The Philosopher & The News (Alexis Papazoglou)

It’s been a year since the end Trump’s presidency, and the beginning of Biden’s. And while Biden pleaded for unity, and the healing of bitter political divisions in his inaugural speech, the country remains as divided as ever. 40% of Americans say in polls that they don’t believe Joe Biden is the legitimate president, and the International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy Report now classifies the United States a “backsliding democracy” sighting “runaway polarization” as one of the key threats. 

So is there still hope for American democracy to recover? How exactly should we understand polarization? Is it possible to overcome it by engaging more with the opposite side? And how might reading old philosophy books, about different political realities help?
 
Robert Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vandrbilt University, and author of a number of books on the nature of democracy, liberalism and the American pragmatist tradition. His most recent book is called Sustaining Democracy: What we Owe to the Other Side, by Oxford University Press.

Talisse is also himself the host of two podcasts: New Books in Philosophy podcast as well as the Why We Argue podcast.

The Institute of Art and Ideas article discussed in the episode can be found here: Democracy and the Polarization Trap.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.

Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission

Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

On February 1st a national vaccine mandate took effect in Austria. Those over the age of 18 who haven’t been vaccinated could face fines of over €3,000. Several other countries have introduced similar mandates for the elderly, medical staff and care home workers. Those resisting vaccination say it should be their choice whether to get the jab, not the state’s. Others argue that in liberal societies, it’s the state’s a right to limit the freedom of individuals when their behaviour harms others.

So are those resisting vaccination right in saying it’s a matter of their personal freedom? Or does the harm they might be causing others justify state intervention? Would mandating vaccines an act of paternalism by the state? And could ending the pandemic be a good enough reason for overriding other ethical concerns?

Stephen John is the Hatton Trust lecturer in philosophy of public health at the University of Cambridge, and works on the intersection of philosophy of science, applied ethics, and political philosophy. He is author of the book Objectivity in Science, and is a regular contributor  to publications like The Conversation, and the online magazine of The Institute of Art and Ideas. Our conversation is based on an article Stephen wrote for the latter, asking “Are mandatory vaccines justified?”.

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and order a copy: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On February 24th, Russia invaded the country of Ukraine, in an unexpected escalation of a conflict that began in 2014. It is the largest conventional military attack in Europe since World War II.

According to an influential analysis of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine, this is all down to NATO’s overreach in the region, and Russia is simply defending itself from being encircled by Western power. But, pay closer attention to what Putin is actually saying, and a very different explanation emerges. Putin believes it’s his destiny to restore Russia to its former glory. 

So how should we interpret the actions of states like Russia? Are they merely driver by power and security concerns, like the realist school of thought claims? Or are the beliefs and worldviews of political leaders, like Putin, as well as the national identities of people like those of Ukraine, the real driving force of events? 

Is necessity and structural issues the motor of history, or is it contingency and uncertainty at the steering wheel? 

Stathis Kalyvas  is the Gladstone Professor of Government at the University of Oxford, and a fellow of All Souls College. He is a political scientist who’s written extensively on civil wars, ethnicity, and political violence. and is the author of, among other books,  The Logic of Violence in Civil War. 

Our conversation was based on an article Kalyvas wrote for the Institute of Art and Ideas, entitled “How we got Putin so wrong”. 

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and order a copy: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On March 16th the UN’s International Court of Justice asked Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine. It had found no evidence to support Russia’s claim that Ukraine was conducting genocide against Russia Speakers in the East of the country, which has been Russia’s justification for the war. A day later Russia rejected the ruling. 

So, is international law completely impotent in preventing countries from going to war?  And why has the law been more effective in constraining the way that countries fight even illegal wars? 

Has the way that the US and other great powers defied international law undermined its effectiveness, and allowed countries like Russia to ignore it? And was Leo Tolstoy right in thinking that making war less brutal, and more humane, would in fact end up in causing more suffering and destruction, by perpetuating war into the future?

Samuel Moyn is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at the Yale Law School and a Professor of History at Yale University. He has written several books on European intellectual history and human rights history, including Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (2018). His latest book is Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War.

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

We don’t often think of animals as war casualties, but animals die in large numbers in every war. Sometimes as specific targets, to deprive the enemy of a food source, sometimes trapped in zoos and shelters, and other times as wildlife. But their deaths are never officially counted, and the senseless killing animals, unlike the killing of innocent civilians, is not considered a war crime. 

So do we have special moral duties towards animals in war, given that they have no conception of what war is, and it is something imposed on them by humans? 

 To what extent does our treatment of animals during war reflect our treatment of animals, particularly those raised for industrial farming, during peace time?  

And why, despite the clarity of the moral arguments against the mistreatment of animals in industrial farming and the mass consumption of their meat, do so many of us keep eating animals?

Lori Gruen is William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University, and a leading scholar in Animal studies and feminist philosophy. She is the author and editor of over a dozen books, including Ethics and Animals: An Introduction, Entangled Empathy (Lantern, 2015) and the forthcoming Animal Crisis (Polity, 2022) co-authored with the philosopher Alice Crary.

