The University of Edinburgh | Prof Susan Neiman - Lecture 1 'Who Needs Heroes?' @EdinburghUniversity | Uploaded May 2022 | Updated October 2024, 7 hours ago.
In her first lecture, Professor Neiman argues that the excitement for heroes who exhibit a moral clarity must be weighed against returning to the mythological Greek hero “where the strong trampled on the weak without guilt or shame and called it natural.” Instead, she seeks to explore what it means to be a hero. She is not looking for specific criteria for a hero but a way forward to make “reasoned arguments” about them. Why is this important? She seeks to invoke a moral model where claims of legitimacy are based on what a person has done to the world, not what the world has done to them.
Find out more: blogs.ed.ac.uk/gifford-lectures/2022/05/03/lecture-1-who-needs-heroes
In her first lecture, Professor Neiman argues that the excitement for heroes who exhibit a moral clarity must be weighed against returning to the mythological Greek hero “where the strong trampled on the weak without guilt or shame and called it natural.” Instead, she seeks to explore what it means to be a hero. She is not looking for specific criteria for a hero but a way forward to make “reasoned arguments” about them. Why is this important? She seeks to invoke a moral model where claims of legitimacy are based on what a person has done to the world, not what the world has done to them.
Find out more: blogs.ed.ac.uk/gifford-lectures/2022/05/03/lecture-1-who-needs-heroes
