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[Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] made so heaviest civilizations foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you better it's a great pleasure to be with you I'm honored to be with you know it is I do I haven't changed my mind the um the issue is this where Justice Barossa and I agree is on the importance of Rights on the importance of respecting individual rights in a democracy and having institutions that uphold rights we agree about that where we disagree is on the philosophical basis of Rights I've been arguing for a very long time against a very familiar and influential idea that says the way to respect rights is to try to Define them and to Divine principles of Justice in a way that is neutral toward competing conceptions of the good life now that philosophy is understandable because in pluralist societies we disagree about moral questions about the good life so wouldn't it be better many argue many liberal philosophers argue including Joseph Barossa to seek principles of justice and rights that don't take sides in those contested moral controversies I've argued that it's not possible to Define and defend rights in a way that's neutral on underlying moral questions and that really is the difference between us is and Vegeta called This is a rooster I think it's possible to have a fair decision and to adjudicate rights but I think that whether courts and justices recognize it explicitly or assume implicitly any account of Rights will depend on some conception of virtue or the good life or the purposes that rights serve the ends that writes syrup so I don't think it's possible even for courts to avoid completely to avoid moral judgment when making legal judgment is opinion is [Music] well it's right and you're sharpening the question rightly so because to admit moral argument into the public sphere and into debates about law sometimes means welcoming religious arguments now many people have moral views that are based on secular principles and convictions but some people just as you say draw on moral on on spiritual or religious convictions so one approach is to say to Citizens when you enter the Public Square leave your spiritual and religious and moral convictions outside and only offer arguments that can be put in ways that are neutral with respect to those moral and even religious questions I doubt that this is possible not only that when we broaden this question Beyond courts to the question of public discourse which after all bears on what the law ultimately becomes I don't think it's possible and I don't think it's desirable to ask citizens to leave behind their moral and even spiritual convictions when they enter public dialogue because sooner or later if we have a if we have a moral a morally empty public discourse it will be filled by narrow harsh intolerant moralisms such as fundamentalism or hypernationalism and this I think is what we've seen in recent years as we've emptied the moral the the public sphere and public discourse of larger moral meaning um [Music] [Music] I disagree with the Supreme Court opinion in the United States and with Justice Roberts which struck down using race as a factor in admissions I disagree about that but here's an and on the case of legacy admissions which universities also practice giving an advantage to Children whose parents attended that University in effect that is affirmative action for the wealthy and the wealth to do and the already advantaged I think universities now will come under great moral pressure to question policy of Legacy preferences if we're no longer allowed to admit students taking race into account and and minorities who have been excluded in the past but if I could just add a reason for my opposition to the Supreme Court's position it connects to the earlier part of our discussion the reason the Supreme Court for 40 years accepted affirmative action was in the name of diversity making the educational experience better for everyone by exposing students to people from different backgrounds and I think that's a good argument up to a point but what it ruled out was any argument about remedying the Injustice of those especially who were descendants of slavery and those who experienced segregation throughout a long and persisting history and I think the Supreme Court's refusal to admit the reason of restorative or reparative Justice is an example of what happens when we narrow the reasons that count in a court of law or for them matter in public opinion for both those reasons I think universities should continue to try to find a way consistent with the Supreme Court ruling of admitting students from underrepresented and underprivileged backgrounds so [Music] foreign possible thank you yes I do I think that we in Democratic societies need to ReDiscover the Lost Art of democratic public discourse because we've become accustomed to a kind of empty public discourse which consists either of narrow technocratic talk which inspires no one and leaves everything to the economists basically or when passion enters we have shouting matches where partisans and ideologues Shout past one another Without Really listening and so we need to figure out how to have a morally more robust engaged kind of public discourse than the kind to which we become accustomed you mentioned the academy and higher education I think that's one place where we need to do a better job of enabling students to reason together and argue together and to study the great philosophers of the past and bring their insights and arguments to bear on contemporary issues that are controversial but I would not leave that Gabriella to the universities even though we need to do a better job of that I think moral and civic education education in in the civic virtue of listening to one another across our differences I think we have to spread that throughout Civil Society not leave it only to universities and higher education I think within Civil Society within unions within religious communities in Municipal centers in cities and towns we need to create forums