Is it wrong to lie to be kind
Theo starts with the white lie everyone tells and sets Kant, who says never, against the utilitarians, who say it depends. By the end you will know which side you were already on.
What do I owe my parents
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Show notes
Debts that were never signed
A listener in Dakar asked a hard question: she sends money home every month to parents who were cold and sometimes cruel, and wants to know if philosophy says she has to. Theo takes the question seriously and walks through three very different answers.
- Confucius and filial duty as the root of all other virtues
- Aristotle on friendship between unequals, and whether parents count
- Jane English's argument that grown children owe parents nothing as debt, only as friendship
- Why the word owe might be the wrong word entirely
Theo closes by reading the listener's letter again and offering his own answer, with reservations.
Transcript
Hello and welcome back to Socrates at the Bus Stop, I am Theo Lachance. This week's question did not come from me. It came from a listener in Dakar, who wrote something I have read about ten times. She sends money home every month to parents who were, in her words, not kind. And she asks: do I have to? Does philosophy say I owe them? That is a question people have argued about for 2,500 years, and the answers are not comfortable. We will hear from Confucius, who thought this duty was the root of every other virtue. From Aristotle, who was not so sure. And from a philosopher called Jane English, who argued that grown children owe their parents nothing at all, at least not as a debt. Stay with me. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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