"A Philosophy of Kindness"
It’s commonplace to talk about the power of kindness and that we should all strive to be more kind, but what does that look like? What does it actually mean to be kind? In her TEDxTufts talk, Audrey Ledbetter takes a philosophical approach to answer these questions, breaking down kindness into two key ingredients: empathy and vulnerability. Though understanding kindness in this way, she argues, we can become more kind.
Audrey is a senior at Tufts in the combined BA/MA degree program in Philosophy. She has conducted research on the intersection between feminist ethics and Chinese philosophy and done extensive coursework in moral theory. This work inspired her to think critically about kindness as a virtue and to design and teach a course on the subject for the Tufts Experimental College. Teaching proved to her the importance in philosophizing about kindness and she looks forward to sharing her ideas with the TEDxTufts community. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.