Explore every episode of the podcast Ethics Untangled
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 49. Are We Deceiving Future Generations About Environmental Crises? With Catriona McKinnon | 17 Nov 2025 | 00:45:34 | |
In this episode I talk to Professor Catriona McKinnon, a political philosopher based at the University of Exeter. The topic is the various environmental crises facing humanity today. Obviously lots to discuss there, but Catriona wants to highlight one issue in particular, which is the way one generation can, with or without knowing it, conceal information from future generations about the depth and nature of a crisis. This an issue of intergenerational justice, and its one that Catriona thinks deserves more attention. Some links: RENEW: Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach https://renewbiodiversity.org.uk/ Catriona's University of Exeter site: https://experts.exeter.ac.uk/32795-Catriona-McKinnon Catriona’s book Climate Change and Political Theory https://www.waterstones.com/book/climate-change-and-political-theory/catriona-mckinnon/9781509521661 A lecture by Catriona on postericide Endangering Humanity: An International Crime: https://youtu.be/htQwrrURVOQ?si=DA17u9hBR6qn-iQm. Her book on postericide will be published in 2026 by MIT Press. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 48. How should you act as an in-house lawyer? With Sharon Bridglalsingh | 03 Nov 2025 | 00:42:44 | |
For the last year and a half, Jim Baxter and the consulting team at IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds, have been working with the Law Society of England and Wales on a project looking at the ethics of in-house law. That project has involved talking to lots of lawyers who are both passionate and insightful about the job and the ethical challenges it presents. None more so than Sharon Bridglalsingh, Director of Law and Governance at Milton Keynes City Council. Sharon was kind enough to come on the podcast and share some of her insights in this wide-ranging conversation. The In-House Ethics Framework which IDEA produced for the Law Society is here: https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/in-house/in-house-ethics-framework/. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 39. How should we motivate cosmopolitanism? With Luke Ulas and Josh Hobbs | 19 May 2025 | 00:46:08 | |
Luke Ulas from the University of Sheffield and Josh Hobbs from the University of Leeds are both interested in cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is a name used for a few different political ideas, but the core thought, according to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, is "the idea that all human beings, regardless of their political affiliation, are (or can and should be) citizens in a single community." One might think it's an idea that's in retreat, at least in some countries, today. That's one of the issues we discuss, as well as whether there's a crisis of motivation of cosmopolitanism, what that means and what one might do about it. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 38. Should we be using AI to predict patient preferences? With Nicholas Makins | 05 May 2025 | 00:43:53 | |
This episode is part of what's becoming a bit of an informal series of Ethics Untangled episodes, on ethical issues relating to artificial intelligence applications. The particular application we're looking at this time comes from a healthcare setting, and is called a Patient Preference Predictor. It's a proposed way of using an algorithmic system to predict what a patient's preferences would be concerning their healthcare, in situations where they're incapacitated and unable to tell us what their preferences are. Ethicists have raised concerns about these systems, and these concerns are worth taking seriously, but Dr Nick Makins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Leeds, thinks they can be answered, and that the use of these systems can be justified, at least in some circumstances. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 37. What is relationship anarchy? With Natasha McKeever and Luke Brunning | 21 Apr 2025 | 00:53:04 | |
Relationship anarchy is a radical approach to relationships that goes beyond just rejecting traditional monogamy. Relationship anarchists believe that relationships should never involve having power over each other, in the form of holding each other to obligations. So, for example, relationship anarchists reject the idea of restricting one's partner from entering into any form of intimacy with anyone, even with mutual friends. They also reject any hierarchy of relationships - for example having a central relationship with one person whose agreement is needed for you to have relationships with other people. For relationship anarchists, all relationships should be approached individually and no relationship should involve placing restrictions on any partner. Natasha McKeever, and Luke Brunning, all based at the IDEA Centre, have been looking critically at the ethics of relationship anarchy, and I spoke to them in a wide-ranging conversation about this fascinating topic. Some links to further reading: An article by Luke in The Conversation about relationship anarchy. An ABC article about relationship anarchy. A new book about relationship anarchy. A 'Short Instructional Manifesto for Relationship Anarchy' An article by Aleksander Sørlie, Ole Martin Moen on The Ethics of Relationship Anarchy. A book about relationship anarchy by by Juan-Carlos Pérez-Cortés. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 36. Is drag problematic? With Simon Kirchin | 07 Apr 2025 | 00:52:53 | |