Pease leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On May 2nd, Politico leaked a draft opinion of the US Supreme Court that suggested the court had voted to overrule Roe v Wade, the previous high court decision from 1973 that guaranteed the right to early term abortion in all of the US. This ruling by the Supreme Court seemingly passes the power to decide on the legality of abortion to individual States, though this essentially amounts to an immediate ban on abortions in several states. 

So was the Supreme Court right in allowing individual States to decide on the legality of abortion, given the strong moral disagreement on the issue? Should the law on abortion reflect the morality of the matter? And what does the moral status of abortion depend on? 

If so many parents direct love and care towards young foetuses, does that mean they matter morally, and therefore it would be wrong to kill them? Does the foetus have a moral status merely in virtue of it being a potential person? Or is the matter a lot more complicated than that? 

Elizabeth Harman is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at the Philosophy department and the University Center for Human Values, at the University of Princeton. One of her many longstanding research projects is about moral status, harm, and the ethics of procreation.

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On June 24, the US Supreme court overruled a landmark decision: Roe v Wade. For nearly 50 years, abortion was a constitutional right in the Unites States. No more. “The constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.” Read the decision. 

But quite apart from the legal argument, everyone knew this was at heart deeply political decision. Three of the judges in the majority opinion were appointed by the previous president, Donald Trump, who had explicitly promised his voters he would appoint pro-life judges when given the chance. 

So how should we understand this political decision? Why is the right, always brandishing liberty as its central value, so happy to restrict the freedoms of millions of women? Why does the party who wants a small state, and is averse to government regulation, so happy for the state to intervene in the private lives of citizens, and regulate one of the most personal choices one can make: whether to have a child or not? Is the Republican party simply riddled with internal contradictions when it comes to freedom? Or do they simply understand freedom in an altogether different way?

Toby Buckle is the producer and host of The Political Philosophy Podcast, and the editor of a new collection of essays entitled What is Freedom? Conversations with Historians, Philosophers, and Activists, from Oxford University Press. 

Pease leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On January 21, 11 people were killed in a mass shooting in Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, California. Two days later, 7 people were killed in another shooting in Half Moon Bay, a small city on the coast south of San Francisco. It was the 37th mass shooting in the United States in 2023, only 24 days since the year began. 

So why is it that despite these repeated incidents, gun laws in the United States are becoming less rather than more restrictive? What is the ideology that is driving America’s love of guns? Is it a love of liberty, and the constitution, along with an instinctive suspicion of any state attempt to limit access to guns? Or is something deeper, more disturbing, behind the supreme court’s recent decisions to undo laws that regulated access to guns, coupled with a huge recent increase in gun ownership?

Suzanne Schneider, Is Deputy Director and Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, specializing in political theory and history of the modern Middle East. She is the author of , most recently, The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism, and her comment pieces in places like The New Republic and The Washington Post have tackled this issue of gun ownership in the United States, and bring a perspective that goes beyond the usual clichés about liberty and the constitution.

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

February 24th marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some still blame the expansion of NATO in Russia’s neighbourhood as the deeper cause of this war.  Others see it as Putin’s mad personal plan to go down in the history books. But some are pointing the finger to something much deeper than any of that: the Russian soul. 

A concept that originated in Russia’s literary tradition of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and other great authors, is seen as animating today’s national exceptionalism, fuelling Putin’s speeches. 

But how straightforward is it draw a causal link between a country’s cultural past, and the politics of today? Is it really ideas than animate history, or should we look to material conditions for a better explanation of events?

Josephine von Zitzewitz is a Lecturer in Russian at the University of Oxford, and recently wrote an article entitled The Uses and Abuses of the Russian Soul: The weaponization of Russian Identity, in which she explores the limits of the idea that Russian culture and literature have a role to play in the war against Ukraine.


Pease leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On March 22nd, the Future of Life Institute,  a nonprofit organization focussed on reducing existential risks facing humanity, and in particular existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence (AI), published an open letter entitled Pause Giant AI Experiments. Its signatories included tech luminaries such as Elon Musk, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Its opening sentences read:

“AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research and acknowledged by top AI labs… Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.”

But given the kind of AI available today, are these kinds of concern justified? Is Chat GPT, for example, really a kind of intelligence? And if so, are governments capable of taming it and channelling its capabilities for the benefit of humanity, rather than its destruction?

John Naughton is a Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge and Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University. He is also the technology columnist of the Observer newspaper.


Pease leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

Chat GPT, an AI powered chat-bot, has become the world’s fastest growing application, with over 100 million users in the first month of its launch. Even its harshest critics concede that when interacting with Chat GPT, it can seem as if one is talking to an intelligent machine. But, the standard critique goes, that’s just an illusion. Chat GPT isn’t in fact intelligent. It doesn’t understand the questions it’s asked, or the answers it gives. 

But, what if this critique is wrong? What if our elevation of human understanding to something that machines like Chat GPT can’t reach is mere narcissism, or worse, a philosophical mistake? What if, what current AI can do isn’t really possible without some robust level of understanding? 

