Philosophy Bites: Egalitarianism

In the latest version of Philosophy Bites, Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds speak with G. A. Cohen about egalitarianism. A very interesting subject, especially in general, but somehow this interview is pulled towards an alleged hypocrisy. How can an egalitarian justify that he is rich?

When you see a difference between two people and you can say that the other is objectively better off, and it is not the first's own doing or choice to be worse off, the way he is, that inequality. It is the view of the egalitarian that such is an injustice that needs redress. This is not necessarily about wealth. There are many good things in life and they are not commensurable, especially between different individuals.

Why must the individual egalitarian address this? Of course he can make some difference, but more so the community, alternately the state can. I am thinking of the situation when there is a famine. Individuals can organize charity, but if the general economy is entirely liberal and entrepreneurs are still exporting food away from the struck country, as this is their commercial right - that is a worse injustice.

Earlier Philosophy Bites: Skepticism and Thought experiments (and Avicenna).

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Tony Madrid at Wise Counsel

The latest podcast on Wise Counsel was an interview with Dr. Tony Madrid. This interview is basically a repetition of an interview with the same Tony Madrid and David van Nuys's other podcast Shrinkrapradio. I commented on that one when it came out; see Maternal Bonding.

Tony Madrid is a therapist using hypnosis as one of his tools. He has been influenced by literature about the importance of maternal bonding and what problems arise if the mother did not have proper chance to bond with the newly born baby immediately after birth. He has decided to use hypnosis (and recently also EMDR) as a means to replace bad memories around the birth with good ones in an effort to take away the obstacles for bonding. In cases where children suffer from asthma, Dr. Madrid claims his therapy has considerable success.

I am a bit at a loss, if the effect can be proven to exist as to how this actually works. Or in other words, assuming the applicability of his claims, what general explanation can be offered?

Other guests on Wise Counsel were a.o.: Francine Shapiro, Amy Baker, Marsha Linehan and Deirdre Barrett.

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