Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Ethics interviews • political philosophy, liberty, free speech • immigration/ICE, policing • assisted dying, brain death • moral psychology: prejudice, extremism, incels • moral value, consciousness, well-being, meaning, death • bioethics, AI, animal rights
This podcast features interview-style conversations about ethics, often drawing on philosophy, psychology, law, history, sociology, economics, and medicine. Across episodes, the host and guests examine how moral concepts apply to contentious real-world issues and to long-running theoretical debates.
A central theme is political and social ethics: immigration enforcement and due process, refugee obligations, free speech and its limits, policing practices, reparations, political moderation versus radicalism, socialism and libertarianism, democratic reform, and the ethics of protest. The discussions frequently focus on how institutions exercise power, how rights are justified, and what obligations citizens and states may have under conditions of uncertainty, risk, or injustice.
Another major strand is bioethics and end-of-life ethics, including debates about assisted suicide and euthanasia, autonomy and paternalism, medical consent (including whether cost information is required), and the meaning of “death” in clinical contexts. Related episodes explore how people understand mortality, fear of death, and how death connects to well-being and meaning in life.
The show also covers moral psychology and prejudice, addressing the roots of bias, the dynamics of extremist movements, and the psychology of stigmatized or violent subcultures. Alongside applied topics, the podcast returns to foundational questions about moral value and moral status—such as how consciousness matters morally, how to measure well-being, the plausibility of hedonism, and what grounds rights for humans and nonhuman animals. Emerging technology and society appear as well, including moral questions around AI, automation, and workplace change, as well as cultural topics like gaming and secular community-building.
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Episodes:
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#88 - Comparing Eastern and Western Philosophy | Richard Kim
2026-Mar-01
49 minutes
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#87 - The Psychology of Incels | Miriam Lindner
2026-Feb-22
54 minutes
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#86 - Nazi Doctors | Hedy Wald, David Shuster, Ashley Fernandes
2026-Feb-08
62 minutes
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#85 - The Moral Relevance of Consciousness | Neil Levy
2026-Feb-01
44 minutes
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#84 - Former FBI Talks About ICE, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti | Luke Hunt
2026-Jan-27
55 minutes
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#83 - The Psychology of Prejudice | Christine Reyna
2026-Jan-21
61 minutes
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#82 - Why It's Okay to be a Moderate | Marcus Arvan
2025-Dec-22
52 minutes
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#81 - The Invention of Good and Evil | Hanno Sauer
2025-Dec-09
75 minutes
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#80 - The Limits of Liberty | Sarah Conly
2025-Nov-23
46 minutes
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#79 - The Refugee Crisis | Serena Parekh
2025-Nov-09
52 minutes
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#78 - Atheist Churches | Jacqui Frost
2025-Oct-26
57 minutes
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#77 - Anti-Natalism 101 | Ben Bradley
2025-Oct-12
53 minutes
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#76 - What Makes You Male or Female? | Tomas Bogardus
2025-Sep-28
63 minutes
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#75 - Are Brain Dead Patients Really Dead? | Heidi Klessig
2025-Sep-14
53 minutes
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#74 - The Fear of Death | Tom Cochrane
2025-Sep-01
57 minutes
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#73 - A Personal Story About White Supremacy | Tony McAleer
2025-Aug-17
49 minutes
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#72 - What's a Meaningful Life? | Thaddeus Metz
2025-Aug-03
54 minutes
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#71 - The Left Needs to Self-Scrutinize | Eric Heinze
2025-Jul-29
57 minutes
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#70 - Effective Altruism | Richard Yetter Chappell
2025-Jul-20
54 minutes
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#69 - What You Need to Know About ICE | Joseph Tsang
2025-Jul-13
59 minutes
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#68 - Death and the Meaning of Life | Rivka Weinberg
2025-Jul-06
55 minutes
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#67 - Nudges and Consent | Mollie Gerver
2025-Jun-23
49 minutes
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#66 - A Libertarian Argument for Reparations | Mark Reiff
2025-Jun-08
62 minutes
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#65 - The Philosophy of Violent Protest | Jennifer Kling
2025-May-26
59 minutes
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#64 - Informed Consent Requires Knowledge of Price | Samuel Director
2025-May-12
54 minutes
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#63 - The Problem with Standardized Tests | Alfie Kohn
2025-Apr-27
26 minutes
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#62 - Automation and the Future of Work | Aaron Benanav
2025-Apr-13
54 minutes
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#61 - The Ethics of Sex Work | Jessica Flanigan
2025-Mar-30
57 minutes
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#60 - Intergenerational Ethics | Elizabeth Finneron-Burns
2025-Mar-16
53 minutes
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#59 - Why Free Speech is Everything | Eric Heinze
2025-Mar-02
53 minutes
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#58 - Moral Artificial Intelligence | Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
2025-Feb-16
48 minutes
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#57 - How Economics Can Save the World | Erik Angner
2025-Feb-02
54 minutes
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#56 - What's the Purpose of the Universe? | Philip Goff
2025-Jan-26
50 minutes
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#55 - Animal Rights | Raffael Fasel
2025-Jan-20
55 minutes
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#54 - Hedonism | Roger Crisp
2025-Jan-05
50 minutes
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#53 - Measuring Well-Being | Joseph Moore
2024-Dec-22
46 minutes