Drag is a type of performance which uses clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles. It's an activity with a long and varied history, and continues to be a very popular form of entertainment, as attested by TV shows such as Ru Paul's Drag Race. It's also distinctive in having faced criticism from several different political directions, including conservative, transgender and feminist perspectives. In this conversation with Simon Kirchin, who is Professor of Applied Ethics, Director of IDEA, The Ethics Centre and someone who has experience as a drag performer himself, we mainly focused on the feminist critique. The problem is that drag typically involves men (a relatively advantaged group) imitating women (a relatively disadvantaged group), in a way that plays on often offensive stereotypes about women, for entertainment. Described in that way, it seems uncomfortably similar to blackface, a form of entertainment which follows a very similar dynamic, at least superficially, on racial lines. Professor Kirchin thinks a moral difference between these two activities can be identified, though, and in the conversation he explains why. You can read Simon's article on the topic here. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 35. What should we do about disruptive speech? With Carl Fox | 17 Mar 2025 | 00:47:36 | |
Misinformation, fake news, hate speech, satire, the arts, political protest. These are all examples of what you might call disruptive speech. A free speech absolutist would say that all of these forms of speech should be tolerated, if not welcomed. On the other hand, it does look as though some of them are disruptive in a good way, and others are disruptive in a bad way. But can we tell the good from the bad in a way that isn't just politically partisan? Carl Fox, Lecturer in Applied Ethics at the IDEA Centre, thinks we can, and that we should treat different forms of disruptive speech differently. Here is Carl's paper on the subject in the Journal of Social Philosophy. Carl co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Media Ethics with fellow Ethics Untangled alumnus Joe Saunders, which contains a chapter by Carl on satire and stability. For further reading, there's Amy Olberding's book on manners and civility. In the interview, Carl mentions a paper on lying by Don Fallis. That's here: Fallis, D. 2009. “What Is Lying?” Journal of Philosophy 106(1): 29–56. And then there's the classic text on freedom and its limits, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty: Mill, J. S. 1974. On Liberty. London: Penguin. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 34. Is AI stealing artists' labour? With Trystan Goetze | 03 Mar 2025 | 00:47:52 | |
Recent developments in AI, including image generation and large language models, have created huge excitement and opened up some really interesting possibilities. But they've also attracted significant criticisms, not least of which is the accusation that they involve large scale theft. This is because they are trained on huge datasets that include the original work of many people, who go uncredited and are unlikely to have given consent to their work being used in this way. Focusing on AI art and the work of artists on which it is built, Trystan Goetze, Senior Lecturer in the Ethics of Engineering at Cornell University, argues that these criticisms are well founded. In Dr Goetze's view, these systems are guilty of stealing artists' labour. Here's a link to Dr Goetze's paper on the topic. Here's a transcript of Bob Dylan's Musicares acceptance speech, that I mention towards the end of the conversation. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 33. Is Internet access a human right? With Merten Reglitz | 17 Feb 2025 | 00:45:46 | |
When I was doing my undergraduate degree back in the 90s, the Internet was a bit of a novelty. It was fun to play with, and you could see theoretically how it was probably going to be quite important. I'm not sure I would have predicted how completely it now pervades every area of human life, though: work, civil society, leisure and social interactions. There's still, however, a significant digital divide. Not everyone has easy access, or any access to the internet, and its systemic importance in all of these areas means this is more of a disadvantage than it's ever been. Merten Reglitz, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, thinks it's time we recognised internet access not just as a significant good, but as a human right. Here is Merten's recently published book on the topic, an overview of it and an article that sets out the book’s main defence of the idea of a new right. An article and another article opposing the idea that internet is a human right. The latest figures on global connectivity from the ITU. Freedom House’s ‘Freedom of the Net’ reports on internet freedom. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 32. Where's the harm in health and safety? With Simon Cassin | 03 Feb 2025 | 00:46:07 | |
After time in the army and the fire service, Simon Cassin became a health and safety professional, and is now the managing director of a training and development consultancy called Ouch. Unusually for someone working in health and safety, he's dedicated some serious study to understanding the deep philosophical ideas underlying the profession, focusing particularly on the idea of harm. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 31. Why is sex work so gendered? With Natasha McKeever | 20 Jan 2025 | 00:40:16 | |
