Moral Language (Kharkiv Meditations, 3/10)

This is the third of the ten video meditations I recorded in Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, close to the Russian border. The first couple were about courage and cowardice, which led me to the importance of moral categories in general. Is there anything more objective about terms like “interests” and “calculations” than there is about, say, “greed” and “sadism”? Or are we perhaps hiding reality from ourselves by the narrowness of our preferred vocabulary? The next video meditation (the problem of believing in only one big thing) will be released tomorrow, and the one after that (on freedom) the following day. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe