Main content

Augustine, Desire, Doing good

Andrew Marr discusses goodness and pleasure with the historian Robin Lane Fox, philosopher Clare Carlisle, writer Larissa MacFarquhar and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores goodness and its uneasy relationship with pleasure. The historian Robin Lane Fox looks to the work of Augustine and what is thought to be the first autobiography detailing the sinful excitement of youth before his anguished and hesitant conversion to Christianity. The philosopher Clare Carlisle explores Augustine's views on the link between desire and habit, while the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips asks why pleasure is more highly prized when it's perceived to be forbidden and guilty. Larissa MacFarquhar looks at the lives of those who have dedicated themselves to others and asks why do-gooders provoke deep suspicion in Western culture.
Producer: Katy Hickman.

Available now

43 minutes

Last on

Mon 30 Nov 2015 21:30
麻豆社 Radio 4

More episodes

Previous

Jonathan Coe on Satire

Next

Reforming Saudi Arabia

See all episodes from Start the Week

Robin Lane Fox

is Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford and former Reader in Ancient History at Oxford University.

Augustine: Conversions and Confessions is published by Allen Lane.

Clare Carlisle

is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Theology at King鈥檚 College London.

Adam Phillips

is a psychoanalyst and writer.

Unforbidden Pleasures is published by Hamish Hamilton.

Larissa MacFarquhar

is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Strangers Drowning: Voyages to the Brink of Moral Extremity is published by Allen Lane.

Credits

Presenter Andrew Marr
Interviewed Guest Robin Lane Fox
Interviewed Guest Clare Carlisle
Interviewed Guest Adam Phillips
Interviewed Guest Larissa MacFarquhar
Producer Katy Hickman

Broadcasts

  • Mon 30 Nov 2015 09:00
    麻豆社 Radio 4
  • Mon 30 Nov 2015 21:30
    麻豆社 Radio 4

Podcast

  • Start the Week

    Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday