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 most impacted get lost in the legal strategy.   In this podcast, Professor Paul Formosa and guest, Dr Ebony Birchall, discuss strategic human rights litigation in Australia and beyond. The podcast features Ebony’s work, including:   Ebony Birchall (ed), Strategic Human Rights Litigation in Australia (Federation Press, 2025). Ebony Birchall, ‘An Introduction to Strategic Human Rights Litigation in Australia’ in Ebony Birchall (ed), Strategic Human Rights Litigation in Australia (Federation Press, 2025). Ebony Birchall, Surya Deva and Justine Nolan, The Impact of Strategic Human Rights Litigation on Corporate Behaviour (The Freedom Fund, 2023). Open access online: https://cdn.freedomfund.org/app/uploads/2024/03/LitigationImpactReport_2023.pdf

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 helping to shape our moral character.  In this podcast Professor Paul Formosa and guest, Dr Bhanuraj Kashyap, discuss digital empathy and the challenges it raises. The podcast features Bhanuraj’s paper: Kashyap, B., & Formosa, P. (2026). Empathy in the Digital Age: Implications for Content Moderation and Platform Governance. Minds and Machines, 36(2), 28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-026-09784-x

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 that competes directly with the human creators it trained on, potentially flooding the internet with what some have termed "AI slop". This raises a critical question: how do we ensure that human creativity is valued and remunerated in the age of AI? And what happens to AI if it starves itself of the very human creativity it needs to improve? Join host Professor Paul Formosa and guest Professor Alain Strowel as they discuss these issues, based on Alain’s new paper: Alain Strowel, “The risks of AI slop and AI model collapse, and why it is essential to adequately feed the next Generative AI models and to remunerate creators through a dual right system”, Legitech RPIN, 2025/24-25, p. 46-54.

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 Sandrussi investigate ways of thinking about the nature and production of milk, and unpack claims about sustainability related to the ethics of milk consumption.   This podcast features Annie’s recently accepted paper “Ontology and the Ethics of Milk: A Relational Materialist Approach”, published today in Food Ethics.

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 people. In this podcast, Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Dr Emily Hughes explore the potential causes of loneliness in autistic people.  The podcast features Emily’s recently accepted chapter, "Loneliness and Being Other/ed in Autism", which will be published later in 2025 in the Bloomsbury Loneliness Anthology.

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 science goals of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and wilderness? Is it time to rethink those goals, given advances in genetic technologies like synthetic biology, and the increasing urgency of extinctions due to environmental pressures?  Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Dr Chris Lean as they investigate how the goals of conservation can be furthered by synthetic biology.   This podcast features Chris’ recently published paper, Synthetic Biology and the Goals of Conservation, published open access in Ethics, Policy and Environment, https://doi.org/10.1080/21550085.2023.2298646

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 held political or religious convictions that seem immune to contrary evidence? And how do we understand the unshakeable, yet seemingly irrational, beliefs of someone experiencing a clinical delusion? Are these even beliefs at all? Or do we instead need to broaden our understanding of beliefs by incorporating an emotional component, the feeling that “something is true”, or “feels right” into our account of beliefs? Join host Professor Paul Formosa and guest Professor Miriam Schleifer McCormick as they discuss whether belief is an emotion. We discuss Miriam’s recent book: McCormick, M. S. (2025). Belief as Emotion. University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198875826.001.0001

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 acts in the real world? Does anything go here, or can morality get a grip even in virtual spaces. These issues are central to what has become known as the "Gamer's Dilemma." While it’s a topic that can be difficult to discuss, touching on sensitive issues, exploring it is crucial for understanding the ethics of our interactions with increasingly realistic virtual environments. Join host Professor Paul Formosa and guest Dr. Tom Montefiore as they discuss the Gamer’s Dilemma. We discuss several of Tom’s papers, including the following: -              Montefiore, T., & Formosa, P. (2022). Resisting the Gamer’s Dilemma. Ethics and Information Technology, 24(3), 31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-022-09655-w   -              Formosa, P., Montefiore, T., Ghasemi, O., & McEwan, M. (2023). An empirical investigation of the Gamer’s Dilemma: A mixed methods study of whether the dilemma exists. Behaviour & Information Technology. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144929X.2023.2178837   -              Montefiore, T., & Formosa, P. (2023). Crossing the Fictional Line: Moral Graveness, the Gamer’s Dilemma, and the Paradox of Fictionally Going Too Far. Philosophy & Technology, 36(3), 58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-023-00660-5   -              Montefiore, T., Formosa, P., & Polito, V. (2024). Extending the Gamer’s Dilemma: Empirically investigating the paradox of fictionally going too far across media. Philosophical Psychology, 0(0), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2024.2354432   -              Montefiore, T., & Formosa, P. (2025). Dark Patterns Meet the Gamer’s Dilemma: Contrasting Morally Objectionable Content with Systems in Video Games. Games and Culture, 15554120251319173. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120251319173