Reuben Cohn- Gordon is an AI researcher at the Iniversity of British Columbia and UC Berkeley, and recently wrote an article entitled GPT’s very Inhuman Mind for Noema magazine, in which he argues against the standard critique of large language models like Chat GPT, namely that they lack any form of intelligence and understanding. Reuben uses a number of ideas from 20th century philosophy in approaching this, as well as intriguing metaphors from Classic Roman literature. 

If you enjoyed the episode, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journalm founded in 1923. Check out the latest issue of The Philosopher and its online events series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

A new podcast where leading philosophers bring to the surface the philosophy hidden behind the biggest news stories. Together we'll be exploring the ideas that can help us understand the times we're living through.  Welcome to The Philosopher & The News.


This podcast is made in partnership with The Philosopher journal: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/

Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission

Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

On January the 6th, what started as a Trump rally in Washington DC, ended up in the violent storming of the Capitol, with, members of Congress being rushed to safety. Fuelled by the president’s words, calling the 2020 election results fraudulent, Trump’s followers took over the Capitol, shouting among other things “This is our house!” and “They work for us!” referring to the members of Congress, their representatives. Commenting on the events President-elect Joe Biden, said “The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, they do not represent who we are.”

The concept of political representation is not examined as often as that of democracy, but according to David Runciman, a professor and historian of political thought at the University of Cambridge, it is perhaps even more foundational to the political system we live in. So, what does it mean for elected officials to represent us? And does it matter whether they resemble the electorate? Is representative government always elitist? And what did the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes mean when he suggested the concept of "the people" is a fiction, one that doesn’t exist without representation?


This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. If you’d like to read a sample of some of the best public philosophy out there, and subscribe to the journal, go to: www.thephilosopher1923.org/subscribe.

David Runciman is also host of the excellent podcast, Talking Politics: www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com
Weekly political commentary on major political events, and beyond, by Cambridge academics, like Helen Thompson, and star guests.


Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission

Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

The SARS-Covid-2 pandemic brought to the surface something that has accompanied other pandemics in the past: conspiracy theories. Now, with several vaccines having been developed, the conspiracy theories have turned to them.

But how should we understand conspiracy theories? And why do people find them so attractive? Do the producers of conspiracy theories really believe in them? And what does the rise of populism have to do with the proliferation of conspiracy theories?

Quassim Cassam, is professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, and author of the book Conspiracy Theories, in which he argues that the main function of conspiracy theories is political propaganda.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. If you’d like to read a sample of some of the best public philosophy out there, and subscribe to the journal, go to: www.thephilosopher1923.org/subscribe.

Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission
Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

Most commentators treat vaccine hesitancy as part of a bigger problem: the death of expertise.  Maya Goldenberg disagrees: vaccine hesitancy has to do with trust. 

According to the received narrative, people have stopped listening to experts, relying instead on Google searches and social media influencers for advice on important topics. There is an ongoing war, the narrative continues, between knowledge and ignorance, and the way to win the war it is by educating the public, those who think a scientific paper and a blog post by a lay person have the same claim to truth. 

Only this approach doesn’t seem to be working. Maya Goldenberg, associate professor at the University of Guelph, and author of the forthcoming  Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science, believes it’s because this is the wrong approach. Phenomena such as vaccine hesitancy don’t exist because the public is ignorant and doesn’t understand the science. Vaccine hesitancy exists because the public has lost trust in scientists and the public bodies they advise. The way to tackle people’s concerns therefore isn’t by yet another public information campaign, but by listening to those concerns, addressing them, and in the process, regaining the public’s trust. 

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. If you’d like to read a sample of some of the best public philosophy out there, and subscribe to the journal, go to: www.thephilosopher1923.org/subscribe.

Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission
Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

In the era of populism and political polarisation, listening to the other side has become harder than ever. Even agreeing to a common starting point, a set of facts about the world, has come to seem impossible. To many of us it seems that our political and cultural opponents just live in a different world, a different reality from us. Facts have become politicised, and their acceptance or denial a sign of one’s political identity.

On top of that, much of political discourse takes place in an environment not conductive to civil debate and exchange of ideas: social media. Trolling, antagonising memes and conflict entrepreneurs short-circuit any chance of honest and truthful communication.

So, is there a way to talk to the other side? To really engage with the viewpoint of our opponents? To understand their lived experience? And what can philosophy teach us about productive and unproductive ways to argue with each other? 

There aren’t many philosophers who get profiled in The New Yorker, but Elizabeth Anderson is one of those rare exceptions. She is the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor and the John Rawls Collegiate Professor, at the University of Michigan, and that is only two of her titles. In 2019 she delivered the Uehiro lectures, at the University of Oxford, under the title: Can We Talk? Communicating Moral Concern in an Era of Polarized Politics 

I couldn’t think of a better philosopher to both diagnose the causes of our failure to communicate across the political divide, and provide us with insights into how we can relearn to talk with the other side. 

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. The winter issue of The Philosopher is out, tackling one of philosophy’s perennial puzzles: the concept of Nothing. If you’d like to order a copy of the latest issue, and subscribe to the journal, go to www.thephilosopher1923.org/subscribe.

Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission

Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

Two days after the storming of the Capitol, following a Trump rally, and with the former president  seemingly continuing to glorify the events of January 6, Facebook and Twitter decided to ban him from the social media platforms, in Twitter’s case permanently. 

Many welcomed this move, while others cried that this constituted a violation of the former President’s free speech. Some argued that Twitter and Facebook are private companies, and therefore can enforce their terms of service however they see fit. Others argued that given social media platforms are more akin to a public square, rather than someone’s private salon, these companies should not have the right to decide what speech is and isn’t allowed. 

 So did Twitter and Facebook violate Trump’s free speech, or were their bans justified? Does having moral arguments for banning certain kinds of speech mean those arguments should be reflected in the law, or should what speech is legally allowed stretch beyond the morally acceptable? What type of speech is dangerous, and are there ways of combating it besides taking legal measures against it?

Jeffrey Howard is an Associate Professor of Political Theory at UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy. He works on topics in contemporary political and legal philosophy, focusing on freedom of speech, criminal punishment, and democracy. His paper, "Dangerous speech", published in the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs, won him the 2021 Berger Memorial Prize for the best article in philosophy of law, a prize awarded every two years by the American Philosophical Association.

Visit Jeff's personal webpage for a great set of recorded public talks as well as radio appearances, podcasts (including the brilliant Hi Phi Nation) and his Tedx talk on moral disagreement and free speech. 

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. The winter issue of The Philosopher is out, tackling one of philosophy’s perennial puzzles: the concept of Nothing. If you’d like to order a copy of the latest issue, and subscribe to the journal, go to www.thephilosopher1923.org/subscribe.

Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission

Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

One of the first things we lost as the Covid pandemic began was the handshake. It foreshadowed what would follow in the months ahead: Social distancing, the loss of human touch and our longing for the physical presence of others. As we began living an increasingly disembodied existence on Zoom meetings and video calls with friends and family, many of us had a similar realization: The tactile sensation cannot be replaced with vision and sound.

Historically, much of philosophy downgraded the importance of touch. According to Plato it was vision that brought us closer to the divine, the realm of ideas and reason. Touch, on the other hand, connected us to our lesser, carnal, animal nature.  Aristotle, as usual, had a different take from Plato. For him touch was the most important and philosophical of the senses. 

So what does this philosophical disagreement teach us about the nature of touch? And is the current trend to “live on the internet” the result of a technological accident, or the culmination of a culture that prioritises vision while neglecting our embodied nature? Has the pandemic confirmed the importance of physical presence and touch as part of a good social life?  And what can Ancient Greek medicine teach us about the role of touch in healing?

Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College.

He is extremely prolific, the author of over 24 books on European philosophy and literature (including two novels and a volume of poetry) and has edited or co-edited 21 more.

Long before the pandemic, he had already started work on a project around the philosophy of touch, resulting in the publication of his book Touch: Recovering our Most Vital Sense, which has just been published. The book is a testament to how philosophy can capture something important about our cultural moment, even before events themselves make it explicit to the rest of us.

Guardian pieces referenced: Lost touch: how a year without hugs affects our mental health
I desperately miss human touch. Science may explain why. 

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. The winter issue of The Philosopher is out, tackling one of philosophy’s perennial puzzles: the concept of Nothing. If you’d like to order a copy of the latest issue, and subscribe to the journal, go to www.thephilosopher1923.org/subscribe.

Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission

Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

One set of ethical questions has been looming large since the start of the pandemic: 

How do we evaluate the costs and benefits that result from lockdown measures? 

Is it possible to weight the lives saved by lockdown measures against the unemployment, damage to mental health and education that they resulted in? Or are such comparisons impossible to make?  

Is there a price to human life, and if so, how do we arrive at it? 

What are the ethical principles that we should follow when making decisions under conditions of radical uncertainty? And how has the pandemic challenged our usual framework for making life and death decisions? 

Jonathan Wolff is the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the University of Oxford, and was formerly Blavatnik Chair in Public Policy. 

He has been a public policy advisor on several issues, including gambling regulation, railway safety, bioethics, and at the moment he is co-char of the Working Group for ethics and governance for the Word Health Organisation -  Accelerator Covid Response. 

Jo has written about his experiences as a public policy advisor, and the lessons there are to be learned for both policy and philosophy, in his book Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Enquiry.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. The winter issue of The Philosopher is out, tackling one of philosophy’s perennial puzzles: the concept of Nothing. If you’d like to order a copy of the latest issue, and subscribe to the journal, go to www.thephilosopher1923.org/subscribe.

Music by Pataphysical: https://soundcloud.com/pataphysicaltransmission

Artwork by Nick Halliday: https://www.hallidaybooks.com/design

The reason Covid-19 became the pandemic it did had to do with a distinctly modern phenomenon: global mass travel. Until about a year ago, getting on a plane and travelling thousands of miles across the Earth for a business meeting, or a short holiday in a different country, was something millions of people didn’t think twice about.

These days, travel is one of the things the pandemic has deprived us of, reminding us what a privilege it was to be able to roam freely around the world, making us appreciate what we previously took for granted. 

