To the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, the ethics of honesty were clear-cut: telling the truth, no matter the consequences, was a ‘categorical imperative’ – a moral duty. Taking chilling (and chilly) inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s film The Shining (1980), this brief animated snippet details Kant’s inflexible perspective on truth-telling, and its contrast with utilitarianism, which emphasises good outcomes over actions that are always right or wrong.
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Ethics
What’s an idea worth? How prominent thinkers have understood intellectual property
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Mathematics
Spiral into the ‘golden ratio’ – and separate the myths from the maths
4 minutes
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History of science
Meet the Quaker pacifist who shattered British science’s highest glass ceilings
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Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
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Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes