Do Human Beings Have Souls?
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube The majority of Americans believe that every human being has an immaterial soul, and they tend to base their sense of human dignity and equality on this belief.
Yet the culture at large often operates under the assumption that physical reality is all there is.
Which view is correct? In this episode of The Permanent Questions , self-described “spookiest” David Brooks talks with Shelly Kagan, a best-selling philosopher who insists souls do not exist—and that we don’t need them in order to embrace the wonder and mystery of human experience.
The following is a transcript of the episode: David Brooks: I think the essayist Meghan O’Gieblyn was accurately capturing parts of America when, in her book God, Human, Animal, Machine , she wrote, “It is meaningless to speak of the soul in the 21st century.
It has become a dead metaphor, one of those words that survive in language long after a culture has lost faith in the concept." Yet here’s the funny thing: According to the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of Americans say that they have a soul.
They really do believe they have a mystical, immaterial, spooky, ghostlike thing at the center of who they are.
And I have a confession to make: I’m one of those people.
Furthermore, this metaphorical and spiritual meaning of the word soul is pretty central to the way I see the world.
Long before I ever believed in God, I was firmly convinced that each person you meet has some piece of themselves that has no size, weight, color, or shape, but gives them infinite value and dignity.
In today’s conversation, we’re gonna address the question: Do humans have souls? I’ve laid my cards on the table.
I think they do.
We’re gonna be joined by Shelly Kagan, and he does not think we do.
Kagan is the Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University.
For over 40 years, stretching back to his days at the University of Illinois, Chicago, he has taught a course on death to undergrads, which, naturally enough, takes up the subject of the soul.
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