Timeless Wisdom for Leading a Life of Love, Friendship and Learning
About this episode
Guest host David Brooks interviews his former University of Chicago teacher, the ethicist Leon Kass, about what makes a life worthy. Drawing on Aristotle, they discuss moral formation as the education of the appetites — learning to love the right things — and how Kass counsels students torn over vocation: pay attention to when you feel most alive, and go where the problems are. They turn to marriage as a central commitment, the decay of courtship norms, and friendship, distinguishing deep character-based friendship from friendships of pleasure or utility. Kass then explains why he teaches the Book of Exodus as the West's founding political text — a story of a fractious band becoming a people through law, covenant, and shared narrative — and the two reflect on whether America can still cohere around a common story amid angry polarization and weakened institutions.