for the kind of public discourse that will enable us to become citizens capable of reasoning and arguing together with Civility and mutual respect look forward to Professor is foreign foreign no intent to a agents is consequences [Music] well thank you for that Paula I think we have to try but it won't be easy it won't be easy in part because just as you say our societies today are deeply polarized almost as never before at least in recent memory in fact today parents public opinion surveys in the U. S have have shown this I don't know if the same is true in Brazil but parents are more upset if their child marries someone of a different political party than if they marry someone of a different religion it used to be that way it illustrates how the polarization has really infiltrated our everyday lives our personal lives our family life our relation even within families now part of what the challenge is one of the reasons for this polarization is we have a kind of social media that encloses us in bubbles of like-minded opinion because the social media companies want to keep us glued to our screens they figured out the best way to do that is to feed us opinions we already share and to to engage us they call it engagement it's really more a kind of provocation by showing us the outrageous behavior or opinion of people we will consider adversaries they know how to do this very well it does yield tremendous revenue for the social media companies but it comes at the expense of a decent Civic life it comes at the expense of enabling us to reason together and argue together even to disagree with those with different views from ourselves so part of the solution perhaps we can discuss ways of of achieving this will be to find alternative platforms for public discourse and maybe to try to break up some of the unaccountable power of these social media companies that keeps us enclosed and reinforces the polarization lives um [Music] I don't think that we can Juliana take I don't think we should have ideology in the schools in the sense of the professor or the the university imposing a certain ideological view on the students that is not civic education that's indoctrination that we don't want that but that does not mean that values should not be present and debated as a subject of lively controversy and reflection because to teach well the subject I teach is moral and political philosophy and one of the ways I teach it is to expose students to what famous philosophers of the past have written about Justice and the common good and virtue Plato and Aristotle up through Emmanuel Kant but not only that I want students to read what these famous philosophers had to say not only to see them as episodes in the history of ideas like Museum pieces on a Shelf but to see these philosophers as addressing big questions that we still need to think about today what does it mean to have a just Society what should we do about Rising inequality what should be the role of money in markets in a good Society what do we owe on another as fellow citizens these are philosophical questions but also immediate practical questions they are controversial they involve competing values but I think our job in higher education especially in moral and political philosophy is to equip students to think and reason and argue and reflect about these questions not to not to impose a single answer but to cultivate their capacity to be philosophers which is closely connected to the capacity to be Democratic citizens a um mm-hmm well and yeah it's a fair question and the answer may be different for young children in grade school and for students in high school and in University and I think the sensitivity of the questions introduced maybe that should vary according to the development in the age of the student but by the time they reach University I want students to be exposed to the full range of issues however controversial because that's the only way to learn to think for themselves [Music] thank you [Music] foreign foreign foreign despise problems paraphrase that's Central apartment Cloud again this is foreign [Music] [Music] thank you Michael Sandoval so myself foreign is foreign well there are two levels of possible prevention of this kind of attack on the capitals of democracy the symbolic centers of democracy from a purely law enforcement point of view certainly speaking about the capital attack in the United States with which I'm more familiar there was a terrible failure of law enforcement and of intelligence and of coordination in advance and that's been investigated and that was sorely lacking and whether that was the case in Brazil you will know better than me but that's at the level of law enforcement and preparing for demonstrations but there's a broader question about how to prevent such episodes from happening it's not happened in American history until now until January 6th episode where the supporters of the defeated presidential candidate made a violent attack on the U. S Capitol that hasn't happened before so it isn't only a problem of law enforcement it's also a problem of the political climate and the public culture which I think has deteriorated and eroded the Democratic norms that say whatever else democracy means it means that when you lose you leave that fundamental Democratic Norm was eroded by Donald Trump and and so this is the broader problem that goes well beyond law enforcement it's how to restore the Norms accepting the outcome of Elections doing it with Civility and undertaking to compete again to try to win the next time you mean prevented from running again to see well let me speak first about Donald Trump he has not been prevented from running again and he is running again and among Republicans he is by far in the lead at the moment over his Republican Challengers for the nomination now he's been indicted three times and soon will be a fourth time and he's facing charges including charges related to the events leading up to January 6th I think that's entirely appropriate now here's the interesting thing even if he is convicted and sent to prison there's nothing in the U.