Travel is one of those topics that philosophers didn’t really think about until the age of discovery, around the 16th century. Francis Bacon, John Locke and René Descartes all thought travel could make one a better philosopher. 

But what is the value of travel? Why do we enjoy visiting far-away places, and getting out of our comfort zone? Is there any value to waiting in airport lounges and train stations? And what are the ethical concerns around doom-tourism?

Emily Thomas is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Durham, and a member of the Institute of Mediaeval and Early Modern Studies. Emily’s research focuses on metaphysics, the study of the general and necessary features of existence, and more specifically the philosophy of space and time. She is the author of two books on the subject,  Absolute Time: Rifts in Early Modern British Metaphysics (2018, Oxford University Press) and Early Modern Women on Metaphysics (2018, Cambridge University Press).

But apart from being a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, Emily is also a lover of travel. Marrying her two passions she wrote a book called  The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad .

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.   Check out the upcoming events and register for free at https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Music by Pataphysical

Artwork by Nick Halliday

One of the many things that the pandemic forced us to rethink is the importance of a sense we usually don’t give much attention to: Our sense of smell. More than half of people with Covid-19 experience the loss of smell or taste and while two-thirds recover within six to eight weeks, many are left without much improvement months down the line. Some of the people who regain their sense of smell, experience it as hugely altered (parosmia) — aromas that they used to enjoy are now overbearingly pungent, and even revolting. 

The recent progress in the scientific investigation of smell means we now know a lot more about it than we did even 30 years ago: We understand that smell works rather differently from other senses, like vision. Just as you can lose your sense of smell, you can train it – and become a lot more sensitive to the nuances of what a wine smells like. But perhaps most importantly, we have understood that our sense of smell is not just the reception of raw data from our environment. Smell involves judgement and interpretation, and so a different context can alter the way we perceive of the same sensory stimuli. Smelling is thinking. 

So what do these new discoveries mean for philosophy? Does our understanding of smell mean that the classic model of the mind as a mirror of the external world is wrong? And what does knowing the role smell plays in our choice of sexual partners mean for our idea of ourselves as rational agents?

Ann Sophie Barwich is  Assistant Professor at Indiana University Bloomington, and an academic with a dual identity: a cognitive scientist as well as a philosopher. 

Ann is the author of the book: Smellosophy: What the Nose tells the Mind , which highlights the importance of thinking about the sense of smell both through empirical research in neuroscience as well as through philosophy and cultural history.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.   Check out the upcoming events and register for free at https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Music by Pataphysical

Artwork by Nick Halliday

On February 22nd, NASA released video footage of the car-sized Rover Perseverance, landing on the surface of Mars. After a journey of seven months and 293 million miles, the robot vehicle finally reached the red planet, with the aim of searching for ancient signs of life on Mars. 

A couple of weeks later, Elon Musk’s company Space X tested a prototype of Starship, a vehicle meant to enable mass interplanetary travel, and the eventual colonisation of other planets by humans. This, according to Musk, would be an insurance policy against possible events like nuclear war or an asteroid collision, that could wipe out all of humanity if we were to remain on Earth.

But is it ethically justifiable for a government to spend billions of dollars on sending a remote control robot to Mars, when that money could be spent on improving the lives of its citizens? Should we leave space exploration to eccentric private individuals, or does that compromise humanity’s future in space? Would it be OK to try and change the surface and atmosphere of Mars, to suit our human needs? And what ethical framework should we apply to our potential future interactions with alien forms of life, if they have evolved in radically different ways from life on Earth? 

Brian Patrick Green is the director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, in California’s Silicon Valley. In his forthcoming book, Space Ethics, he explores many of the moral questions that arise from a future of space exploration.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.   Check out the upcoming events and register for free at https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Music by Pataphysical

Artwork by Nick Halliday

January 1st this year marked the end of the transition period in the UK’s long and tortured journey of leaving the European Union. Four and a half years after the 2016 Brexit referendum the UK began a new chapter in its history, sovereign and independent, as the Leave campaign might have put it, no longer constrained by the EU’s laws and courts.
 
 Underneath those claims lies a variety of different conceptions of freedom. As Isaiah Berlin explained in his famous essay “Two Concepts of Liberty” there are at least two, fundamentally different conceptions of freedom.
 
 So what are these conceptions? And how do they apply to Brexit? Are the claims that the UK is a freer country, now that it’s out of the EU true? Or are such claims concealing the many meanings of the concept of freedom?
 
 A joint episode with a fellow podcaster, Toby Buckle, producer and host of The Political Philosophy podcast.  This conversation was based on an article I wrote for the LSE’s Politics and Policy blog, back in 2016, entitled "Isaiah Berlin and Brexit: How The Leave Campaign Misunderstands Freedom", and Toby’s past solo episode on Berlin’s distinction, entitled “Positive and Negative Freedom”.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.  Register for free for the spring series of talks and events at: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Music by Pataphysical

Artwork by Nick Halliday

What if we’re been thinking about climate change the wrong way? What if it’s not a problem that can be solved, but something that can only be managed? What if climate change is here to stay?

Thom Brooks is the author of Climate Change Ethics for an Endangered World. He is professor of Law and Government at the University of Durham, and the outgoing Dean of the Durham Law School. He is also a public policy advisor and the founding Director of the Labour Academic Network.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.  Register for free for the spring series of talks and events at: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Music by Pataphysical

Artwork by Nick Halliday

In 2019 the US Congress representative Alexandria Occasio Cortez and US senator Edward Markey put forward a resolution called the Green New Deal. Borrowing the name from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, a massive state-led plan to save the economy from the 1929 crash, the Green New Deal proposes an even more ambitious state plan, this time to save the planet from climate change.

The aim of a net-zero carbon emissions economy within the next thirty years, the argument goes, can only be achieved by huge state intervention. The swift closing down of the oil and gas sectors of the economy will require the state to become the leader in investment planning, and even the guarantor of jobs for everyone.

But what assumptions about the economy, the nature of currency and the role of financial institutions do we need to rethink in undertaking such a project? And what are the ethical challenges in giving the state unprecedented power over our future?

Alex Douglas is lecturer in philosophy at the University of St Andrews, author of The Philosophy of Debt and co-director of The Future of Work and Income Research Network.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.  Register for free for the spring series of talks and events at: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Music by Pataphysical

Artwork by Nick Halliday

In 1825 the planet’s human population was 1 billion. In 2011, there were 7 billion human beings on the planet.  With the current projections estimating that by the year 2050 the human population will be 9.6 billion, there is a pressing question:

Can climate change be stopped simply by moving to greener energy sources and reducing the consumption levels of the developed world? Or is something more drastic in order, like curbing the human population growth ? Given the grim history of states trying to control their population, could something like that be morally acceptable? And if so, how would governments around the world go about implementing such a policy?

Sarah Conly is professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College, and author of the book One Child: Do We Have a Right to More? in which she puts forward the argument that in the wake of climate change and the overall environmental destruction, future parents have a moral right to only one child, and that the state should regulate the rate of human reproduction.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.  Register for free for the spring series of talks and events at: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Music by Pataphysical

Artwork by Nick Halliday

According to the received narrative, we have entered a new geological era in the history of our planet, the Anthropocene. Human beings, so the theory goes, have become geological agents, having an impact on the planet so profound that it can only be compared to past ice ages and the early stages of the planet’s formation. 

But this narrative implies that all humans have had a hand in changing the planet, and that that all humans are affected in the same way by climate change. 

Philosophers, historians and geologists have recently been pointing out that this isn’t the case. Climate change affects different groups of people differently, and the same goes for some of the proposed solutions to climate change. Desmond Tutu has spoken of a climate apartheid. “Climate adaptation” he says “is becoming a euphemism for social injustice on a global scale”. 

So what does the South-African cleric and human rights activist mean when he compares some climate change solutions to the apartheid regime? What’s the relationship between climate change and racism?  And how can understanding the origins of both help us put forward solutions that don’t reproduce the inequities of the past?

Nancy Tuana is Professor of Philosophy, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State College of the Liberal Arts. She is the author of several books and papers on feminism, climate change and the nature of racism, including "Climate Apartheid: The Forgeting of Race in the Anthropocene".

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.  Register for free for the spring series of talks and events at: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/events

Music by Pataphysical

Artwork by Nick Halliday

The Philosopher & The News will be resuming next week with guest Camila Vergara, author of Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Society.

If in the meantime you're craving your weekly philosophy fix, I have just the thing for you. This week The Philosopher journal is putting on virtual lectures every single day, to coincide with the release of its spring issue on the topic of Authority and Knowledge.

To see the full program, and register for these events, for free, go to: www.thephilosopher1923.org/events .

What do we have to learn from the Ancient Greeks when it comes to thinking about the corruption of our own political system? Since corruption doesn’t seem to go away simply by electing different leaders, might it be fixed by rethinking our constitutional foundations? And what did Machiavelli mean when he said that  “an evil-disposed citizen cannot effect any changes for the worse in a republic, unless it be already corrupt”?

Camila Vergara is a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University in New York, and the author of Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Society. In her book, Camila argues that our current understanding of corruption as a moral and legal failure that concerns individual bad actors is too narrow, obstructing a much richer understanding of the corruption of government as a systemic problem.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.  The Spring Issue of The Philosopher is out,  tackling a timeless and timely topic, the relationship between Authority and Knowledge.  To order your copy visit: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org


Artwork by Nick Halliday

A year after George Floyd’s death, is America ready for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Why is equality against the law not enough for racism to be defeatted? And how will America’s self-image as a country that pulled itself up from its bootstraps have to change when it finally admits to the huge role slavery played in the wealth it enjoys today?  

