Coming up: Are the images from NASA’s Webb telescope inspiring and magical or do they just amplify our dread of the vast abyss of space?

Ray Briggs
It’s the Year in Deep Space Photography—plus commentary from Ian Shoales the Sixty-Second Philosopher, when Philosophy Talk continues.

Welcome back. I’m Ray Briggs and this is Philosophy Talk the program that questions everything…

Josh Landy
…except your intelligence. I’m Josh Landy. Today we’re taking a philosophical look at the past 12 months. It’s The Examined Year: 2022.

Ray Briggs
Talking about space photography, maybe a bit like dancing about architecture, but we just have to talk about those images from the James Webb telescope—they’re so sublime!

NASA
We are here to view the highest resolution image of the infrared universe anyone has ever seen, captured by the most powerful telescope anyone has ever made.

Joe Biden
Light where stars were born… light from other worlds… and from where they die… orbiting stars… light from over 13 billion years ago. It’s astounding to me when I read this, I saw the for I mean, it really is. Anyway, I don’t want to—I’ll see what they think.

Dr. Becky
Whoa—oh my gosh!

Bill Nelson
That light that you are seeing on one of those little specks has been traveling for over 13 billion years. And by the way, we’re going back further, because they’re going back about 13 and a half billion years. And since we know the universe is 13 point 8 billion years old. We’re going back almost to the beginning. We are going to be able to answer questions that we don’t even know what the questions are..

Ray Briggs
So how should we think about these new views of the cosmos? Is science reinventing our lives with beauty and wonder? Or is it eliminating mystery and making us feel insignificant?

Josh Landy
Nick Riggle is professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego, and author of the brand-new book, “This Beauty: A Philosophy of Being Alive.” We asked him what his favorite image is from the Webb telescope.

Nick Riggle
I love them all. They’re fascinating. But I think my favorite is the image of the really early galaxies, this sort of large wide shot of hundreds of, you know, baby galaxies, we’re looking at sort of the first clusters after the Big Bang, and from what I understand this telescope telescope can see even further back into time, and we’re sort of anticipating those images to to see some of the early formation of stars. So I’m just really excited to learn more about the birth of the universe.

Josh Landy
Yeah, I mean, so from a intellectual standpoint, scientific standpoint is totally fascinating. But, you know, you’re also an aesthetics person. What I mean, they’re also kind of beautiful. I mean, what is there something that philosophers and mystics can tell us about why these images move us so much?

Nick Riggle
Yeah, I think so. I mean, they are beautiful, I have to say, I mean, even if you don’t know what you’re looking at, I mean, you just see these shimmering objects, these beautiful spirals, these dusty pillars, and they’re all in these lovely colors, and with this stark background. And then of course, if you do know what you’re looking at, it’s even more deeply think it changes your reaction, but you might feel that there’s something sort of wonderful and terrifying about what you’re looking at.

Ray Briggs
So I want to quote Immanuel Kant, who said, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” So do you think that pictures of the starry heavens above us do fill us with awe and maybe humility?

Nick Riggle
Yeah, I mean, you know, he had no idea right, when what we were going to be looking at. And I wonder if I wonder if he would change his mind. I mean, he’s looking at the naked, you know, sky above him at night. And we’re looking at these images of the early universe. Those are, those are quite different. You know, we’re looking at sort of old light, as it were, and he was looking, I guess, I guess you’re also looking at old light when you’re looking up at the sky. But you’re seeing newer light than what we’re seeing through this through this telescope. I think the basis of the art is in both images, you know, what you see in the night sky and what you see here, which is that you’re looking at something that’s almost impossible to comprehend. I mean, it’s almost impossible to wrap your mind around the the sort of distance, the vastness, the length of time, and billions and billions and billions of years ago. And yet, you know, here you are, like contemplating these images, you know, in your own little body. There’s something wildly fascinating about that. I mean, we’re such finite, limited, delicate creatures, and yet, we’ve constructed this thing to go out into, into space and capture infrared light from many billions of years ago.

Ray Briggs
So Pascal actually had a different opinion about science. He wrote, “When I consider the short duration of my life swallowed up in an eternity before and after the little space I feel engulfed in the immensity of spaces for all I know nothing and which knew nothing of me. I am terrified.” He says the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. So do you think that there’s something terrifying about the web photos? Is there anything to what Pascal says here?