S Constitution believe it or not that would prevent him from running and even being president from prison now the U. S Constitution doesn't speak about that because the framers never imagined this scenario so it never occurred to them to cover it's it seems strange at best to think that someone convicted of serious crimes including crimes connected to overturning an election should be allowed to seek the presidency much less win the presidency again and that's the predicament in which we may find ourselves Gabrielle uh foreign Cooper ation from a conspirations foreign what you're raising Gabriella is a third level of the erosion of democratic Norms that we were discussing a moment ago the minimal definition of democracy is that the losers leave when they lose but there is a broader problem which you're pointing to and what and what I discussed in the tyranny of Merit I think those of us who abhor what we see with the tax on the Capitol and with large proportions of the population here in the United well in the United States at least continue to believe Trump's lies that he actually won the election the majority of the Republican Party believes that but that means it's irresponsible on their apartment that's not enough to notice I think those of us who worry about the future of democracy have to ask what was it about mainstream Progressive politics mainstream politics of the center right in the center left over the past four decades that opened the way to the kind of anger and resentment even humiliation among large portions especially working people and in those without academic credentials that they would be open to the appeals and believe ultimately the lies that Trump told them I think that it's not enough for those of us on the Progressive side of politics or who worry about Democratic Norms to wag our finger at the responsibility of trump and his followers we have to reflect critically on what it was about the way mainstream Center left and center right parties govern for four decades that deepen The Divide between winners and losers the winners of globalization the top 20 percent or so reap almost all of the benefits inequalities widened but not only economic inequalities also the senses you were pointing out among the successful that those who landed on top deserve their success that their success was their own doing and that they therefore deserved the full Bounty the market bestowed upon them and by implication that those who were left out by the era of neoliberal globalization that they they deserved their fate as well it's no wonder that this led to anger and resentment especially among those without a university education it's no accident that after one of his primary election victories Donald Trump said I love the poorly educated now the credential that Elites laughed at that but I think instead of laughing we need to ask what were our failures in the way neoliberal globalization was managed at creating this divide that gave rise to the resentments that now have been exploited by those who are eroding Democratic norms and and that hasn't really happened yet part of what I was trying to do in the book democracy in in the book The Tyranny of Merit was to invite a certain critical reflection on the part of mainstream parties and politicians and academic Elites and media Elites into the role that our policies the the neo-liberal globalization that was so widely embraced led to follow foreign [Music] [Music] Georgia [Music] is instrument right yeah this is a very hard and important question we want our children to work hard and to take pride in their achievements we don't want them to be couch potatoes lying on the couch not developing their talents and so effort and reward and achievement our virtues up to a point we also want our children however much they achieve to have a certain humility to appreciate the advantages they may have the Privileges that may be a part of what enables them to succeed and balancing that sense of Pride and achievement with the humility that comes from recognizing one's advantages and the role of luck in life that's not an easy thing to balance you're right about that on the broader question of inequality and meritocracy in our societies both the United States and Brazil are highly unequal societies in the United States we often had a kind of comforting myth the myth was we may be an unequal Society but in America it's always possible to rise you don't have to worry we told ourselves as much about inequality as those old European societies with their rigid class system because here upward Mobility is possible no one is consigned to the class of their birth the problem is this American Dram some would call it an American Myth of upward Mobility doesn't really describe the reality in the United States anymore those more equal Societies in Europe actually have more Mobility than we do the oec did oecd did a study of the chance of a child born in a low-income family to rise not to the top to the middle to the median of their society in Denmark they asked how many generations at current rates of Mobility would that take in Denmark it takes only two generations to rise in the United States it takes on average five generations and in Brazil you know what the figure is nine generations to rise so what I what I conclude from this is that the American dream is alive and well and living in Copenhagen what that suggests is that individual upward Mobility desirable though it is is not a sufficient answer to inequality we have to deal with structural inequalities not just tell people well if you work hard and get a university education then you too can rise that doesn't fit the facts on the ground Joel [Music] um foreign foreign yes and I think you're right to draw the connection between the discrediting of Elites credential they leads especially economists during the era of neoliberal globalization and the discrediting or the the lack of legitimacy of Public Health and Medical Elites offering advice during the pandemic I think these are connected let's let's first consider the the economy the mainstream economists and the political parties Center left and center right who accepted their neoliberal prescription for globalization they assured us that free Capital flows and and the trade agreements that made property rights of intellectual property rights enforceable in various countries preventing generic drug manufacturing even the deregulation of financial industry that all of this would yield prosperity and affluence and there would be winners but the gains to the winners could be used to offset the loss to the losers we were told this by the experts by the mainstream economists by the political parties and it didn't come true in fact as you say in 2008 in the financial crisis it all came crashing down the great plan of deregulating the financial industry so Elite the economists especially were rightly discredited by the financial crisis in the aftermath to say nothing of the inequality that their project brought about then comes the pandemic and we desperately needed the advice of Public Health officials and yet now expertise had become politicized had become seen as ideology because of the experience during the four Decades of neoliberal globalization and this is going to matter a lot and this is why we had such Fierce debates over even whether to to mandate the wearing of masks to say nothing of of vaccines people became suspicious of expertise credentialed Elites in general it was part of the populist backlash now this is going to matter especially when it comes to dealing with climate change when already we hear scientists experts saying that unless something is done these will be the consequences if there is warming Beyond 1.