*CONTENT WARNING: This podcast contains some frank discussion of sex and sex work.* While there are all kinds of sex work, by far the most common scenario involves a man paying a woman for sex. It is, in other words, a highly gendered activity. Why? It turns out the answer to this question isn't as obvious as it might at first seem. It turns out, in fact, that there are multiple possible explanations, some of which fit better with the evidence than others. Natasha McKeever has been examining this evidence and trying to come up with a definitive answer, to an explanatory question which also intersects with some ethical questions. For example, would the world be a better place if sex work was less gendered, or if it didn’t exist at all? Moen OM ‘Is prostitution harmful?’ Journal of Medical Ethics 2014;40:73-81. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 30. What should doctors be doing with your data? With Jon Fistein | 06 Jan 2025 | 00:49:07 | |
Do you know what medical information is held about you? Do you know who is allowed to have access to it? Doctors collect lots of data - often quite personal - about their patients. This data needs to be collected, stored, and shared, sometimes quite widely, so that the patients can receive effective care, but also so that the medical profession can better understand diseases, how they spread and how to treat them. In the UK, there is plenty of guidance for GPs about what information they can store, who should have access to it, and when. In fact, according to Jon Fistein, a doctor himself as well as an academic looking at the ethics of health data, there's too much guidance, it's too complex, and it's not always consistent. As a result, most GPs don't really understand what the requirements are, let alone patients. We talked about what can be done about this, and why the traditional idea of patient information being kept 'in the strictest confidence' isn't really going to cut it in today's data-driven healthcare context. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 47. Should we be worried about cancel culture? With Alfred Archer and Georgie Mills | 20 Oct 2025 | 00:47:26 | |
Cancelling and cancel culture are terms that we hear a lot these days, and it's one of the many areas where there seems to be more heat than light. The phenomenon of cancelling has become a front in the so-called culture wars, with one side claiming it's a healthy form of protest, or simply confronting people with the consequences of their actions, while the other side sees it as persecution by an unaccountable mob. Philosophers Alfred Archer (Tilburg University) and Georgie Mills (TU Delft) have tried to disentangle some of the different actions that sometimes get called cancelling, and to help us better understand the ethics of this complex phenomenon. The paper this conversation is based on is available here. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 29. What is touching through? With Robbie Morgan and Will Hornett | 02 Dec 2024 | 00:51:50 | |
Today's question is one which you might not immediately recognise as important or, so to speak, pressing. The question is, what is touching through? It also might not be immediately apparent why this is an ethical question. As Robbie Morgan from the IDEA Centre and Will Hornett from the University of Cambridge explain, however, it's a metaphysical question which has ethical implications. For instance, since assault is defined as unwanted touching, we need to know whether touching has taken place before we can decide whether an assault has taken place. Then there may be cases where, if touching has taken place, it’s taken place through something, and these cases may be tricky to adjudicate. Anyway, in this conversation Robbie and Will introduce some possibilities for what touching through is, before arguing for their preferred explanation. You can decide if you think they’ve put their finger on it. So to speak. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 28. What's wrong with conspiracy theories? With Patrick Stokes | 18 Nov 2024 | 00:47:25 | |
Conspiracy theories seem to be an increasingly prevalent feature of public discourse. No sooner has some significant event taken place, but the internet is full of alternative explanations for that event, involving hidden and nefarious decision-makers. These theories run the gamut from the wildly outlandish to the somewhat plausible, and your view may differ on where the line should be drawn. There are a number of questions about the rationality of conspiracy theories - whether we should reject them wholesale as irrational, for example, or consider each one on its merits. But there are also some interesting ethical questions, and philosophers, including Patrick Stokes, associate professor of philosophy at Deakin University in Melbourne, have been increasingly turning their attention to these questions. What are the moral costs of accusing someone of being a conspiracy theorist? But also, what are the moral costs of accusing someone of being a conspirator? In what ways might conspiracy theorising be corrosive of trust? And how should we respond to people we know who believe conspiracy theories? I really enjoyed this conversation with Professor Stokes, on the line from Melbourne, on what I think is a really important topic which needs some philosophical attention. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 27. How do you assure AI in the NHS? With Adam Byfield | 04 Nov 2024 | 00:47:55 | |
