Political, Personal, & Pastoral | What to Do With Moral Truth? | Episode 68

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In this postscript to his anthropology and ethics series, Dr. Jacobs examines why people experience discomfort when confronted with moral assessments that challenge their preferred behaviors or beliefs. He draws parallels between objective aesthetics and ethics, arguing that humans possess default intuitions about justice and fairness that create psychological tension when their actions conflict with moral reality. Dr. Jacobs discusses the problems of confirmation bias and social pressure in ethical reasoning, advocating for beginning moral inquiry with foundational metaphysical questions rather than applied ethics. The episode concludes with practical considerations for personal ethical development, distinguishing between philosophical assessment, political implications, and pastoral guidance in the gradual cultivation of virtue.

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00:00:00 Intro
00:01:24 Objective aesthetics
00:05:25 The human yearn for justice
00:15:39 Resisting confirmation bias
00:23:26 Analyzing at level 4
00:26:59 The cognitive minority
00:36:52 Deciding how to live
00:40:19 Politics and morality
00:43:06 Forming in virtue

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