Episode · Freakonomics Radio · 2012-05-07
Books mentioned on 74. Soul Possession
In a world where nearly everything is for sale, is it always okay to buy what isn’t yours? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company.
Stephen Dubner discussed Stiff by Mary Roach and others, Spook by Mary Roach, and What Money Can't Buy by Michael J. Sandel.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Stiff
Stiff by Mary Roach is a popular science nonfiction book exploring the strange, fascinating, and historically significant uses of human cadavers in medical research and scientific progress.
Discussed“Her first book, Stiff, is about the secret life of cadavers.”
Where to get it
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Spook
Spook by Mary Roach is a non-fiction science book that investigates historical and modern attempts to find scientific evidence of the afterlife and the human soul.
Discussed“In her follow-up book, Spook, she goes looking for evidence of the afterlife. Of particular interest is the thing we call the soul.”
Where to get it
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What Money Can't Buy
Discussed“Michael Sandel is a political philosopher at Harvard. You may know him from a course he teaches called Justice, which was so popular that it got turned into a public television show. Sandel's latest book is called What Money Can't Buy, The Moral Limits of Markets.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing Faust
“So I'm guessing you do know that in exchange for his soul, for selling his soul to the devil via Mephistopheles, that Faust received unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. And you, Bruce Hamilton, you only got 50 bucks.”