In the CAVE: An Ethics Podcast

Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence mean that robotic companions are no longer the stuff of science fiction. While there are potential benefits from the use of social robots, we need to think carefully about human-machine relationships and how these might affect the ways that humans think and act in the world. Join host Wendy Rogers and guest A/Prof Paul Formosa discuss this increasingly important topic. This podcast discusses Paul’s paper which you can read at the following link:  Formosa, Paul. “Robot Autonomy vs. Human Autonomy: Social Robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Nature of Autonomy”. Minds and Machines 31 (2021): 595–616. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-021-09579-2 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Would you like it if a computer decided whether you were diagnosed with cancer or not, or whether you should get the last remaining ventilator when you are struggling to breathe? That future may not be that far away from us. Join host Paul Formosa and guest Prof Wendy Rogers discuss this increasingly important topic. This podcast discusses Wendy’s paper which you can read at the following link: Rogers, Wendy A., Heather Draper, and Stacy M. Carter. “Evaluation of Artificial Intelligence Clinical Applications: Detailed Case Analyses Show Value of Healthcare Ethics Approach in Identifying Patient Care Issues.” Bioethics 35, no. 7 (2021): 623–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12885 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The image of the lab rat, moved between cramped cages by white lab coat wearing scientists, is one that we are all familiar with. But should the lab of the future still use animals for research? Join host Paul Formosa and guest Dr Jane Johnson discuss this increasingly important topic. This podcast discusses Jane’s paper which you can read at the following link:  Johnson, Jane. “Lost in Translation: Why Animal Research Fails to Deliver on Its Promise.” Issues in Science and Technology 37, no. 4 (2021). https://issues.org/lost-in-translation-animal-research-fails-johnson/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Radicalisation, fake news, echo chambers, and conspiracy theories are some of the concerns that are often raised about the growth of social media. But do social media sites, such as YouTube, really drive their users down radicalisation rabbit holes of conspiratorial misinformation? Join host Paul Formosa and guest A/Prof Mark Alfano discuss this increasingly important topic. This podcast discusses Mark’s paper which you can read at the following link: Alfano, Mark, Amir Ebrahimi Fard, J. Adam Carter, Peter Clutton, and Colin Klein. “Technologically Scaffolded Atypical Cognition: The Case of YouTube’s Recommender System.” Synthese 199 (2021): 835-858. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02724-x See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Being a surgeon is one of the most lucrative careers in Australia. But those high salaries are almost exclusively the preserve of male surgeons. Is this the result of bias against women? Or something else? Join host Wendy Rogers and guest Dr Katrina Hutchison discuss this important topic. This podcast discusses Mark’s paper which you can read at the following link: Hutchison, Katrina. “Four Types of Gender Bias Affecting Women Surgeons and Their Cumulative Impact.” Journal of Medical Ethics 46, no. 4 (2020): 236–41. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2019-105552 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 2 of the show. Join your hosts, Associate Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, from the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (or CAVE) as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An argument breaks out in response to a perceived slight, anger erupts, and violence ensues. It is all-too-familiar cases like this that make anger seem like a problematic emotion. However, many philosophers have taken interpersonal reactive attitudes, such as anger and resentment, to be defining features of our moral responsibility practices. Join host A/Prof Paul Formosa and guest Professor Michael McKenna as they discuss what moral responsibility is and what emotions such as anger have to do with. This podcast discusses Michael’s forthcoming book, but you can also read Michael’s work here: Michael McKenna. 2019. “The Free Will Debate and Basic Desert.” Journal of Ethics. 23: 241-55; Michael McKenna. 2018. “Power, Social Inequities, and the Conversational Theory of Moral Responsibility.” In K. Hutchison, C. Mackenzie, and M. Oshana, eds., Social Dimensions of Moral Responsibility. Oxford University Press: 38-58; Michael McKenna. 2012. Conversation & Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press. Produced by Piccolo Podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Various ethical arguments have come into play to try to understand the moral conflicts triggered by this pandemic. Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Professor Wendy Lipworth discuss whether framing these conflicts in terms of a duty to care versus reciprocity can lead to an impasse in thinking about the ethics of providing care in a pandemic.   This podcast discusses Wendy’s paper which you can read at the following link: Lipworth, Wendy. Beyond duty: Medical “Heroes” and the COVID-19 Pandemic. J Bioeth Inq. 2020; 17(4): 723–730. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10065-0 Produced by Piccolo Podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To be a moral agent requires having various skills and capacities. But where do these come from and how do we acquire them? Join host A/Prof Paul Formosa and guest Professor Richard Menary discuss how enculturation gives us an account of cognitive tools that can help us to understand how technology can transform us into modern human agents capable of acting ethically. This podcast discusses Richard’s paper which you can read at the following link: Menary, R., & Gillett, A. (2022). The Tools of Enculturation. Topics in Cognitive Science, 14(2), 363–387. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12604\ Produced by Piccolo Podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Humans have long been characterized as ‘the rational animal’. However, this claim has come under sustained attack by a range of scholars who portray humans as rarely engaging in conscious reasoning. Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Professor Neil Levy discuss the nature of rationality and how humans use evidence to make up their minds. This podcast discusses Neil’s book which you can read at the following link: Levy, Neil. 2022. Bad Beliefs: Why They Happen to Good People. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192895325.001.0001 Produced by Piccolo Podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Patronizing, interrupting, ignoring, talking over, shouting down, and mansplaining, not to mention outright trolling, abusing, threatening, and humiliating are just a few of the deliberative vices that plague too many of our discussions. This matters not just for our interpersonal and work relationships, but also for the quality of our democracy. Join host A/Prof Paul Formosa and guest Professor Sarah Sorial discuss the problem of exclusion and uptake in deliberations, whether in-person or on-line. This podcast discusses Sarah’s paper which you can read at the following link: Sorial, S. (2022). Deliberation and the Problems of Exclusion and Uptake: The Virtues of Actively Facilitating Equitable Deliberation and Testimonial Sensibility. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 25(2), 215–231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-022-10273-0 Produced by Piccolo Podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 3 of the show. Join your hosts, Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, along with guest host Associate Professor Mark Alfano, from the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (or CAVE) as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world.  What do you do if you have a spare 15 minutes? Easy, look at your smartphone of course! You might do so with a specific goal in mind, like clearing your inbox, or you might have no goal at all other than avoiding boredom by scrolling aimlessly through social media apps or by continually refreshing news sites with the hope that something interesting pops up. Our smartphones are always with us, and we can feel anxious and lost if we are ever without them. Does this matter? And what does it do to our ability to be alone with our own thoughts and to let our mind wander freely? Join host Prof Paul Formosa and guest Dr Jelle Bruineberg as they discuss the impacts of technology on mind-wandering. This podcast discuses a paper co-written by Jelle and Dr Regina Fabry: Bruineberg, Jelle, & Fabry, Regina. (2022). “Extended mind-wandering”. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 3. https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2022.9190   Produced by Piccolo Podcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 3 of the show. Join your hosts, Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, along with guest host Associate Professor Mark Alfano, from the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (or CAVE) as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world.  Australians have one of the highest per capita meat consumption rates in the world. Many Australians have a rosy view of animal husbandry in Australia, visualising family farmers caring for happy animals out in green paddocks. They don’t like to think about factory farming, or how the animals they eat are killed – a phenomenon known as the “meat paradox”. However, eating meat raises various ethical questions, from animal welfare to environmental impact. Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Professor Rachel Ankeny as they discuss misconceptions, paradoxes and other issues associated with eating meat.  In the podcast we discuss Rachel’s work with Australian consumers about their attitudes towards the welfare of animals that serve as meat. You can read Rachel’s paper here: Buddle, E. A., Bray, H. J., & Ankeny, R. A. (2023). Values of Australian Meat Consumers Related to Sheep and Beef Cattle Welfare: What Makes a Good Life and a Good Death? Food Ethics, 8(1), 5. You may also be interested in Rachel’s work on attitudes to animal cruelty: Morton, R., Hebart, M.L., Ankeny, R.A., Whittaker, A.L. (2022) Portraying Animal Cruelty: A Thematic Analysis of Australian News Media Reports on Penalties for Animal Cruelty. Animals, 12, 2918. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12212918 Produced by Piccolo Podcasts   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 3 of the show. Join your hosts, Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, along with guest host Associate Professor Mark Alfano, from the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (or CAVE) as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world.  Most of us trust our families and friends, at least most of the time. But we also sometimes trust mere acquaintances and even total strangers. When you board a plane, you trust the pilot and crew to keep you alive. When you undergo surgery, you trust the surgeon, anaesthesiologist, and nurses to keep you alive. The scale and ease of trust in humans far outstrips that of our closest evolutionary cousins, such as chimpanzees. Join host A/Prof Mark Alfano and guest Professor Kim Sterelny as they discuss the evolutionary and cultural underpinning of human hyper-sociality. This podcast discusses Kim's recent book, The Pleistocene Social Contract: Culture and Cooperation in Human Evolution, 2021, Oxford University Press. You can read more of his work here: Sterelny, K. (2016). Cooperation, culture, and conflict. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science; Sterelny, K. (2022). Further thoughts on hierarchy and inequality. Mind & Language, 37(4), 760-768. Produced by Piccolo Podcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 3 of the show. Join your hosts, Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, along with guest host Associate Professor Mark Alfano, from the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (or CAVE) as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world.  