Olúfémi Táíwò is Professor of African Political Thought at the Africana Studies and Research Center, at Cornell University. Born in Nigeria, his work aims to expand the African reach in philosophy and, simultaneously, to indigenize the discipline, making it more relevant to Africa and African students.  He is the author of How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa, and last spring Taiwo wrote a powerful essay for The Philosopher journal entitled: “Does the United States need a truth and reconciliation commission?”, now being turned into a book.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal.  The Spring Issue of The Philosopher is out,  tackling a timeless and timely topic, the relationship between Authority and Knowledge.  To order your copy visit: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org


Artwork by Nick Halliday

Why is the political right so riled up about Critical Race Theory? And what does the theory itself actually claim? Has Critical Race Theory simply become an umbrella term for all discourse to do with race and racism? And if so, are the accounts of racism as a systemic issue a watered-down account of Critical Race Theory’s more radical critique and diagnosis of the sources of racism?
 
Tommy Curry is professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.  His book 2018  The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood  won the American Book Award. Curry pulls no punches in his account of how Critical Race Theory has been gentrified by institutional philosophy, and has purposefully forgotten its more radical roots in the work of people like Derrick Bell, who proclaimed that “racism is permanent” and that “black people will never gain full equality in this country." 

On June 13 a new TV channel launched in the UK called GB News, dubbed by many as the UK’s answer to America’s Fox News. 

In an increasingly polarised political environment, is increasingly biased media all we can expect? Is this simply an honest acceptance of the fact that all journalists are biased, that, like all of us, they occupy non-neutral perspectives onto the world of politics? Or is this giving up too quickly on the value of impartiality, when it comes to news coverage? Is there in fact a way for journalists to give us “just the facts”, free of value-judgements and prejudices?  And do worries of journalistic bias conceal some of the bigger problems with our media landscape, and make us draw false equivalences between news organisations that embody very different journalistic standards? 

Joe Mazor is a Senior Lecturer in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Duke Kunshan University and a visitor at the LSE’s Centre for philosophy of the natural and social sciences. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2009 and was then a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton’s Center for Human Values and at Stanford’s Center for Ethics in Society.

He is the author of a two part blog post for the LSE called Media Impartiality: What When and Why and Media Impartiality: How on which this conversation is based. Mazor has a very interesting and original proposal for how to achieve media impartiality, inspired by the adversarial trial model, so make sure you listen to the second part of our conversation when we come to discuss it. 

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org


Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On July 19th, all legal restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic are coming to an end in England. That includes things like social distancing, keeping 2-meters apart from strangers, and the wearing of facemasks on public transport and at airports. Instead, the prime minister said the government would be relying on the personal responsibility of individuals to take any necessary precautions. 

But is this move by the UK government guided by science or ideology? In a pandemic, when our health doesn’t depend only how responsible we are, but on how others behave around us, is personal responsibility an appropriate principle to appeal to? Is the function of the language of personal responsibility to merely shift the blame from government failure onto the public? And is the left’s tendency to resist acknowledgement of the role of personal responsibility in people’s life outcomes in danger of undermining our sense of autonomy and control over our lives? 

 Toby Buckle is the creator and host of The Political Philosophy Podcast

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic games are finally going ahead. But increasing concerns over the games turning into super-spreader event,  means that the athletes will be competing and performing without a live audience. The stadiums will be empty. 

But even without live spectators, the Olympic games will be watched by millions of people around the world. So what is it that gives many of us such a pleasure to watch athletes perform at the peak of their game? Is the pointlessness of sport, the absence of any life or death consequences, part of the reason we enjoy it? Is the ferociously competitive nature of sport, with winners and losers sometimes separated by only milliseconds apart, a good model for life itself?  And most importantly of all questions, why is parkour not a sport? 

Stephen Mumford is a professor of philosophy at the University of Durham, and although a metaphysics, he is also one of the most prolific philosophers of sport, and author of three books on the subject, Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotion, Football: the philosophy behind the game, and more recently: A philosopher looks at sport.

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On August 15, following the swift withdrawal of US military forces in Afghanistan, the city of Kabul was taken over by the Taliban. 20 years since the start of the American offensive against the Taliban, as a response to the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda, Joe Biden did what his two predecessors had promised, but failed to follow through: he ended America’s military involvement in Afghanistan. 

But the immediate collapse of the Afghan government and military that the US had spent years supporting, and the ominous return of the Taliban in power puts into question whether Biden’s decision was the right one. 

Is putting an end to war always the just thing to do? Should the costs and sacrifices suffered during a war determine whether the war should continue or end? Or should a war only end when its original aims have been achieved?

Darrel Moellendorf holds the Chair for International Political Theory and Philosophy at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Mein, and is one of the few philosophers to engage not only with the question of what makes a war morally justifiable, but more importantly, under what conditions is ending a war the morally right thing to do.   

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

This month marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the day two planes, hijacked by members of Al Qaeda, flew into the world trade centre in New York City, killing thousands. A third plane hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon that day, the headquarters of the US military, while a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania, after its passengers managed to divert it from its original target.  A 20-year war in Afghanistan was supposed to have eradicated Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism, but last month, as the United States army was evacuating its personnel and allies from Kabul airport, ISIS K, a different Islamist terrorist  organisation, attacked the airport with suicide bombers, killing at least 60 civilians and 13 US troops.  

