What are our human responsibilities?

Greetings Citizen Philosophers,

The latest Thinking Out Loud podcast has been released on iTunes. The session was recorded on Wednesday, March 5, and the topic was:

"What are our human responsibilities?"

Thank you, Billie Lagerwerff, Deborah Martin, George Garrett, John Tytus, Steven Stokes, and Uriah J. Fields, for your participation. We had a great discussion. For those of you who missed out, here are some of the questions we wrestled with:

Where do responsibilities come from? Are they imposed upon us by our culture? Are there any responsibilities that are innate and universal? To whom are we responsible? Are we first and foremost responsible to ourselves? Do we have a responsibility to be authentic? Do we have a responsibility to grow - "to become our best self"? Do we have a responsibility to be introspective - "Know thyself"? Do we have any fundamental responsibility to others? Is our responsibility to others merely passive (do no harm) or is it also proactive (be of service)? Are we "our bother's keeper"? Does our responsibility to others extend beyond our culture? Is being responsible the same as being moral? Do we all have the same responsibilities? Are knowledge and ability prerequisites for responsibility? Do our responsibilities change as we grow older and more aware? How does our personal responsibility relate to our collective responsibility?

To subscribe to the podcast with your podcast software (such as iTunes or iPodder) copy and past the following link into your software:

www.citizenphilosopher.com/rss/tol_podcasts.xml

If you have iTunes, you can find us listed in the Apple Music Store directory under Podcasts/Society & Culture/Philosophy, or just do a search in iTunes on Thinking Out Loud People. The direct iTunes link is:

phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=214321935

If you don't have iTunes or other podcast software and just want to download the mp3 file directly, use this link:

Listen to the broadcast (mp3)

You are invited to add your thoughts by clicking on the "comments" link at the lower right hand corner of this post.

The next Thinking Out Loud will be Wednesday, April 2, at 7:00 pm. No topic has yet been chosen, but we have some excellent candidates:

1. "What is the nature of transcendence?"
2. "How do we reinvent ourselves?"
3. "Is the perfection of the self what life is all about?"
4. "What is the nature of collective responsibility?"

Topics 1 and 2 where suggested by David, combined into one topic. I think they are each rich enough to be examined separately, as well. We can choose to discuss them together or separately, either way. Question 3 was suggested by Steve Stokes. I see a connection between Steve's question and David's questions and wonder if Steve's might be in some way a precursor to the other two. (Just a thought as to what order we might tackle these excellent questions.) The fourth question is a rich topic that came up at the end of our last discussion just as we ran out of time, as often happens.

If you have any other new topics to suggest or old topics you want to recycle, let me know. I'll add them to the list.

Cheers,

Steve