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In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 7 of the show! Join your hosts, Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, from the Macquarie University Ethics and Agency Research Centre, as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ moral philosophy, agency, responsibility • AI ethics: alignment, copyright, authorship, education, work • bioethics: pregnancy, reproductive tech, healthcare objection, medical devices • technology and cognition, attention, empathy, conspiracy beliefs • law, human rights, race, religious privilege • animal and food ethics, conservation biotechnologyThis podcast features academic-style conversations in ethics and philosophy about how people can live well as moral agents in a complex social and technological world. Hosted by philosophers at Macquarie University, it uses recent research—often journal articles, books, or works in progress—as a springboard for examining real-world dilemmas and the concepts needed to think clearly about them.
Across the episodes, a major theme is the ethical impact of emerging technologies. Discussions range from large language models and generative AI to copyright, authorship, alignment and safety, education, workplace meaning, social robotics, and the ways platform design and algorithms shape empathy, attention, misinformation, and radicalisation. Related questions about moral agency in digital environments also appear, including how (or whether) moral norms apply in virtual worlds such as video games.
Another recurring focus is bioethics and healthcare, including conscientious objection, reproduction and pregnancy, uterus transplantation, medical device industry relationships in hospitals, and the use of animals and AI in research and clinical care. The podcast also frequently connects ethics to law and public policy through topics like strategic human-rights litigation, legal identity, religious privilege in ostensibly secular states, and problems of exclusion in democratic deliberation.
Alongside applied issues, the show returns to foundational questions in moral psychology and philosophy of mind, including belief formation and “bad beliefs,” conspiracy theory endorsement, empathy and psychopathy, anger and responsibility, loneliness and othering, memory and self-narratives, and even whether cognition can exist without neurons. Environmental and food ethics also feature, including conservation goals, synthetic biology, animal welfare, meat consumption, and the ethical implications of everyday foods like milk.
| Episodes: |
Can bacteria make decisions? Exploring cognition in nonneural organisms, with Dr Matthew Sims2026-Jun-23 27 minutes |
Is pregnancy a disease? With Professor Anna Smajdor2026-Jun-16 29 minutes |
Strategic Human Rights Litigation in Australia, with Dr Ebony Birchall2026-Jun-09 36 minutes |
Digital Empathy and Social Media, with Dr Bhanuraj Kashyap2026-Jun-02 30 minutes |
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Special Episode: AI, Copyright, and Model Collapse, with Professor Alain Strowel 2025-Aug-26 30 minutes |
Ontology and the Ethics of Milk: A Relational Materialist Approach2025-Jul-22 25 minutes |
Loneliness and Being Other/ed in Autism2025-Jul-15 29 minutes |
Synthetic Biology and the Goals of Conservation, with Christopher Lean2025-Jul-08 31 minutes |
Feeling is Believing? Exploring Belief as Emotion with Professor Miriam Schleifer McCormick2025-Jul-01 31 minutes |
The Gamer's Dilemma: Navigating Morality in Virtual Worlds, with Dr. Tom Montefiore2025-Jun-25 27 minutes |
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Do People Really Believe in Conspiracy Theories? With Dr Robert Ross 2025-Apr-10 17 minutes |
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Public Reason and Conscientious Objection in Healthcare, with Dr Doug McConnell 2025-Apr-10 34 minutes |
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Can ChatGTP be an author? Exploring the ethics of AI creative writing assistance with Paul Formosa. 2025-Mar-03 33 minutes |
Exploring the roles of medical device reps in Australian hospitals: ethical challenges, with Dr Brette Blakely2025-Feb-24 30 minutes |
The law and religious privilege, with Mareike Riedel2024-Jul-16 30 minutes |
Epistemic Appropriation and the history of being “woke”, with Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky2024-Jul-09 27 minutes |
Film-Philosophy, Cinematic Ethics and the Transformative Experience of Film, with Robert Sinnerbrink2024-Jul-02 33 minutes |
Empathy, Moral Understandings and Psychopaths with Heidi Maibom2024-Jun-25 29 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 3: Responsible AI and the Future of Education, with Virginia Dignum2024-Jun-18 18 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 2: Generative AI and Copyright – Where to from here? With Rita Matulionyte2024-Jun-11 26 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 1: The AI Alignment Problem, with Raphaël Millière2024-Jun-04 28 minutes |
Should we aim for a world without work? With Jean-Philippe Deranty2023-Dec-12 42 minutes |
From Theory to Practice: The Ethics of Uterus Transplantation with Mianna Lotz2023-Dec-05 28 minutes |
Legal Identity and Human Rights with Christopher Sperfeldt2023-Nov-28 23 minutes |
AI, Robots and Gender with Inês Hipólito2023-Nov-21 26 minutes |
AI, Ethics and Meaningful Work with Sarah Bankins2023-Nov-14 24 minutes |
Do human races exist? An exploration of social constructionism about race with Adam Hochman2023-May-15 22 minutes |
Remembering and self-narratives with Regina Fabry2023-May-08 24 minutes |
The Pleistocene Social Contract with Kim Sterelny2023-May-01 21 minutes |
Animal welfare and food ethics with Rachel Ankeny2023-Apr-24 27 minutes |
Smartphones, mind-wandering, and the attention economy with Jelle Bruineberg2023-Apr-17 17 minutes |
Exclusion and Uptake in Deliberative Democracy with Professor Sarah Sorial2022-Sep-20 18 minutes |
Bad Beliefs with Professor Neil Levy2022-Sep-13 18 minutes |
Enculturation, Cognition and Technology with Professor Richard Menary2022-Sep-06 19 minutes |
Moral Conflicts in a Pandemic with Professor Wendy Lipworth2022-Aug-30 15 minutes |
Moral Responsibility and Anger with Professor Michael McKenna2022-Aug-23 30 minutes |
In the CAVE Season Two Coming this Wednesday!2022-Aug-22 1 minute |
Gender Bias in Surgery with Dr Katrina Hutchison2022-Feb-14 29 minutes |
YouTube, Radicalisation, and Conspiracy Theories with A/Prof Mark Alfano2022-Feb-14 14 minutes |
The Ethics of using Animals in Research with Dr Jane Johnson2022-Feb-14 14 minutes |
The Ethics of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare with Professor Wendy Rogers2022-Feb-14 18 minutes |
The Ethical Impacts of Social Robots on Human Autonomy with A/Prof Paul Formosa2022-Feb-14 21 minutes |