TrueSciPhi

Podcast Profile: Uehiro Lectures: Practical solutions for ethical challenges

Site • RSS • Apple Podcasts
6 episodes
2017
Median: 52 minutes
Collection: Philosophy

Description (podcaster-provided):

Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):

This podcast presents public lectures in practical ethics and political philosophy, aiming to bring analytic philosophical methods to contemporary moral and social problems in a way that remains accessible beyond academia. Across the episodes, listeners hear extended arguments from leading philosophers, often structured as multi-part lecture series, sometimes followed by roundtable discussion with other scholars to probe objections, clarify concepts, and explore implications.

A major theme is equality—what it means, when it matters, and how it should shape institutions and personal conduct. The lectures distinguish among different ideals such as equal treatment, equal status, and equality of opportunity, examining the philosophical justifications for each and the ways they can come apart in practice. The content focuses on conceptual analysis as well as normative reasoning: what grounds claims of injustice, what kinds of differences are morally relevant, and how to evaluate competing interpretations of fairness.

Another recurring focus is sex, gender, and feminism, approached through the lens of shifting social norms and technological change. The episodes consider the difficulty of building a coherent legal and social framework for relations between the sexes, and how debates about sex equality can be muddied by ambiguities, hidden assumptions, and rhetorical shortcuts. Particular attention is given to the pressures placed on moral and political thinking by developments such as reproductive technologies, and to how older arguments in the history of feminist thought can illuminate present disputes.

Overall, the podcast’s episodes emphasize careful reasoning about contested public questions, highlighting how philosophical distinctions and argumentative rigor can inform discussions of policy, rights, and social practices in areas where intuition and ideology often collide.