An ethicist's guide to living a good life | Ira Bedzow

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

It's easy to say you have values — but how can you actually put them into action? Ethicist and rabbi Ira Bedzow helps people wrestle with this big question so they can navigate life with a sense of meaning and direction. He sits down with Shoshana Ungerleider, physician and host of the "TED Health" podcast, to discuss why you may have more than one singular purpose, how to define success on your own terms and the role of community in a fulfilling life.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.
0:12.5	I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Today we're going to talk about ethics. Maybe you think of it only in the context of that philosophy class from college, or maybe you question
0:21.3	how much does it affect my daily life, really? In a 2024 conversation with TED Health host Shoshana
0:27.2	Ungerleiter, the ethicist professor and rabbi, Ira Bedzow, dives into the huge role ethics actually
0:33.9	play in our lives. Coming up, how ethics help people and organizations
0:38.7	navigate major challenges and turn their values and ideas into action.
0:47.7	Hi, Ira.
0:48.7	Nice to see you.
0:49.7	Good to see you.
0:50.9	Ira is a professor, an ethicist, and a rabbi. And he's really all about helping people
0:57.5	in organizations navigate ethical challenges and turn their values into action. So Ira,
1:05.1	the bio on the TED website, it says ethicist. So how do you describe yourself? First off, Shoshana,
1:10.1	thank you. That's a great question
1:12.0	to start with. I would say whenever people hear that I'm an ethicist, the first thing that they
1:18.9	think is, well, I don't need that guy. Either I'm a good person, so I don't need someone to tell me
1:25.4	what to do, or they don't know me, so I don't want someone to come and impose
1:31.3	their thoughts, their beliefs, their values onto me. So usually I don't get any work when people
1:38.2	think that. What I like to say that I do, an ethicist, is I try to help people think more creatively and make decisions
1:47.1	based on who they want to be and what they care about. For me, it's not simply just a matter of,
1:52.9	is this act good or bad, or is this act right or wrong? It's, are you making the decisions that
1:59.3	speak to the goals that you have?
2:02.2	Are your goals worth having?
	...

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