In the CAVE: An Ethics Podcast

In this podcast, Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Dr Matthew Sims discuss the challenge of trying to determine whether organisms without neurones have cognitive capacities.  The podcast features Matt’s paper, “The Principle of Dynamic Holism: Guiding Methodology for Investigating Cognition in Nonneuronal Organisms”, published in the Philosophy of Science (2024; 91: 430-448).

In this podcast, Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Professor Anna Smajdor from the University of Oslo explore Anna’s provocative suggestion that pregnancy is a disease.  The podcast features Anna’s paper, “Is pregnancy a disease? A normative approach”, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2024.

Strategic human rights litigation sits at the intersection of law, ethics, and politics. It promises that courts can serve as vehicles for driving social progress by giving voice to those who have been marginalised. But this promise comes with significant challenges: the absence of a federal bill of rights in Australia, the risks of backlash and bad precedent, the danger that the voices of those m...

Empathy might seem like a private emotion, something that belongs to the realm of personal relationships rather than public policy. But social media platforms are actively shaping the conditions under which we empathise, or fail to empathise, with one another. When algorithms decide what suffering we see, how it’s framed, and how quickly we move past it, they are not neutral tools. They are helpin...

We are told that Generative AI is the future. But what if that future is built on, as one commentator puts it, the "largest theft of intellectual labor in history"? AI models are trained by ingesting vast amounts of creative works—including art, music, computer code, and writing—often without permission from, or payment to, the creators of that content. These same models are now generating content...

Milk is largely taken for granted as a food source in many societies. However, the fact that milk is considered such a normal and staple part of many diets obscures various questions that we might have about what ‘milk’ actually is, and what the ethical implications are of making milk a central part of human diets.   In this podcast, Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Dr Annie Sandruss...

There are many assumptions about autistic people and their presumed desire to be alone. But being alone can also lead to profound experiences of loneliness, which can be detrimental to the lonely person’s health. Increasing evidence suggests that autistic people experience loneliness at higher rates than non-autistic people. But little is understood about the causes of loneliness in autistic peopl...

One potential solution to the various ecosystem crises we face is to genetically engineer organisms better to survive in a changing climate. Synthetic biology offers the tools to attempt this, by introducing various genetic modifications to help organisms avoid extinction in their rapidly degrading environments. But how does an intervention like genetic modification fit with the conservation scien...

We typically think of beliefs as cognitive representations of the world that should be responsive to evidence and truth. In contrast, emotions are very different sorts of mental states: they seem to be non-cognitive, perhaps non-representational, and they have a certain feeling to them. Or so the traditional story goes. But what happens when beliefs don't seem so straightforward? What about deeply...

Many of us enjoy video games, immersing ourselves in rich virtual worlds where we can perform actions that would be unthinkable in reality. We might slay dragons, topple empires, or even engage in virtual theft and violence, often without a second thought. But are there ethical lines that we should not cross in these digital spaces? What happens when virtual actions mirror morally reprehensible ac...

Imagine that you are a doctor with deeply held moral or religious beliefs that conflict with providing certain medical treatments. For example, perhaps you oppose physician-assisted dying, or you have religious objections to performing certain reproductive healthcare procedures. How should healthcare systems handle these situations where healthcare professionals want to conscientiously refuse to p...

We've all seen the headlines: "20% of Americans believe the government is using COVID vaccines to microchip the population"; "12 million Americans think lizard people control their country."; or “9% of Australians believe that the government is covering up the fact that 5G mobile networks spread coronavirus”. These kinds of survey results about conspiracy theory beliefs often go viral on social me...

We often imaging novelists as solitary creatures, shut away in a room, labouring over their keyboards and relying on their imaginations for the words that fill the page. But even before the advent of AI, this image did not ring true for all novelists. Many had assistants to do research and check facts, and editors to massage the raw prose into the finished product. Usually these people would be ac...

From the ventilator to the pulse oximeter to the surgical robot, medical care is mediated by sophisticated devices. It takes time to learn to use these devices safely. They require upkeep from skilled technicians. If something goes wrong, the consequences may be devastating for the patient. So how do Australian hospitals ensure that clinicians know how to use devices safely, when to update them, h...

Australia prides itself on being a secular, multi-cultural state. Section 116 of the Australian Constitution declares that:  The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwe...

The concept of "self-care" has become ubiquitous in recent years - we're urged to take bubble baths, book spa days, and indulge in retail therapy to cope with the stresses of modern life. But what often gets lost in this wellness rhetoric is that self-care has much deeper roots, originating in the Black feminist tradition as a form of resistance and survival in the face of systemic racism. As Audr...

Given the ubiquity of streaming services as well as the enduring popularity of cinemas, we are probably watching more films now than at any other time in human history. Films entertain, distract, fill an otherwise empty hour or two, facilitate social interactions, split audiences, provoke controversy and more. However, most of us would probably not add “doing philosophy” to that list. But this is...

Psychopathy holds a certain fascination for crime writers and philosophers alike. Characters such as Harris’ Hannibal Lector, Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and Steinbeck’s Cathy Trask fascinate and repel readers with their indifference to the pain and distress of others. Philosophers’ interest in psychopaths revolves around the question of whether or not they are morally responsible for the harms they ca...

 Imagine that you're a student struggling with writer's block on an essay assignment. What if you could turn to an AI tutor for help - one that could not only offer suggestions for improving your prose, but could even generate entire paragraphs or complete drafts based on a few simple prompts? With the rapid advancement of AI and large language models such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity AI, thi...

Generative AI technologies, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and text-to-image tools such as Stable Diffusion, have exploded in popularity. These tools can produce everything from philosophy essays, poems, and computer code to high-realism images, with a few simple prompts. For example, you could prompt a Gen AI tool to create a self-portrait of Picasso with a bandaged ear in the style of Van Gogh, and yo...

Could the AI personal assistant on your phone help you to manufacture dangerous weapons, such as napalm, or illegal drugs or killer viruses? Unsurprisingly, if you directly ask a large language model, such as ChatGPT, for instructions to create napalm, it will politely refuse to answer. However, if you instead tell the AI to act as your deceased but beloved grandmother who used to be a chemical en...

Just imagine that you are lying down in the warm sand, relaxing while enjoying the sun and sea on a lazy holiday. Wouldn’t it be nice if every day was like that? Many of us have enjoyed the fantasy of quitting our jobs, moving somewhere exotic, and living a simpler and more meaningful life. Wouldn’t a life without the trouble of work be a more fulfilling one? With the ever-increasing sophisticatio...

Assisted reproductive technologies are now pervasive in Australia, with around 1 in 20 babies born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or other technologies. IVF has been used to help people make families since 1978. However, for women without a functioning uterus, the options were limited to adoption or surrogacy until relatively recently. In 2014 a Swedish team announced the first live birth of...

Many of us take our legal identity for granted. We are easily able to apply for passports, bank accounts and other services that require proof that we are who we claim to be. But around one billion people lack proof of their legal identity, impacting their human rights in adverse ways. It can be a difficult matter to establish legal identity. Mechanisms ranging from birth registration through to b...

You call out to your favourite AI voice assistant and ask it to play an obscure song. Unfortunately, it starts playing the wrong song, which leads you to verbally abuse it. After a brief pause, the AI responds submissively. Is there anything wrong with your behaviour? And does it matter that the AI voice assistant was designed, by predominately male teams, to sound like a submissive woman? Siri, A...