In this second conversation with Julie Walsh, the Whitehead Associate Professor of Critical Thought and Director of the Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College, we explore what it truly means to be free. Building on our earlier discussion about embodiment and ethics, Julie takes us through the philosophical history of freedom—from Augustine to Descartes to early modern women thinkers who redefined liberty as a social and moral question rather than a purely metaphysical one.

We talk about financial independence, moral dependence, and why freedom may be impossible without resources. Julie introduces the ideas of Gabrielle Suchon, who argued that freedom requires a life without engagements—a world free from moral or financial debt. We discuss how these ideas translate into modern life: parenthood, marriage, work, and even the emotional ties that define us.

The conversation then expands into empathy, virtual reality, and the tension between knowledge and experience. We ask whether freedom and happiness can coexist, and what happens when we consciously choose our own chains. It is an intimate, wide-ranging reflection on autonomy, responsibility, and the fragile balance between connection and independence.

Chapter :

00:00 – Introduction: Continuing the conversation on freedom
02:00 – Animal empathy, sanctuaries, and the moral imagination
10:00 – Seeing suffering and what society hides from view
18:00 – Class, labor, and the privilege of being shielded
26:00 – Disgust, distance, and the ethics of looking away
34:00 – Art, education, and transforming pain into beauty
41:00 – Facing darkness without losing hope
48:00 – Freedom through knowledge: Descartes and Princess Elizabeth
56:00 – Knowing the bad: confronting reality as moral awareness
1:03:00 – Empathy, virtual reality, and the spectacle of suffering
1:11:00 – Freedom as privilege and the ethics of opting in
1:18:00 – Defining freedom: metaphysics, culture, and virtue
1:28:00 – Positive vs. negative freedom and moral consistency
1:37:00 – Moral relativism, virtue hierarchies, and cultural conflict
1:46:00 – Connection, embodiment, and subjective goodness
1:54:00 – Virtue ethics, religion, and moral systems
2:03:00 – Freedom and happiness in philosophy and life
2:12:00 – Financial freedom, moral debt, and social inequality
2:19:00 – Dependence, family, and the impossibility of pure autonomy
2:28:00 – Choosing your chains: love, faith, and surrender
2:33:00 – Closing reflections: what it means to live freely