Ethics Untangled

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Dating apps have transformed the way people meet each other, allowing them to meet more people more quickly, to meet people who don't live near them and, in theory at least, generally to have a much greater choice of potential partner, and to find people who are a closer match for their interests and tastes. But, that being true, people don't seem in general to be very happy with them. Luke Brunning, back for his third appearance on Ethics Untangled, has some ideas about why that might be, and some thoughts on what a good dating app might look like.

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

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Rob Lawlor is interested in what historical comparisons can tell us about how we should approach the fight against climate change. In his previous appearance on Ethics Untangled, he talked about rationing as a possible approach to the reduction of carbon emissions. In this one, based on a piece of research in which he collaborated with Nathan Wood, he tells us about how he thinks lessons from the abolition of slavery can help us understand how to end fossil fuel extraction.

Rob has also written an article on this topic for The Conversation, which you can see here: What if the path to ending fossil fuels looked like the fight to end slavery?

You might also want to check out Rob's first appearance on the podcast, back in Episode 13, which is based on this paper: Full article: Rationing and Climate Change Mitigation.

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/

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Alex Fisher is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. One of his research interests concerns videogames. Specifically, in this conversation, we talk about whether people who play games might experience imaginative contagion, a process by which thoughts, attitudes and emotions which people take on imaginatively while playing games might bleed through into their real life. Alex considers the evidence that this is something that happens and the question of whether it's something we should be worried about.

Alex's article on imaginative contagion:

Fisher, A. (2025) Imaginative contagion and moral corruption. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 111, 999–1017. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.70056

Mentioned in the episode:

American Psychological Association Resolution on Violent Video Games

Yee, N. and Bailenson, J. (2007) The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior. Human Communication Research, 33: 271-290. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00299.x

Angelica Ortiz de Gortari's work on "game transfer phenomena".

Gualeni, S. Vella, D. Harrington, J. (2017) De-Roling from Experiences and Identities in Virtual Worlds. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 10 (2). https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v10i2.7268

Concerns about videogame "lootboxes" and connection to gambling.

Concerns about child grooming in online games.

Further reading:

Chris Bartel, Why Video Game Violence Isn't Innocent.

Eliya Cohen, The House Never Loses: How Microtransactions Exploit Video Game Players.

For more philosophical questions about videogames:

Alex Fisher, Videogames and Philosophy.

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/

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The idea of structural injustice - broadly, injustice that results from social structures rather than from the wrongdoing of individuals - is something that has a lot of currency nowadays, but it presents a bit of an ethical puzzle. Basically the puzzle is this: if it doesn't involve wrongdoing by anyone, then in what way is it injustice, but if it does involve wrongdoing by people, in what way is it structural? Sonny Kim is a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. In this conversation, he lays out the dilemma a bit more clearly than I've just done, and tells me how he thinks it can be resolved, making sense of the idea of structural injustice and showing where responsibility for it lies.

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/

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One of the many technological advances that have been made in recent years is the ability of computers to synthesise people's voices to a very high standard. Voice synthesis can produce new, entirely synthetic voices, but it can also reproduce the voices of real people, to the point where it's difficult if not impossible to tell the synthetic voice apart from the real one. Matilde Nanni, who is based at the University of Inland Norway in Lillehammer, thinks voice donors, i.e. people whose voices are used to train voice synthesis software, can sometimes be harmed through this process in ways we should be concerned about.

Here are a few links to recent papers on the topic recommended by Matilde:

• Berkowitz, A. E., & Sweeney, M. E. (2025). Look Who’s Talking: Voice cloning as tension point between identity and data. Philosophy & Technology, 38(4), 131. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-025-00965-7
• Berkowitz, A. E., & Sweeney, M. E. (2026). Simulating Voice and the Simulacra of Voice Clones. Philosophy & Technology, 39(1), 4. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-025-01027-8
• Leuenberger, M. (2025). The role of the voice for identity and implications for voice cloning technology. Philosophy & Technology, 38(4), 175. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-025-00969-3 

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/

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There are many children in the world who either do not have parents, or do not have parents who can look after them, and who would benefit greatly from being placed with adoptive families. Some ethicists have argued that this state of affairs means that procreation is impermissible - we should not bring more children into the world when there are children we could adopt instead. In this conversation I talk to Giuli Cavaliere, Lecturer in Engaged Philosophy at University College London, who has written about this question, and also about the related question of whether states should fund assisted procreation, again when adoption exists as an alternative.