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#52 - It's OK to be a Gamer | Sarah Malanowski and Nicholas Baima
2024-Dec-08
49 minutes
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#51 - Socialism | Scott Sehon
2024-Nov-24
60 minutes
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#50 - Police Deception and Dishonesty | Luke Hunt
2024-Nov-10
61 minutes
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#49 - The Future of Assisted Suicide | Philip Nitschke (Part 2)
2024-Oct-27
45 minutes
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#48 - Suicide is a Right | Philip Nitschke (Part 1)
2024-Oct-27
51 minutes
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#47 - Immigration and Freedom | Chandran Kukathas
2024-Oct-20
50 minutes
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#46 - A Secular Case Against Assisted Suicide | Kevin Yuill
2024-Oct-13
64 minutes
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#45 - More Play, Less Productivity | Alec Stubbs
2024-Sep-29
65 minutes
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#44 - Democracy Without Elections | Alex Guerrero
2024-Sep-22
52 minutes
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#43 - Criticisms of Libertarianism | Chris Freiman
2024-Sep-15
43 minutes
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#42 - Expand Assisted Dying | Eric Mathison
2024-Sep-01
57 minutes
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#41 - Posthumous Harm | David Boonin
2024-Aug-18
53 minutes
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#40 - Anti-Semitism | Jonathan Judaken
2024-Aug-11
65 minutes
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#39 - Imane Khelif, Lin Yu Ting, and Olympic Boxing | Holly Lawford-Smith
2024-Aug-10
67 minutes
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#38 - Imane Khelif, Lin Yu Ting, and the Olympic Boxing Controversy | Joanna Harper
2024-Aug-06
26 minutes
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#37 - Race in America | Daryl Davis
2024-Aug-04
55 minutes
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#36 - Normothermic Regional Perfusion | David Magnus
2024-Jul-29
53 minutes
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#35 - Against Democracy | Jason Brennan
2024-Jul-21
53 minutes
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#34 - Dehumanizing Rhetoric and the Assassination Attempt on Trump | David Livingstone Smith
2024-Jul-15
30 minutes
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#33 - What is Dehumanization? | David Livingstone Smith
2024-Jul-09
56 minutes
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#32 - Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking | Thaddeus Pope
2024-Jun-23
43 minutes
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#31 - Sex and Gender | Holly Lawford-Smith
2024-Jun-09
108 minutes
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#30 - The Ethics of Human Enhancement | Julian Savulescu
2024-May-27
59 minutes
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#29 - A Conversation About Israel and Palestine | David Enoch
2024-May-20
57 minutes
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#28 - Vaccine Mandates and Science Dissenters | Arthur Caplan
2024-May-20
32 minutes
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#27 - Being Transgender in a Cisgender World | Sophie Grace-Chappell
2024-Apr-28
56 minutes
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#26 - Longtermism | Arden Koehler
2024-Apr-14
41 minutes
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#25 - Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery | Annalisa Enrile
2024-Mar-31
56 minutes
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#24 - The Roots of Our Political Divide | Ronnie Janoff-Bulman
2024-Mar-17
40 minutes
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#23 - Immigrants, Asylum, and the Migrant Crisis | Joseph Tsang
2024-Mar-10
53 minutes
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#22 - Trans Women and Sports | Joanna Harper
2024-Mar-03
40 minutes
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#21 - Universal Basic Income | Karl Widerquist
2024-Feb-25
53 minutes
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#20 - Opioid Dependency and the Opioid Epidemic | Travis Rieder
2024-Feb-18
58 minutes
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#19 - The Origins of Morality | Victor Kumar
2024-Feb-04
56 minutes
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#18 - Discrimination Against the Dying | Philip Reed
2024-Jan-22
40 minutes
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#17 - Jury Nullification | Travis Hreno
2024-Jan-07
53 minutes
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#16 - What Motivates Atheists | Rik Peels
2023-Dec-25
51 minutes
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#15 - Medical Assistance in Dying | Stefanie Green
2023-Dec-11
52 minutes
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#14 - John Stuart Mill and Free Speech | Piers Turner
2023-Nov-26
57 minutes
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#13 - Death, Physician-Assisted Suicide, and Euthanasia | Travis Timmerman
2023-Nov-12
36 minutes
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#12 - The Privatization of Everything | Donald Cohen
2023-Oct-29
50 minutes
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#11 - Police Ethics | Brandon del Pozo
2023-Oct-15
51 minutes
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#10 - In Favor of Veganism | Gary Francione
2023-Oct-01
71 minutes
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#9 - The Milgram Experiment | Matt Hollander and Jason Turowetz
2023-Sep-17
53 minutes
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#8 - The Role of Philosophy in Medical Ethics | Matthew Shea
2023-Sep-17
62 minutes
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#7 - Life Sentences Are Unjust | Judith Lichtenberg
2023-Sep-17
52 minutes
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#6 - Morality is for Promoting Cooperation | Mark Alfano
2023-Sep-17
45 minutes
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#5 - People Have a Right to Immigrate | Michael Huemer
2023-Sep-17
47 minutes
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#4 - Humanism, Atheism, & Religion | James Croft
2023-Sep-17
74 minutes
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#3 - Serve Others, Not Yourself | Colin Jones
2023-Sep-17
58 minutes
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#2 - Soldiers Should Have Empathy | Kevin Cutright
2023-Sep-17
59 minutes
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#1 - Confucianism and Well-Being | Richard Kim
2023-Sep-17
41 minutes
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