L i n k s . . .

1. “It asks us to dig into ourselves, and cultivate emotions of love and reciprocity” — Martha Nussbaum discusses opera’s relevance to political freedom, on WNYC
2. Sometimes you learn that you actually have no duty to perform some task that you had thought you had a duty to perform — “I am interested in morally evaluating the feeling of relief I then often have,” says Alex Pruss
3. “Habermas… wrote the most powerful modern account of why this particular civilisation mattered. He spent the rest of his career trying to escape the implications of his own argument” — on Habermas’ conservatism (via The Browser)
4. “Can we know what the universe is like via the best tools that we have?… The answer is no.” — a fascinating interview with JB Manchak
5. The titular character of Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince” was supposedly based on a Canadian child who ended up becoming a philosopher — Thomas De Koninck was a professor at Université Laval
6. “Bioethics has surprisingly little to offer practicing physicians” — a brutal and important essay by a retired anesthesiologist; valuable despite underrating the actual positive impact of bioethics
7. “Virtually a chrestomathy of moral wisdom, proffered in a narrative voice that is all-seeing, all-comprehending, all-forgiving” — an appreciation of the “moral beauty” of Middlemarch, from George Scialabba

Mini-Heap posts usually appear when several new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers. The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap. Thank you.
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