Filosofisch café: being parents and being human: building hope for our children in a fragile world

The philosophy café for March will be in English! Dr. Elizabeth Cripps of the University of Edinburgh will guide us through the question what it takes to be a good parent in a world full of problems.

Environmental catastrophes, pandemics, antibiotic resistance, institutionalized injustice, and war: in a world so out of balance, what does it take to be a good parent? Elizabeth Cripps has searched for an answer, as a moral philosopher, activist, and mother.

Drawing on the insights of philosophy and the experience of parent activists, she calls for parents to think radically about exactly what we owe our children—and everyone else. She argues that children’s needs are inseparable from the fate of the earth and the fortunes of others, and shows how much is at stake in parenting today. And she asks the hardest question: should we have kids at all?

(Based on her new general audience book, Parenting on Earth: A Philosopher’s Guide to Doing Right by Your Kids – and Everyone Else, out on 18 April 2023, MIT Press.)