Nick Riggle
Yeah, I love this thought that no, the right reaction is this reminds you that you’re just this little tiny thing, you’re gonna die in no time compared to what you’re beholding in the starry skies. And I think that there’s also, you know, this other thought that Tom Nagel has, which is that, you know, you might think, well, if time is so vast, and the universe is so infinite, you know, life is just absurd, and nothing really matters, right? Life is over so short, in such a short period of time, and you take it so seriously, but really, I mean, I mean, you’re nothing in the vast stretch of space and time. And so, you know, if nothing matters, then the fact that nothing matters also doesn’t matter. So who cares? So it’s not a it’s not terror? It’s just like, who cares? Just go on, you know, you just have to live your life with this kind of dual perspective.

Josh Landy
I’m, that’s pretty good. And I it’s one of the best papers, I’ve read about the existentialist sense of meaninglessness, but it’s still I don’t know, can you? How easy is it to do that always? Is it to live with that double attitude that on the one hand, from a cosmic standpoint, nothing we do that really matters? That I mean, Nietzsche, you know, Nietzsche says in the methodology that that particular knowledge is one, we can’t really afford to look at too much. Yeah. So how can you have that and also keep going and, and, you know, go buy your groceries, and I teach your classes and all the things that you do.

Nick Riggle
I agree. I mean, it’s really hard, I think, for a normal person to sort of hold these two, radically different and, you know, mutually challenging perspectives in mind at once. You know, there’s this nice image that the philosopher Jay David velopment offers, which is, you know, it’s like you’re being knighted. And your pants fall down in the middle of the, in the middle of the ceremony. And you just have to kind of carry on like that. I mean, you know, you can’t really pull up your pants. You can’t take yourself entirely seriously. But you know, you’ve got to be knighted. You’re being knighted. You’re not going to stop the ceremony. So just kind of use Tom Nagel says, you know, you just got to be ready with the kind of smirk and a shoulder shrug. You know, it’s just how it is. I actually have a different response than the Nagel and what’s that? I think it’s interesting that all of these kinds of inspirational phrases that people use, I call them existential imperatives. Like you only live once. No, I mean, one of the things you might feel when you see this image is, is this sense that you know, what life is really short, you only live once, um, you know, find your, you know, to put on the Nietzschean guys, or the Nietzschean moustache. Find your tremendous moment, right? Life is short, embrace it as much as you can. And I feel like maybe there’s, you know, in addition to terror, and draw and irony, maybe we can respond with a sense of love of life.

Josh Landy
What about responses from other traditions? I’m thinking in particular, of Eastern philosophy, I mean, you might you could imagine an answer of the form. Look, you’re you’re really tiny. You know, try to overcome your sense of yourself as a separate being who’s so Vitalina vastly important, right? So overcome your attachment to your ego. And maybe we’ll a little less, do a little less, try a little less. What about that response to these really beautiful and overpowering images?

Nick Riggle
Well, I think that response is at least part of constant niggles and my response, I don’t mean to own maybe Draconis your little bit. I think that, that idea of kind of getting out of yourself a little bit, you know, that that’s part of all as part of the sublime. But I think there’s also something to be said for the response I’m taking ownership of, for the kind of aesthetic side of things, which is that when you do respond with the sense that life is fleeting, life is short, it’s precious, it’s worth embracing. I think that leads us into a sense of adventure, a sense of openness that is at least quasi aesthetic, if not quite deeply aesthetic.

Ray Briggs
So some thinkers have said that science kind of strips all the enchantment from life. Keats is famous for saying that “philosophy will clip an angel’s wings and unweave a rainbow.” But these Webb images—to me they feel inspiring and almost magical. So what do you think is science enchanting or disenchanting?

Nick Riggle
Alright, I’m almost as fascinated by these images as I am by the very existence of the Webb telescope, the construction of which was just completely unlikely and marvelous, not not mere construction, but you know, setting it out into space and getting it down to what is the temperature 380 to negative 380 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s just unbelievable what they achieved in making this thing. So yeah, I’m enchanted by science. Personally, I just find it. I don’t tend to have that sort of terrified response.

Josh Landy
So if we had to put it all together: smile while you’re being knighted and your pants come down, live aesthetically and with YOLO, with great pride, and I guess appreciate the beauty of the universe.

Nick Riggle
Yeah, I’m with you. That sounds great. Nice way to end the year.

Josh Landy
Nick Riggle from the University of San Diego, author of “This Beauty,” on the Year in Deep Space Photography. You can listen to extended versions of all of today’s conversations on our website, philosophytalk.org, where you can also become a subscriber and gain access to our library more than 500 episodes.

