Very Bad Wizards
a philosopher and a psychologist ponder human morality
We found 3 episodes of Very Bad Wizards with the tag “Happiness”.
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Episode 249: Phlegm and Carelessness (Hume's "The Sceptic")
November 22nd, 2022 | 1 hr 25 mins
happiness, hume, social psychology, the sceptic, twitter
David and Tamler gild and stain David Hume’s essay “The Sceptic” with their sentiments. If nothing is inherently valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, then what do philosophers have to offer when it comes to happiness? If reason is powerless, does it all come down to our emotions and “humours”? Or does the study of philosophy and liberal arts naturally lead to a fulfilling and virtuous life? Plus we look at a new non-traditional social psych paper on how we always imagine that things could be better, and tip our caps to the queen of handling Twitter pile-ons (and former VBW guest) – Candy Mom.
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Episode 136: The Good Life (with Laurie Santos)
March 27th, 2018 | 1 hr 32 mins
happiness, the good life, yale
From Very Bad Wizards to Megyn Kelly Today back to Very Bad Wizards, Laurie Santos has traveled the typical trajectory of the celebrity academic. Laurie joins us to talk about her cult status after creating the most popular course in Yale University history: Psychology and the Good Life. The course explores questions like: Why are we so bad at predicting what will make us happy? What makes it so hard to do the things we know are good for us? Why young are people more stressed, anxious, and overworked than they used to be? And how can we nudge ourselves into living better lives?
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Episode 116: Pain, Pleasure, and Peer-Reviewed Penises
May 31st, 2017 | 1 hr 16 mins
conceptual penises, happiness, pain, pleasure, sokal hoax, taste
David and Tamler break down the latest small-stakes academic controversy--yes the one about conceptual penises. Does the recent "Sokal-like" hoax expose the ideological extremism of gender studies? Or does it show that certain portions of the "skeptic" community are susceptible to the same biases as their opponents? In the main segment they discuss the problems with measuring pain, pleasure, and happiness. When your doctor asks you to rate your pain between 1 and 10 and you say a 7, does your '7' reflect the same subjective experience as another person's '7'? (That depends--have you experienced childbirth?) How can we get more accurate readings of pain and pleasure across different people with different experiences? Most importantly, which number gets you the Vicodin?