Moral Maze

Are we at risk of becoming “an island of strangers”? The Prime Minister, backtracking on many fronts, has apologised for the phrase - he says he hadn’t read it properly before he said it – but he’s backed a grand-sounding Independent Commission that’s now at work to fix a society it says is a “tinderbox of division”. Is it? Social attitude surveys suggest we’re one of the most tolerant countries o...

ID cards are back on the political agenda, digital this time, being pushed by an influential group of Labour MPs, and – surveys suggest – public opinion, which is increasingly worried about illegal immigration and benefit fraud. Time was, when privacy was a free-born Briton’s birthright and a policeman asking for your papers anathema, the mark of foreign dictatorships. We live in a different world...

The National Health Service is at a crossroads. Systemic pressures are lengthening hospital waiting times. Resources are finite. That’s why the government is coming up with a 10 year plan to make the NHS ‘fit for purpose’. But what is the ethical purpose of the NHS? The ethical ambition has always been that everyone, regardless of their background, should have equal access to healthcare. It’s seen...

Self-defence, as a justification for war, is much more difficult to argue if you strike the first blow. The Israelis say their devastating pre-emptive strike on Iran is a special, truly existential, case. A regime, long committed to their destruction was, according to Israel, within weeks of developing nuclear weapons, just one of which could effectively wipe out their state and most of its citize...

There’s been a fair amount of focus on the concept of pronatalism recently and debate over whether it is left or right wing for governments to introduce policies that encourage women to have more babies. Others argue that the matter is too big to be consumed by the culture wars. This week, the United Nations Population Fund issued its strongest statement yet on fertility decline, warning that hund...

Almost the first thing the newly chosen Pope Leo XIV did was to warn of the dangers of Artificial intelligence, of technological advance outstripping human wisdom. AI promises unapparelled efficiency, streamlined lives, complex problems solved in milliseconds. But will it make humans redundant literally and metaphorically? Will it hijack creativity? Will it imprison us in our prejudices? Will it d...

President Trump has imposed tariffs on all America’s trade; China has hit back; other nations, including our own, are working out how to cope with what Sir Keir Starmer has called a “new world” governed by “deals and alliances” rather than rules. In this crisis, we have turned to the economists, who argue about percentages. But shouldn't we be asking – what is the moral thing to do? Trump’s ‘MAGA’...

Last year was a record-breaking year for poetry sales. In the age of smartphone ‘doom scrolling’, that might seem surprising. But the boom is in part due to social media. The bestseller is the Scottish poet Donna Ashworth, who has been described as "a cheerleader of Instapoetry". Her verse is short, direct and shared online. She has both brought poetry to a new audience and prompted a backlash. Ac...

The Netflix drama ‘Adolescence’ has prompted a national conversation about a ‘crisis of masculinity’. In a society where gender roles are changing, progressive attitudes are in tension with traditional ideas about male behaviour. Studies suggest Gen Z men and women are more divided than those of any other generation on questions about feminism, gender roles and women’s rights. Meanwhile, teachers...

Proposed new guidance from the Sentencing Council for England and Wales – which is due to come into effect in April – would make the ethnicity, faith or personal circumstances of an offender a bigger factor when deciding whether to jail them. The independent body is responsible for issuing guidelines “to promote greater transparency and consistency in sentencing”. Official figures show that offend...

Sir Keir Starmer has called the current benefits system unsustainable, indefensible and unfair, and said it was discouraging people from working while producing a "spiralling bill". The Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said there is a “moral case” to cut the welfare budget ahead of the Chancellor’s Spring Statement. Spending on sickness benefits, including a rise in mental health disability c...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his "gratitude" for US military support. It comes after the heated exchange in the Oval Office, where President Trump and Vice-President Vance told Zelensky he was not thankful enough. Cicero referred to gratitude as "the parent of all virtues", but like all virtues, it plays a complex role in our moral life. Ancient philosophers like the stoics...