Adam Byfield is Principal Technical Assurance Specialist at NHS England. His job involves providing ethical assurance for technical systems which are used in the NHS, including those which employ artificial intelligence. It's well known that AI, as well as providing some really exciting benefits, raises some distinctive ethical issues, but it was really interesting to talk to someone who is at the sharp end of trying to address these issues. How do you test AI systems in a healthcare setting? What are you looking for? What kind of assurance can you provide to patients and the public? I'm very grateful to Adam for taking the time to talk to me about this really important topic. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 26. Should we be worried about teledildonics? With Robbie Arrell | 21 Oct 2024 | 00:39:52 | |
Should we be worried about teledildonics? *CONTENT WARNING. This episode contains frank descriptions of sexual practices of various kinds, and discussion of sexual assault and rape, including rape by deception.* Teledildonics is a word that refers to the use of networked electronic sex toys to facilitate sexual or quasi-sexual interactions between people at a distance. It's a relatively new type of technology, but one that is becoming more advanced. Clearly, it's a technology that opens up interesting new possibilities! But Robbie Arrell, Lecturer in Applied Ethics at the IDEA Centre, thinks it also raises some serious concerns, not all of which have yet been fully understood. In this conversation, Robbie outlines some of these worries, and begins to consider how we might address them.
Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 25. Should lawyers be fighting for a cause? With Alex Batesmith | 07 Oct 2024 | 00:47:39 | |
Alex Batesmith has had a fascinating career. After beginning as a criminal barrister in Leeds, he went on to work as a United Nations prosecutor in Cambodia and Kosovo, working on cases involving genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He's now a legal scholar working at Leeds University, and has been researching the values and motivations of international criminal lawyers. In this conversation we discussed the idea of 'cause lawyering'. Cause lawyers are lawyers who practice law primarily because of their moral, political or ideological commitments. An example of someone who has arguably been a cause lawyer is the UK's new Prime Minister Kier Starmer, whose previous career as a human rights lawyer appears to have been motivated at least partly by some broader moral commitments, including opposition to the death penalty for example. It's interesting to consider how this outlook complicates the ethical framework under which lawyers operate, which traditionally balances duties to the client with duties to the court, and to the rule of law. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 24. Is your gender like your name? With Graham Bex-Priestley | 16 Sep 2024 | 00:51:10 | |
Gender is, of course, one of the most contentious ethical and political topics you can find at the moment. There are numerous practical and policy debates - for example those relating to medicine, prisons and sport - which can seem completely intractable, and which provoke the strongest possible opinions on all sides. Sitting behind these practical questions, however, is a cluster of theoretical questions, which can be summarised as questions about what gender actually is. Graham Bex-Priestley, a Lecturer at the IDEA Centre, has a novel approach to these questions. He suggests that we should think of someone's gender as being something like their name. In this interview, he explains why. Family resemblance view: Heyes, Cressida. Line Drawings: Defining Women through Feminist Practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. Social position via perceived reproductive role view: Haslanger, Sally. Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Social constraints and enablements view: Ásta. Categories We Live By: The Construction of Sex, Gender, Race, and Other Social Categories. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Critical gender view: Dembroff, Robin. “Beyond Binary: Genderqueer as Critical Gender Kind.” Philosophers’ Imprint 20, no. 9 (April 2020): 1–31. Note the “critical gender” view is about rejecting and destabilising dominant gender ideology and is not to be confused with the “gender critical” movement, which accepts the biological view. Existential self-identity view: Bettcher, Talia Mae. “Trans Identities and First-Person Authority.” In You’ve Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity, edited by Laurie Shrage, 98–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pluralist view: Jenkins, Katharine. Ontology and Oppression: Race, Gender, and Social Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. See also Cull, Matthew J. What Gender Should Be. London: Bloomsbury, 2024. Performative view: Judith Butler's early books (Gender Trouble, Bodies That Matter) are the classics, but they can be difficult. In contrast, Butler's latest book is written for a public audience: Butler, Judith. Who's Afraid of Gender? Allen Lane, 2024 (many of the topics in this book are discussed in their Cambridge public lecture of the same title). Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 23. What is trust? With Christopher McClean | 02 Sep 2024 | 00:34:19 | |
Chris McClean is the global lead for digital ethics at Avanade, a large tech innovation and consulting firm. He's also studying for his PhD at the University of Leeds, spending his time thinking about risk and trust relationships, especially in cases with a significant power imbalance, and where the people making the decisions are different from those exposed to the risk resulting from those decisions. At the end of this conversation, we explored some practical questions related to Chris's day job, about what trust implies for business and the professions and in the digital realm, but in order to get there we first got stuck into the deeper question of what trust means… Hawley, K. “Trust, Distrust and Commitment.” Noûs 48, no. 1 (2014): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12000. Holton, R. “Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72, no. 1 (March 1994): 63–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048409412345881. Kirton, A. (2020). Matters of Trust as Matters of Attachment Security. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 28(5), 583–602. https://doi.org/10.1080/09672559.2020.1802971. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 22. How should we think about informal political representation? With Wendy Salkin | 15 Jul 2024 | 00:49:27 | |
For this episode, I spoke to Wendy Salkin, a philosophy professor at Stanford University, about informal political representatives: people who speak or act on behalf of groups in the political sphere without being elected to do so. Familiar examples include Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malala Yousafzai, and Greta Thunberg. Informal political representatives raise awareness of issues and bring about political change, often achieving things that people with more formal power cannot or do not. But their existence also raises some ethical questions. Do they need to be authorised? Can they be held accountable? What if the things they say diverge from the views of the people they represent? Professor Salkin's book on this subject, Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation, was released by Harvard University Press on July 9th.
Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 21. Should we be worried about academic freedom and no-platforming? With Gerald Lang | 01 Jul 2024 | 00:39:16 | |
In May 2023, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill received Royal Assent after two years of debate in Parliament. The new Act will strengthen the statutory duty already imposed on English higher education providers by previous legislation to secure freedom of speech within the law. Arif Ahmed, a former philosophy professor at Cambridge University, has been appointed as a Director overseeing free speech at the Office for Students, informally known as the 'Free Speech Tsar'. Free speech is one of several fronts in the so-called culture wars. Ahmed has been at great pains to say that his office, and he, will be politically neutral. The idea is to protect the right of academics to express their views, wherever on the political spectrum those views fall. But is there a role for legitimate gatekeeping of academic speaking opportunities? And is there a principled way of making decisions about when, if ever, academics should be prevented from speaking on the grounds that what they say might be harmful? Gerald Lang, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds, has been trying to dig under the headlines to get at the ethical concerns underlying this debate. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 20. What's the meaning of life? With Predrag Cicovacki | 17 Jun 2024 | 00:49:25 | |
Never let it be said that we don't tackle the big questions on this podcast. This week we're discussing no less a subject than the meaning of life, with Predrag Cicovacki. Predrag is Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross (USA), where he has been teaching since 1991. He has served as a visiting professor in Germany, Russia, Luxembourg, Serbia, France, and India. He's interested in problems of good and evil, violence and nonviolence, philosophy of war and peace, and ethics. In 2021, in the midst of very difficult personal circumstances and a global pandemic, Predrag set to work on a book called The Meaning of Life: a Quick Immersion. It's a great book: very clear, heartfelt, personal and full of insights. I hugely enjoyed reading it, and enjoyed even more the opportunity to talk to Predrag about it. You can find out more about Predrag here: Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 46. Should we be worried about words changing their meaning? With Robbie Morgan | 06 Oct 2025 | 00:46:39 | |
Words such as 'woke', 'emotional labour' and 'gaslighting' get bandied around a lot, especially in online discourse. And as they get bandied around, their meaning can change over time. Of course, changes in the meaning of words are natural, inevitable and, usually harmless. However, Robbie Morgan, back for his record-setting third appearance on Ethics Untangled, thinks we should be worried about these changes in meaning, at least sometimes. This isn't just pedantry - it's a concern about the way changes in meaning can rob us of the means to express important concepts, and also about the way these moves can serve political motivations in an illegitimate way. Here's Robbie's paper on the topic: Morgan, Robert (2025), "Hermeneutical Disarmament", The Philosophical Quarterly 75(3): 1071-1093. Here's Robbie's website. And here are the other sources we discuss in the episode:
Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 19. What is technological bias and what should we do about it? With Meredith Broussard | 03 Jun 2024 | 00:33:14 | |
Meredith Broussard is a data journalist and associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University, as well as research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. Her book More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech explores the way technology reinforces inequality and asks the question, what if racism, sexism, and ableism aren't just bugs in mostly functional machinery—what if they're coded into the system itself? It's a great read, full of eye-opening examples and insights, from a writer with the technical and ethical expertise to get to the heart of what is clearly a very significant challenge for society. We were only able to scratch the surface in this short conversation, but it's changed my thinking about technology ethics, and I was very grateful to Professor Broussard for taking the time to talk to us. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 18. Do the dead have rights? With Joseph Bowen | 20 May 2024 | 00:42:18 | |
Ethical questions about the dead are frequently interesting, puzzling, surprising, and weird. All of these things become clear in this conversation with Dr Joseph Bowen. Joe is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds, specialising in moral, political, and legal philosophy. As well as whether the dead have rights, his research focuses on the nature of rights and directed duties, the justifications for and constraints on harming, the nature and scope of duties to rescue, and just war theory. And here are some other readings which might be of interest:
Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 17. Does love transcend time? With Troy Jollimore | 06 May 2024 | 00:46:00 | |
This episode is an exploration of the relationship between love and time with Troy Jollimore. As well as being a Professor in the Philosophy Department at California State University, Troy is a successful poet. His first collection of poetry, Tom Thomson in Purgatory, won the National Book Critics Circle award in poetry for 2006. His third, Syllabus of Errors, appeared on the New York Times' list of the best books of poetry published in 2015. He's also a literary critic, and in this interview he illustrates his ideas with examples from films and literature, as well as real life. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 16. Are Africans unfairly excluded from discussions about environmental ethics? With Munamato Chemhuru | 15 Apr 2024 | 00:42:12 | |
Dr. Munamato Chemhuru is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo, Zimbabwe, and a Senior Research Associate in Philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg in South Africa. He has been working on a project entitled Conceptualising Environmental Justice through Epistemic Justice in Africa, collaborating with former podcast guest Jamie Dow. Munamato's research highlights the way Africans have been subjected to epistemic injustice in the debate around environmental ethics and the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. That's to say, African voices are often ignored, misinterpreted or not taken seriously. This injustice extends to the theoretical frameworks which are used to conceptualise environmental ethics, and towards the end of the interview, Munamato introduces unhu/ubuntu as an alternative ethical framework which promises to enrich our understanding of the ethical terrain in which environmental responsibilities are grounded. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 15. Do politicians with dirty hands owe reparations to victims? With Christina Nick | 01 Apr 2024 | 00:41:45 | |
Politicians sometimes have to make decisions where there is no option that looks good, morally speaking. They may have to get their hands dirty, acting in a way that looks immoral - sometimes powerfully so - in order to avoid some greater evil. This is called the problem of dirty hands, and it's long been of interest to philosophers. However, most of the philosophical work about dirty hands has focused on the person whose hands are dirty: have they acted wrongly, are they blameworthy, how should we respond to them? Christina Nick, a philosopher based at the IDEA Centre, is more interested in the victims of dirty-handed politicians. These victims may have been subjected to quite profound harms as a result of the actions of politicians who were trying to avoid some even worse harm. What does it look like to treat these victims justly? Specifically, are they owed reparations? And if so, what form should these reparations take, and should these reparations be made by, or on behalf of, the politicians who made the decision? Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM6. Relationships Q&A [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:55:20 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring a Q&A session with Kate Lister and Pilar Lopez Cantero. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM5. Pilar Lopez Cantero on Experiences of Breakup and How To Move On Well [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:14:51 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Pilar Lopez Cantero talking about experiences of breakup and how to move on well. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM4 Kate Lister on Whether We Evolved to be Monogamous [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:16:09 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Kate Lister talking about whether we evolved to be monogamous. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM12. The Future of Love Q&A [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:26:16 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring a Q&A session with Brian Earp and Robbie Arrell. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM11. Robbie Arrell on Consent Issues Raised by Teledildonic Technology [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:46:48 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Dr Robbie Arrell on consent issues raised by teledildonic technology. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 45. Are ethicists paying enough attention to social class? With Orla Carlin | 15 Sep 2025 | 00:45:23 | |