Ray Briggs
Now… For a year in review that ain’t rocket science, it’s Ian Shoales, the Sixty-Second Philosopher

Ian Shoales
Ian Shoales… End of the year look backs used to be a thing. But now, history never ends, it’s just a selling tool from the corrupt calendar industry. The end of the year just means after Christmas sales. We’re not looking back, just looking. Take the mid term election. Democracy was at stake! Then we voted and went back to shrugging. We still cling to fossil fuels, hoping for a seat on Elon’s rocket to Mars. We are bored with affluence, yet only slightly alarmed by violence, wild weather, and disasters. In 2022, we finally admitted the Cloud into every aspect of life. In this, the golden age of storage, it’s where we store things. That’s why everybody’s yammering about 5G. Remember Time Life AOL Warner. That went away. AT & T snapped up Warner, saying HBO you gotta make more money, HBO said what? we’re doing fine? You can’t just make money now, you must meet projections. Walmart and Amazon have engulfed us. We sleep in the parking lot with a smart phone for a pillow. Now HBO is partnered with Discovery Channel, why who knows, causing so much debt Warner halted release of a Bat girl movie, stopped a Wonder Woman sequel, and trashed a bunch of streaming anime just to save a few bucks. Each streaming outlet charges a fee, so we’re stuck with a system worse than cable. So young, yet streaming may already be doomed. See, all the movies live in the Cloud, but it’s not really a cloud. It’s a bunch of servers, powered by windmills, deep beneath the Mojave Desert. It costs money. A lot of it. The cloud is where Trump’s brain spurts are stored, and Elon Musk’s. Freedom of Speech was an issue in 2022, all about the right of Libs of Tik Tok, a service hosted by Twitter, to tell us where drag queens read fairy tales, so the Proud Boys can go there and get into fist fights with soccer moms. Journalists once employed by newspapers and whatnot took Twitter Files from Elon, about how the previous owners of Twitter took down pictures of Hunter Biden’s penis. Horrible! Maga buzzes get angrier all the time. About pedophiles, cancel culture, trans, immigration, Disney, for some reason. Wokeness means conservatives just won’t shut up. Wokeness is why The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro’s home, moved from Hollywood to Nashville, started its own movie company, and its own razor. Harry’s stopped advertising there because it was anti-gay, allegedly. So they started Jeremy’s Razors, after Jeremy Boering, head of the Daily Wire. The big selling point is that their razor is not Woke. I guess it’s nice to have a company that stands for something. Remember when Warner Brothers was a brand? We don’t have studios now, just Netflix. No values, just algorithms. The Russia Ukraine unpleasantness is a direct descendant of Cold War tensions, but the war is also a weird reflection of American culture wars. Today’s right is pro Russia, kind of, because Putin’s a strong guy, and we need to strand strong and alone. And the left is pro-Ukraine, though not to the point of joining them on the ground to repel Cossacks. It’s all performative, and confusing. The unwoke thought that an American woman basketball player imprisoned by Russia wasn’t worth the swap for an imprisoned arms dealer. In a Russian interview with the recently liberated arms dealer, he warned America of the threat LBGT poses to its future. So why weren’t conservatives delighted to see this anti-Woke message spread by a commie beyond our shores? The culture war makes everything trivial and important at the same time. Then it all disappears into the cloud. This year a crypto billionaire tried to pay off debts from his right hand crypto empire, using crypto from the left hand empire he’d made up the day before, and all the money went away. Yet many remain enthusiastic about crypto. Was it just last year people were paying a million bucks for a picture of an ape in sunglasses? Point being, the culture war IS the culture. Even with real news, like a pandemic, it immediately leaps to demands to indict Fauci. A million dead? Yawn. Whose ox was gored? Can we fire the teachers now? Maybe in 2024 we’ll do better. Reclaim the word grooming, for instance. Used to be a good thing. A nicely groomed young person means they got their hair styled got a snazzy outfit, know how to say please and thank you. I thought conservatives loved that crap. Hunter Biden! Got free of addiction, cleaned himself up, donated his laptop to charity. You should give the guy a medal, America. What’s wrong with you? I gotta go.

Josh Landy
Philosophy Talk is a presentation of KALW local public radio San Francisco Bay Area and the trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University, copyright 2022.

Ray Briggs
Our Executive Producer is Ben Trefny. The Senior Producer is Devon Strolovitch. Laura Maguire is our Director of Research.

Josh Landy
Thanks also Yiqi Chi, Merle Kessler, and Angela Johnston.

Ray Briggs
Support for Philosophy Talk comes from various groups at Stanford University and from the Partners at our online Community of Thinkers.

Josh Landy
The views expressed (or mis-expressed) on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of Stanford University or of our other funders,

Ray Briggs
Not even when they’re true and reasonable!

Josh Landy
The conversation continues on our website, philosophytalk.org, where you can become a subscriber and gain access to our library of more than 500 episodes. I’m Josh Landy.

Ray Briggs
And I’m Ray Briggs. Thank you for listening.

Josh Landy
And thank you for thinking.