On Virtue Ethics and Why Effective Altruism is Wrong

Today, I want to share some highlights from the latest episode of the podcast, Virtue and Excellence: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics with Colin Redemer.

Colin Redemer is a professor at Saint Mary's College of California and VP of the Davenant Institute. Colin's new book, about Aristotelianism in the Protestant tradition, is called The Shining Human Creature.

This podcast is all about Virtue Ethics and the Aristotelian tradition. Is Virtue Ethics superior to utilitarianism and effective altruism? What is human excellence? What is eudaimonia? How should one live? We also discuss later developments in Aristotelian ethics, from Aquinas to Anscombe to MacIntyre.

Here are some highlights:

• Why Utilitarianism and Effective Altruism are wrong (13:21)

• What is human excellence? (19:09)

• The role of Aristotle in the history of Christian theology (35:04)

• Why Aristotelian / Christian ethics are closer to the Real than secular rational ethics (1:10:25)

Listen to the whole episode on the Other Life podcast—you can find it anywhere you get your podcasts.

We have some exciting guests coming up, so make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever podcast player you prefer.

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