Epistemic injustice is a broad category of injustice relating to knowledge. It can involve people from marginalised or oppressed groups being excluded, silenced, misrepresented, or not taken seriously — in conversations, education, or professional settings — because of their membership to that group. In academic contexts, this kind of injustice can distort entire fields of study. Orla Carlin, a scholar at the University of Leeds, explores how this plays out in relation to class. She argues that the literature on epistemic injustice doesn’t adequately account for epistemic injustice that occurs in virtue of class. One reason, she suggests, is the underrepresentation of working-class voices in academia. Her research asks why this underrepresentation exists and points to deeper, systemic forms of epistemic injustice that affect working class people more broadly, perpetuating a vicious circle in which working class people find it more difficult to enter fields which are dominated by middle class voices, and thereby to shape those fields. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM10. Brian Earp on the Ethics of Psychedelically-Assisted Relationship Therapy [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:37:50 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Dr Brian Earp on the ethics of psychedelically-assisted relationship therapy. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM9. Love Q&A [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:28:51 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring a Q&A with MM McCabe and Troy Jollimore. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM8. MM McCabe on Love and Desire in Plato’s Symposium [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:28:07 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Professor MM McCabe on love and desire in Plato’s symposium. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM7. Troy Jollimore on Whether We Love For Reasons [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:33:34 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Troy Jollimore on whether we love for reasons. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM3. Dating and Attraction Q&A [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 01:06:10 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring a Q&A session with Finn MacKay and Tom O'Shea. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM2. Tom O’Shea on Whether We Can Be Responsible For Our Attractions [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:20:56 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Dr Tom O’Shea on whether we can be responsible for our attractions. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| LLM1. Finn Mackay on Queer Identities and Attraction [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:12:28 | |
A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Dr Finn MacKay on queer identities and attraction. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| Introducing Leeds Love Month [Leeds Love Month special episode] | 18 Mar 2024 | 00:01:59 | |
A quick introduction to our special series of episodes featuring recordings from the Leeds Love Month live events organised by the Centre for Love, Sex and Relationships at the University of Leeds. Here's a list of episodes: Finn MacKay on queer identities and attraction Tom O’Shea on whether we can be responsible for our attractions Kate Lister on whether we evolved to be monogamous Pilar Lopez-Cantero on experiences of breakup, and how to move on well Troy Jollimore on whether we love for reasons MM McCabe on love and desire in Plato’s symposium Brian Earp on the ethics of psychedelically-assisted relationship therapy Robbie Arrell on consent issues raised by teledildonic technology Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 14. Is there ever anything wrong with praising people? With Jules Holroyd | 04 Mar 2024 | 00:42:42 | |
Jules Holroyd is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Her teaching and research focuses on understanding the nature of, and addressing, injustices. In this conversation, she turns her attention to praise. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 13. Could rationing help to mitigate climate change? With Rob Lawlor | 19 Feb 2024 | 00:52:10 | |