Is it the willingness to use violence what defines an extremist? Or is it perhaps their extreme ideas, occupying the far ends of the ideological spectrums of politics and religion? Can the status quo ever be considered extremist? And what do people mean when they say that extremes meet - that extremists of all political orientations and religions have something deep in common?

Quassim Cassam is professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick, and author of the just published book Extremism: A Philosophical Analysis.

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the autumn season of online philosophy webinars: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

Back in May, the UK government introduced a bill that according to its description would aim to strengthen the legal duties on higher education institutions to protect freedom of speech on campuses for students, academics and visiting speakers.

This month, the Higher Education Committee has been hearing oral evidence by academics, activists and students on their views on the bill, before its put before the commons for a vote.  

So is this a bill  trying to solve a real free speech problem on campuses around the country? Or is the government joining the culture wars, exaggerating the degree of cancel culture on campuses, and attempting to help promote the conservative views of its voters, generally unpopular with students and academics?

Are the current legal protections of free speech not enough to ensure that academics and students are able to express themselves freely, and have those who direct threats and abusive messages towards them punished accordingly? 

And is John Stuart Mill’s argument that free speech ensures the dissemination of truth and knowledge still fit for the 21st century?

Arif Ahmed is a reader in philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and a specialist in the philosophy of language, having written books on Wittgenstein and Kripke, among others. Arif is also a passionate defender of free speech, and was one of the academics giving oral evidence to the Higher education committee this month. As you will hear, Arif is broadly in favour of the bill, and despite our disagreement, makes a forceful and passionate case for why he thinks  the protection of free speech by the government has become  necessary. 

Just as the new James Bond has hit the screen, the chatter about who is going to replace Daniel Craig has begun. Some are adamant that it should absolutely not be another white, straight, macho man - the times have moved on from all that. But would changing the character into a woman or a person of colour or with a different sexual orientation be doing violence to the very concept of who James Bond is? And why does it matter who James Bond, a fictional character, is portrayed by? Do the norms of the real world always manage to creep in into the world of fantasy? And was Plato right when he worried about the potential corrupting influence of art?

Adriana Clavel-Vázquez British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Philosophy, at the University of Oxford, working on the ethics of imagination. Adriana's article for the Institute of Art and Ideas, It's time to let James Bond Die, can be found here. 

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the autumn season of online philosophy webinars: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Insulate Britain, a new climate change campaign group, has been blocking major motorways around London in recent weeks. Its demands are simple: The UK government should fund the insulation of all social housing by 2025, as well as put forward a "legally-binding national plan" for insulating all homes in Britain by 2030. 

But is this form of civil disobedience an effective way to gain the public’s sympathy and bring about public policy change? Or are the role models of non-violent resistance like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi over-romanticized and impossible to emulate? 

Is more direct and violent action, like the blowing up of gas pipes, a more effective form of activism, one that gets to point? Or is the contempt for liberal democracy and its processes that such acts imply a dangerous authoritarian streak that requires caution. 

And is it possible to respond to the climate emergency we are facing, while upholding our loyalty to our sluggish democratic processes?

William Scheuerman, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at the University of Indiana, Bloomington and author of many books, including Civil Disobedience.

Bill's  paper "Political Disobedience and the Climate Emergency".


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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the autumn season of online philosophy webinars: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

Mark Zuckerberg wants us to believe that soon enough, we’ll be connecting to each otehr in the metaverse,  a virtual reality in which our avatars will be able to meet in virtual space, have virtual meetings and share virtual experiences. It will seem to us as though we’re really there present  in virtual space, and our experience will feel real, even though they won’t be. 

But should we believe the hype? And even if virtual reality ends up being as exciting as Zuckerberg wants us to think, should we really trust him and his company to curate a whole new internet for us? If Facebook’s products proved to be masterful distraction machines, designed to keep us online and mine our private data, will the metaverse end up being a version of that on steroids? What is the value and significance of virtual experiences, compared to real ones? And what will be the moral status of virtual acts – like murdering someone’s avatar in the metaverse?

Rami Ali is an assistant professor of philosophy at Lebanese American University in Beirut.

And holds a PhD from the University of Miami in Florida.  He works on the phenomenological movement, the philosophy of technology and the philosophy of mind and perception. He is also an avid proponent of virtual reality technology.

Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the autumn issue on Thinking Otherwise: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On November 24th,  27 migrants died trying to cross the Channel to the UK in an inflatable dinghy. This was one of the deadliest incidents of this kind. 

 The UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson blamed France for not taking stricter measures to prevent those who enable such journeys. People trafficking gangs were “literally getting away with murder”, he said. 

 But are the people smugglers really the ones to blame for these deaths? Would tougher sentences on those who offer such services be warranted? Are tougher measures likely to benefit migrants in any way? Or would they end up putting them in situations of even greater danger?

Mollie Gerver is an assistant professor in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. From January 2022 she will be an assistant professor in the Department of Political Economy at King's College London. Her philosophical research focuses on two main topics: consent, and immigration ethics.  

She is the author of the book The Ethics and Practice of Refugee Repatriation and a number of papers on the Ethics of Immigration, one of which we discuss on the podcast: Decriminalizing People Smuggling.