Three years on from the invasion of Ukraine, President Trump has called President Zelensky a 'dictator', leaving many to conclude that the US has sided with Russia. We have entered a new phase of an already unstable global order. Keir Starmer meets Donald Trump this week. How should Britain respond? Emphasise friendship in the hope of gaining influence in Washington or stand up to Trump in the kno...

In every species, including homo sapiens, the family is nature’s way of passing inequality down the generations. The family gives us our genetic make-up and a large proportion of our training, education, socialisation and cultural attitudes. It may bequeath to us wealth or poverty. None of this is fair. Should we get cross about silver spoons and livid about nepotism? We don’t seem to. Inheritance...

Here are the instructions for your office Christmas party, issued by the Public and Commercial Services Union: “Sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour are just as unacceptable at social events as they are in the workplace. This includes unwelcome comments, gestures or physical actions. Alcohol is not a defence for such conduct and employers are obligated to address these issues seriously.”...

After decades of despotism, Syria is facing an uncertain but cautiously hopeful future - though many are sceptical about the sort of government that will replace the dynastic Assad regime. While Syria has endured 13 years of civil war, another shock has been the unravelling of South Korea, formerly a beacon of stability, with the president's short-lived attempt to declare martial law. And then the...

The allegations about Gregg Wallace’s behaviour on set have been described as being part of a "toxic environment". Once primarily used in the domain of plants, arrows and chemicals, “toxic” - which is defined as “poisonous” – only relatively recently started being applied to workplaces and people: parents, siblings, neighbours, exes and co-workers. Those who have experienced a toxic work culture o...

The debate around assisted dying exposes fundamental questions about our attitudes to death. We will all die. Nothing is more certain. But it’s not something most of us really think about, apart from superficially. We can often think of death as something that happens to other people. There’s a paradox – we are more distanced from death than our ancestors, yet we are exposed to it every day in the...

Donald Trump has made some eyebrow-raising, some might say jaw-dropping, appointments to his top team. While a number of the appointees still need Senate approval, they all appear united by one thing – loyalty to Donald Trump. Some consider loyalty to be a foundational virtue that is central to close friendships. Seneca, called it “the holiest virtue in the human heart”. It is more than simply “su...

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has pulled his new children's book from the shelves after complaints that it stereotyped Indigenous Australians. Some First Nations leaders have called the book "offensive". Oliver says it was not his “intention". This case raises philosophical questions about the role of intent in the way we act and in the way we judge the actions of others. If harm is measured by the...

The tax increases on private schools, though long trailed, were among the most emotive measures in last week’s blockbuster budget, because they’re widely seen to be as much a moral issue as a question of politics or economics. It was a former Conservative education secretary, Michael Gove, who asked: why should the state support the already wealthy to buy advantage for their children? Others see i...

Overcrowded, understaffed and in disrepair, Britain’s prisons are in crisis. One of the first acts of the Labour government was to announce that thousands of prisoners would be let out early to make room for the next wave of inmates. The Scottish government has a similar scheme. Press photographs taken at prison gates show chortling convicts cheering the Prime Minister before climbing into luxury...

“Dawn... and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korem, it lights up a biblical famine, now, in the 20th century...” Those words, spoken by Michael Buerk 40 years ago, pricked the world’s conscience, triggered an unprecedented humanitarian effort, led to Live Aid and spawned institutions like Comic Relief. Since then, more than a billion people around the wor...

In recent weeks tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Spain’s most popular tourist destinations. From Málaga to Mallorca, Gran Canaria to Granada, locals are revolting against what they see as the hollowing out of their communities with the buying up of properties to turn them into short-stay holiday lets for people they argue don’t respect their locality, culture or languag...

The past week of brutish, hate-filled riots has been a disturbing time for Britian’s minority communities. What started as a protest against the murder of three little girls in Southport has swept the country for days, fuelled by the spread of mis-information on social media. The cause of the anger is starkly contested. For some, they are racist far-right agitators and opportunist thugs, whipped u...