Rob Lawlor, a philosopher at the IDEA Centre, has been involved in an inter-disciplinary collaboration looking at one possible response to climate change, which is the introduction of rationing. With Nathan Wood and Josie Freear, he's been looking at the history of rationing as well as the ethics. So - not just whether rationing would be morally permissible, but also how it might be received by the public. And what we can learn about this from public attitudes to rationing of food during and after the second world war. When it was first published, the paper got an unusual amount of attention in the media for an academic paper, including lots of positive coverage, but also some disparagement from the likes of Nigel Farage and Richard Littlejohn. As well as discussing the content of the paper, we talked about what that reaction has been like and I gave Rob a chance to respond to some of the ways the paper has been discussed in the media. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 44. Do large language models gossip? With Lucy Osler | 01 Sep 2025 | 00:41:23 | |
Gossip is an ethically interesting phenomenon when humans do it. It creates a bond between the people doing the gossiping, but it does so by implicitly excluding the person being gossiped about, and can cause harm, especially when the gossip is malicious, or simply isn't true. What I hadn't realised until I spoke to Lucy Osler, a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Exeter, is that large language models like ChatGPT and Claude can gossip, or at least they can do something which looks an awful lot like gossip. In this conversation with Lucy, we got into what might be happening, how it might harm people, and what we might be able to do about it. Following my conversation with Lucy, I had an interesting conversation with ChatGPT about the same topic. In the episode we discuss Kevin Roose's interaction with the chatbot Sydney. Here's Roose's own article about that experience: Why a Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled - The New York Times And here are some academic articles that might be of interest: Fisher, S. A. (2024). Large language models and their big bullshit potential. Ethics and Information Technology, 26(4), 67. Hicks, M. T., Humphries, J., & Slater, J. (2024). ChatGPT is bullshit. Ethics and Information Technology, 26(2), 1-10. Alfano, M., & Robinson, B. (2017). Gossip as a burdened virtue. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 20, 473-487. Adkins, K. (2017). Gossip, epistemology and power. Springer International Publishing AG, Gewerbestrasse, 11, 6330. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 12. Can omissions cause? With David Molyneux | 05 Feb 2024 | 00:38:47 | |
Doctors are bound by the ethical requirement to first do no harm. Unfortunately, harm is not something that they can always avoid. Sometimes harm comes about through the actions of doctors, but at other times it comes about because of things they haven't done. David Molyneux is a doctor of medicine who is also working on a doctorate in philosophy, and his PhD thesis is about the difficult ethical questions that arise because of this distinction. Is there a moral difference between doing and allowing harm? But to answer this question, he first needed to get to grips with a prior question: when we allow harm do we thereby cause that harm? And more generally, do allowings, or omissions, cause? McGrath S (2003) Causation and the Making/Allowing Distinction. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 114: 81-86 Woollard F (2012). The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing I: Analysis of the Doing ⁄Allowing Distinction. Philosophy Compass 7: 448–458 Woollard, F and Howard-Snyder, F. 2021. Doing and Allowing Harm. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 edition), Edward N Zalta (ed) URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/fall2021/entries/doing-allowing/ Accessed 15th January 2024. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 11. What should we do about the beauty ideal? With Heather Widdows | 15 Jan 2024 | 00:41:38 | |
Heather Widdows is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Warwick, with expertise in applied ethics, global ethics, bioethics, moral philosophy and feminist philosophy. She's interested in the demands that the beauty ideal places on people, particularly women. Her book Perfect Me was described as 'ground-breaking' by Vogue, and listed by The Atlantic as one of the best books of 2018. In it, she argues that beauty is now an ethical ideal. Not only are women held to an impossible standard, but failure to live up to that standard is seen as a failure of moral character. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 10. What's it like being a podcast host and ethics consultant? With Kevin Macnish | 01 Jan 2024 | 00:44:35 | |
Happy new year! Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||
| 9. What's wrong (or right) with monogamy? With Luke Brunning | 04 Dec 2023 | 00:44:10 | |
Traditionally, monogamy has been the form of romantic relationship which people have been assumed to want to pursue. But there has recently been a growing tendency among some to question this assumption, and instead to pursue polyamorous or other forms of romantic attachment. And this tendency has been reflected in philosophical debates too. Some have gone so far as to question whether monogamous relationships can be defended at all, prompting others to think more deeply about what the distinctive value of monogamous relationships, if any, might be. I spoke to Luke Brunning, a Lecturer in Applied Ethics at the IDEA Centre, and we explored some of this fascinating ethical territory. Finally, he also recommends this book on monogamy by Carrie Jenkins: https://www.routledge.com/Why-Its-OK-to-Not-Be-Monogamous/Clardy/p/book/9781032449784 Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA. Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl | |||