The Minefield
Episodes
If chatbots are polluting the commons of human communication, what are the moral consequences?
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s 18 months since the technology company OpenAI made its wildly popular interface with an advanced large language model — GPT-4 — available ...
What are the ethical, and legal, limits of protests at Australian universities?
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Protests are, by their nature, unequivocal and univocal. They tend to avoid nuance or fine distinctions, and most often do not invite dialogue. They ...
The decency of everyday life — are unwritten rules enough to sustain a good society?
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Reciprocity, cooperation, kindness, turn-taking, forbearance, empathy, experimentation — can these counter the decidedly illiberal, impatient, anti...
What will endure? The ethics of “Groundhog Day”
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the pandemic, there was a sudden renewal of interest in Harold Ramis’s 1993 film “Groundhog Day” — especially its bleaker aspects. But...
After the stabbings in Sydney — Grief? Anger? Revenge?
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Residents of Sydney have found themselves understandably overwhelmed by the compound traumas of two stabbing attacks in three days. How are we to mak...
What’s fueling the tension between the courts and the media?
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There has been an odd confluence of events over the past couple weeks that has managed to intensify the sense of a conflict between two of our most i...
What would the moral obligation to avoid civilian deaths look like in Gaza?
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Does the failure on the part of Israel to enable the provision of humanitarian aid or to do everything in its power to prevent civilian casualties su...
Ramadan — the rediscovery of society
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is important to remember that Thoreau’s motivation for withdrawing was neither escapism nor apolitical quietism. The fact that he departed on 4 ...
Ramadan — the importance of friendship
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If Thoreau regards withdrawal and solitude as means by which we learn to escape self-deception, then they may well be little more than preparation fo...
Ramadan — the discipline of solitude
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Solitude is neither alone-ness nor idleness. It is strenuous and takes practice. Solitude does not simply happen in the way that isolation or lonelin...
Ramadan — the necessity of withdrawing
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Are periodic bouts of withdrawal from life’s urgent demands and heated debates necessary to regain a sense of our shared humanity, and to renew the...
Q+A on “the wisdom of crowds”
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Waleed Aly, Scott Stephens and philosopher Stephanie Collins field questions from a live studio audience on crowd-behaviour, conformity and the impor...
How much credence should we give to “the wisdom of crowds”?
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since Plato, “crowds” have been associated with irrationality, emotivism, conformism, short-term thinking, and herd-like behaviour. But what...
When is it right to call some act – or someone – “evil”?
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What are we trying to convey when we reach for a word like “evil”? Is it something about a person’s actions or character? Is it what they do or...
From Beyoncé to Taylor Swift — what’s behind the mass appeal of live music events?
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is worth reflecting, not just on what is singular about Taylor Swift at this particular cultural moment — why she attracts both the loyalty and ...
What is the harm in “deepfakes” — and what are they doing to democracy?
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last 18 months, enormously powerful generative AI tools have been placed in the hands of anyone who wants them; as a consequence, the intern...
How can trust be cultivated in a time of pervasive suspicion?
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Because it is sustained by nothing more substantial than a weave of trusted institutions, shared habits and moral commitments, democracies are highly...
What do we lose by succumbing to conspiracy-mindedness?
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ours is a time when institutional distrust, digital disinformation and mutual suspicion have become pervasive — but can democracy withstand epistem...
In a screen saturated age, is literacy under threat?
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Maryanne Wolf joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss whether we are entering an age of widespread moral illiteracy — an incapacit...
What do we lose when we lose the capacity for boredom?
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is fair to say that boredom is a distinctly modern terror. But, as Stan Grant discusses with Waleed and Scott, what if existential boredom points ...
Goya’s “Saturn” and its moral challenge
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Spanish painter Francisco de Goya’s depiction of Saturn eating his son is a haunting portrait of lust and the fear of one’s own finitude. Christo...
Politics, farce ... and Fawlty Towers
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Now that John Cleese has announced that the iconic series will return, it’s worth examining what made Fawlty Towers a masterpiece — and whether i...
What are playlists doing to our ability to listen to music?
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Platforms like Spotify have transformed the way people listen to music through their use of recommendation algorithms and customised playlists design...
Dickens’s philosophy of generosity: Revisiting “A Christmas Carol”, 180 years on
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Australian novelist Briohny Doyle joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to examine Charles Dickens’s unforgettable tale of misanthropy and remorse, a...
How much should we expect from the state?
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is a state for? How does its nature, actions, and limits differ from other corporate bodies? Is the relationship of a state to its citizens fund...
Should drivers of electric vehicles be taxed more to use the roads?
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If we are not careful, the use of incentives to encourage people to purchase electric vehicles could backfire by offending our sense of fairness.
What is social cohesion, what cultivates it, and what undermines it?
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The latest Mapping Social Cohesion report from the Scanlon Foundation paints a complex picture that helps us understand the conditions within which s...
What is the moral case for a ceasefire in Gaza?
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Calls for an end to the devastation of Gaza, and the death and displacement of its residents, reached a crescendo on Remembrance Day. While the moral...
What’s behind the anger? On Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly a century after its publication, Australian novelist Charlotte Wood joins Waleed and Scott to discuss what Virginia Woolf’s essay tell us ab...
Do we know what the result of the Voice referendum means?
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Because referenda are zero-sum contests, the message they convey is paradoxically both obscure and unambiguous — which is to say, their meaning is ...
Is it time to reconsider Australia’s bipartisan commitment to “stopping the boats”?
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Australia recently marked ten years since the introduction of Operation Sovereign Borders — a policy whereby refugees entering Australian waters by...
Some deaths matter more to us than others — but should they?
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The civilian massacres in Israel on 7 October and the devastation inflicted on residents of Gaza both make claims on our humanity, on our capacity to...
Can young people stay politically engaged without becoming disillusioned with democracy?
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the great paradoxes of democracy is that those who will have to bear the consequences of the political decisions we make now have little-to-no...
Travel is bad for the climate — but what if it’s also bad for us?
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us are aware of the environmental costs associated with international tourism. But have we considered whether travel enhances or diminishes o...
What’s the point of blame? When is it right to forgive?
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Blame and forgiveness are two of the most natural responses to wrongdoing — and yet, increasingly, these responses are viewed with a degree of susp...
Can democracy withstand the strategic use of online confusion?
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is there any way of retrieving the deliberative conditions under which democratic life is possible, when the social media cacophony makes hearing one...
In a critical age, are we losing the ability to say why we love what we love?
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve reached the point in mass culture, to say nothing of the “higher culture” of academia, when criticism is the norm. To the point that we i...
Facing the darkness: The moral challenge of Goya’s “Saturn devouring his son” (1823)
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Spanish painter Francisco de Goya’s depiction of Saturn eating his son is a haunting portrait of lust and the fear of one’s own finitude. Christ...
When is a referendum an unethical way of resolving a political question?
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Now that the PM has announced the date of the referendum, it’s worth remembering that the zero-sum nature of referenda can unleash the kind of brui...
Should climate change make us rethink the ethics of nuclear energy?
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has recently reintroduced the prospect of nuclear power as part of Australia’s commitment to decarbonisation. But ...
1 May 1956: Was Elizabeth Anscombe right to charge Harry Truman with murder?
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Oxford University proposed to confer an honorary degree on the man who ordered an atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, philosoph...
8 September 1974: Was Gerald Ford right to pardon Richard Nixon?
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When US President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon of his crimes, did he thereby place the presidency above the law — or did he understand a hard reality...
Is there any benefit to boredom?
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It is fair to say that boredom is a distinctly modern terror. But, as Stan Grant discusses with Waleed and Scott, what if existential boredom points ...
Does AI pose a threat to human life — and if so, what kind?
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Are the doomsday scenarios associated with Artificial “Super” Intelligence distracting us from the ways that the pervasive use of AI is already c...
Are cluster munitions a “lesser evil” in the war in Ukraine?
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden made the surprising decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions. Does the threat posed by Russia out...
Why do we distance ourselves from our age?
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Western culture’s association of ageing with decline and obsolescence fuels (and is fuelled by) a desire to dissociate ourselves from our age — b...
What does it take to address a “wicked problem” like political corruption?
05 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The newly formed National Anti-Corruption Commission faces both unrealistic expectations and a potentially fraught political climate. Professor A.J. ...
What are playlists doing to our ability to listen to music?
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Platforms like Spotify have transformed the way people listen to music through their use of recommendation algorithms and customised playlists design...
How to respond responsibly to the “cost of living crisis”?
21 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The tendency over the past four decades has been for governments to try to shield their populations from energy shocks and their associated “cost o...
Does the Voice to Parliament undermine Australia’s political traditions?
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The proposed Voice to Parliament is particularly susceptible to two arguments: that it violates the principle of equal citizenship; and that it will ...
“Succession” — from tyranny to tragedy
07 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The final season of HBO’s prestige television series Succession confirms that the various characters’ willingness to betray, deceive, manipulate...
Are Labor’s “stage three” tax cuts unjust and unethical?
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been a long time since a policy adopted by the federal government has presented such a knot of party-political, parliamentary, social and ethi...
Is Stan Grant’s decision the result of a broken media?
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of Monday’s Q+A, Wiradjuri man and journalist Stan Grant stated: “We in the media must ask if we are truly honouring a world worth liv...
What is the human cost of success? Revisiting HBO’s Succession
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the fourth and final series of the HBO television show “Succession” approaches its finale, Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens revisit the first thr...
What is the phenomenon of “bigness” doing to human agency?
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We live in an era dominated by vast digital platforms, what David Auerbach calls “meganets” – the sheer volume of data they trade in and numb...
Is loneliness a problem that can be solved?
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hyperconnectivity has coincided with an epidemic of loneliness — but is loneliness simply part of the human condition? Samantha Rose Hill joins Th...
Martial virtues, military conditioning, and moral damage
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Can soldiers be trained to kill their fellow human beings without that training doing irreparable damage to the moral lives of the soldiers themselve...
“An eye that cannot weep” — What does compassion demand of us?
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the final episode of our Ramadan series, we explore the roots of our occasional heedlessness when confronted by the plight and pleas of another pe...
“Knowledge that does not benefit” — On the uses and abuses of information
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the fourth instalment of our Ramadan series, we discuss whether “knowledge” which is wielded in a way that demeans others, or which is accumul...
“A soul that will not be satisfied” — The problem of human restlessness
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For this third show in our Ramadan series, we’re asking what it is about the human condition that seems to drive it to perpetual discontentment? Wh...
“A prayer that is not heard” — The dangers of ego-centric speech
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ego-centrism is a form of inattentiveness, a failure to be responsive to the moral reality of another person. In this second instalment in our Ramad...
“A heart that cannot humble itself” — The virtue of intellectual humility
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be intellectually humble? How might such humility be cultivated? What are its benefits — both to ourselves and to those arou...
Should Fawlty Towers’ farcical vision of Britain be “rebooted”?
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Now that John Cleese has announced that the iconic series will return, it’s worth examining what made Fawlty Towers a masterpiece — and whether i...
What does the failure of Robodebt tell us about the government’s “duty of care”?
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What made the Online Compliance Initiative — better known as the Robodebt scheme — so egregious is the way it was designed to treat those purport...
What does it mean to be a moral parent?
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Even though we rarely frame it in these terms, it is hardly inappropriate to refer to the relationship between a parent and a child as a moral relati...
Should early childhood education be compulsory?
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There are good political and philosophical reasons for seeing free and equal access to early childhood education as an expression of our shared commi...
Sports betting: Is it corrupting what it means to be a fan?
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Lauren Gurrieri joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss the sophisticated ways sports gambling operators are targeting new clientele — t...
What is generative-AI doing to our capacity to write — and think?
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Naomi Baron joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss whether ChatGPT and its soon-to-be-released competitors, with their lure of eff...
What does it mean to be “literate” — and is it under threat?
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Maryanne Wolf joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss whether we are entering an age of widespread moral illiteracy — an incapacit...
What’s at stake in this year’s constitutional referendum?
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Mark McKenna discusses with Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens why any proposal to change the Australian Constitution must navigate Australians’...
What’s the point of political comedy?
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While political comedy has long been a distinguishing feature of truly democratic cultures, one of the more notable shifts over the past two decades ...
The ethics of shame
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps no “moral emotion” in our time is more reviled than shame. It is regarded, certainly in the West, as uniquely destructive to a healthy se...
Is anger corrosive to the moral life? A conversation with Christos Tsiolkas
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There is no doubt that emotions like anger can be a proper response to the persistence of injustice or inequality or prejudice or cruelty in the worl...
Purification and the Moral Life: Disciplining the Eyes
29 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are habits of seeing which can corrupt our moral lives, or clutter our vision, or defile our imaginations. Just as there is a “contemptuous g...
The Art of Living: Jane Austen's "Emma"
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Jane Austen’s novel Emma, we find an abiding concern with the demands, not just of propriety, but of morality, an attentiveness to the dangers o...
Bonus episode: The 2022 Simone Weil Lecture on Human Value
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In November 2022, Scott Stephens delivered the 20th annual Simone Weil Lecture on Human Value hosted by the Australian Catholic University. His topic...
Should you avoid disagreements this Christmas or welcome them?
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over the next few weeks, we are bound to be in the same space with some most disagreeable company. Is this a prospect we should dread?
The ethical demands of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967)
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Does Stanley Kramer's 1967 film, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", have to make too many sacrifices in order to be morally palatable to its white audie...
Is jealousy a moral emotion, or an immoral one?
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jealousy is one of those rare emotions whose presence or evidence is almost always looked down upon, but whose total absence is also viewed with a ce...
Is fashion remaking our bodies?
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since the advent of “ready-to-wear” mass-produced clothing, the brands and prevailing fashions they establish hold out a kind of “idealise...
Is civility a moral obligation in a democracy?
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In our time, civility has gotten a bad name — usually by being reduced to something like politeness or courtesy. But is that all there is to civili...
Queen at Live Aid, 1985
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There is no denying that Queen’s set at Live Aid on 13 July 1985 was one of the most electrifying live performances ever captured. But did Queen s...
Disruption or continuity: What does climate change demand?
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Movements like Extinction Rebellion and Effective Altruism both regard the fact of climate change and the impending threat of climate catastrophe as ...
Sports, sponsorship and solidarity
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How far should clubs be expected to go when it comes to accommodating the ethical or religious objections of their players to wear sponsor logos?
What are the moral limits of compromise?
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Politics is sometimes called the “art of the possible”, which entails sacrificing what is ideal for the sake what is tolerable and achievable. Bu...
Can Twitter be reformed, or should it be abandoned?
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are we to make of Elon Musk’s claims about “free speech” and about a private company functioning as a “de facto public town square”?
Live from the Festival of Dangerous Ideas: Is contempt corroding democracy?
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Because of the pervasiveness of contempt, we no longer see those with whom we radically disagree as members of a common moral community, and therefor...
How should the West respond to the threats of a wounded Putin?
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ukraine has enjoyed remarkable military success against Russian invaders — thanks, in no small part, to the financial support and weaponry provided...
Can sport teach us anything about the shape of a fair society?
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Are the more deleterious tendencies of economy and culture moulding sport after its own image?
Was Queen Elizabeth a “political” figure?
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In a time when everything is politicised, it is worth noting that so many people have such evident affection for a figure who stood above the politic...
Is nostalgia necessarily a bad thing?
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last century, we’ve seen the profound longing for a way of life that has seemingly been “lost” — or, more insidiously, “stolen”...
What do we owe our work?
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For many people, burning-out is taken as proof of our dedication to our jobs. Have we finally reached the point where we can re-envision the relation...
How much should we care about Scott Morrison’s “secret ministries”?
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For the last two weeks, Australian political coverage has been consumed by a series of decisions undertaken by the former Prime Minister. What made t...
How much polarisation can a democracy withstand?
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Democracies assume that there will be a high level of disagreement among its members. But what happens when those disagreements become incommensurabl...
The ethics of shame
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps no “moral emotion” in our time is more reviled than shame. It is regarded, certainly in the West, as uniquely destructive to a healthy se...
Can constitutional recognition be an act of patriotic pride?
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In his speech to the Garma Festival, PM Anthony Albanese put it to the nation that constitutionally enshrining a First Nations Voice would not underm...
Should voice assistants use the voices of our loved ones?
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Amazon recently unveiled its plans for an update to Alexa that will enable the device to sound like someone you love — even someone who has died. P...
What's the point of political "diversity"?
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Following the ignominious resignation of Boris Johnson, the Tories are looking for a new leader — and the UK a new Prime Minister. The cast of cont...
Does standpoint epistemology undermine democratic politics?
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Democratic politics is more than a matter of power. It is predicated on the possibility of discovering common ground through practices of mutual reco...
The Art of Living: Jane Austen's "Emma"
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Jane Austen’s novel Emma, we find an abiding concern with the demands, not just of propriety, but of morality, an attentiveness to the dangers o...