One way that individuals make sense of personal identity is through telling our stories, or self-narratives. We can link a range of events as our story – such as where we were born, family celebrations, past illnesses or schools we attended. On some accounts, the self is constituted by the contents of our self-narratives, and it is through narratives that we know our own actions, traits and experiences. But if this is the case, what counts as a self-narrative, what role does autobiographical memory play in our self-narratives, and what tools can we use to bolster those memories? Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Dr Regina Fabry to discuss current philosophical approaches to memory, narrative and identity.  In the podcast we discuss Regina’s paper on this topic: Fabry, R. E. (2023). Distributed autobiographical memories, distributed self-narratives. Mind & Language, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12453. You may also be interested in Regina’s paper on self-narrative: Fabry, R.E. (2023) What is self-narrative? (E-pub ahead of print) Inquiry. 10.1080/0020174X.2023.2177338 Produced by Piccolo Podcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 3 of the show. Join your hosts, Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, along with guest host Associate Professor Mark Alfano, from the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (or CAVE) as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world.  Do human races exist? If race does exist, is it a biological or social concept? Asking and answering questions about race is not always easy. On the one hand, it is undeniable that the concept and language of race does so much to structure our collective world and the individual experiences of many people, for better or for worse. But on the other hand, there is, arguably, a scientific consensus that race doesn’t really exist, and this raises the concern that talk about race and races seems to commit us to the existence of something that science says isn’t actually real. How can we deal with this problem in a philosophically coherent and ethically defensible way? Join host Prof Paul Formosa and guest Dr Adam Hochman as they discuss social constructionism about race. This podcast discusses Adam’s paper: Hochman, Adam. (2022). “Has social constructionism about race outlived its usefulness? Perspectives from a race skeptic.” Biology & Philosophy, 37(6), 48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-022-09883-w  Produced by Piccolo Podcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All of us may complain about our jobs from time to time. Despite this, meaningful work, that is work that we find personally significant or is objectively worthwhile, is an important part of our lives. Work allows us to exercise our skills and autonomy and can provide a sense of belongingness. These and other dimensions of meaningful work will be affected in various ways by the implementation of AI in the workplace. On the one hand, humans may be reduced to ‘minding the machine’ while the AI takes over. On the other hand, AI may free us from boring repetitive tasks, allowing us to exercise our creativity in new ways.  Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Associate Professor Sarah Bankins as they discuss the implications of AI for meaningful work and the ethical considerations that arise as AI enters the workplace. This podcast discusses Sarah’s recent paper co-authored: Bankins, S. and Formosa, P. (2023). The Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Meaningful Work. Journal of Business Ethics 185:725–740. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05339-7   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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, Alexa, the Google assistant, and other AIs all have a default female-sounding voice. Why? Is it because we think of them as personal assistants, and we stereotype personal assistants as female? We often think of robots, as well as AI avatars and assistants, as mere “things”, but this is misleading insofar as many robots and AI personalities are designed to appear gendered, and we tend to bring our human gender stereotypes to our interactions with social robots. So how should we think about the gendering of robots and AI? Join host Professor Paul Formosa and guest Dr Inês Hipólito as they discuss the role of gender in AI and robotics. This podcast discusses Inês’s recent co-authored paper: Hipólito, I., Winkle, K., & Lie, M. (2023). Enactive artificial intelligence: Subverting gender norms in human-robot interaction. Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 17. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbot.2023.1149303 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 biometric measures raise various potential complications, especially for people who are already marginalised. “Legal identity for all” is one of the Sustainable Development Goals, but despite this recognition of how important it is, ensuring fair access to legal identity remains challenging. Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Dr Christoph Sperfeldt as they discuss legal identity, how to establish it and the challenges of ensuring that no-one is deprived of the right to a legal identity. This podcast discusses Christoph’s recent paper: Sperfeldt, C. (2022). Legal identity in the sustainable development agenda: actors, perspectives and trends in an emerging field of research. The International Journal of Human Rights 26:2, 217-238. DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2021.1913409 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 a baby born following uterus transplantation (UTx). Since then, teams around the world have set up UTx programs, including in Sydney. Alongside the clinical research, ethicists have engaged in vigorous debate about the rights and wrongs of UTx.   Join host Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and guest Associate Professor Mianna Lotz as they discuss the ethics of uterus transplantation, drawing on Mianna’s experiences as an ethical adviser to the first uterus transplantation trial in Australia. This podcast discusses one of Mianna’s key papers on the topic: Lotz, M. (2021). Public funding of uterus transplantation: Deepening the socio-moral critique. Bioethics 35: 664-671. DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12914   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.