Giuli recommends this paper for an opposing view to hers:

Rulli, Tina (2016). Preferring a Genetically-Related Child. Journal of Moral Philosophy 13 (6):669-698.

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/

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Content warning: This episode contains frank discussion of death and of various forms of body disposal, which some might find distressing.

Sarah Carter-Walshaw, Lecturer in Applied and Inter-Disciplinary Ethics at IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds, has been thinking about the ethics of what happens to us after we die. The problem is that the current most popular methods of body disposal - cremation and burial, aren't very environmentally friendly. The good news is that other, greener methods are available. The bad news is that, so far at least, these haven’t really caught on. In this conversation we discuss why not, as well as the ethical question of whether we have an obligation to consider these forms of body disposal for ourselves.

Sarah is holding a virtual workshop on body disposal ethics at IDEA: The Ethics Centre, University of Leeds on 9 July 2026. Register for free here: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/4RXPASJpiW.

Further Reading:

• Balonier, AK, Parsons, E, & Patterson, A. The unnaturalness of natural burials: dispossessing the dispossessed. Mortality. 24(2), pp.212–230
• Booth, R. 2023. The Guardian: 'Boil in the bag’ environmentally friendly funerals arrive in the UK.
• Darwall, Stephen. 2017. “What Are Moral Reasons?” The Amherst Lecture in Philosophy 12: 1–24.
• Dembosky, A. 2024. NPR: The ultimate green burial? Human composting lets you replenish the earth after death.
• Mason, A. 2023. What’s Wrong with Lookism? Personal Appearance, Discrimination, and Disadvantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.​
• Rieder, TN & Bernstein, J. 2020. The Case of ‘Contributory Ethics’: Or How to Think about Individual Morality in a Time of Global Problems. Ethics, Policy & Environment. 23(3), pp.299-319.   ​
• Schafer, C (2012) Corpses, conflict and insignificance? A critical analysis of post-mortem practices. Mortality. 17(4), pp.305-321. ​
• Schwenkenbecher, A. 2014. Is there an obligation to reduce one’s individual carbon footprint? Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. 17(2), pp.168-188. 

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/

Send us Fan Mail

Is it ever morally acceptable to keep pets? While most of us take pet-keeping for granted and think of it as a source of affection, companionship, and care, it is possible to see it very differently. Angie Pepper and Richard Healey argue that pet-keeping is not simply a private choice, but a socio-political institution that raises deep questions about power, control, and harm. In our conversation, I ask them to explain and defend their view that keeping pets is morally impermissible, and to explore what alternatives might look like for our relationships with animals.

A short, accessible version of Angie and Richard's paper is here: https://iai.tv/articles/the-unjust-power-dynamics-of-pet-ownership-auid-3518

Another of their papers is here:

Healey, Richard, and Angie Pepper. "Interspecies justice: agency, self-determination, and assent", Philosophical Studies 178.4 (2021): 1223-1243.

Work with an opposing view:

Cochrane, Alasdair (2009). Do animals have an interest in liberty? Political Studies, 57(3), 660–679. DOI:  http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2008.00742.x

Cochrane, Alasdair (2014). Born in chains? The ethics of animal domestication. In Lori Gruen (Ed.), The Ethics of Captivity (156–173). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

A general intro to the ethics of pet keeping (also with an opposing view):

Palmer, Clare and T. J. Kasperbauer (2022). Companion animals. In Benjamin Hale, Andrew Light and Lydia Lawhon (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Environmental Ethics (343–354). London: Routledge.

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/

Send us Fan Mail

Can organisations themselves be trustworthy, or is trustworthiness only a quality of individuals? This question matters for how we think about public institutions, businesses, and charities – and about the responsibilities they bear when people rely on them. Philosopher Matt Clark joins me to unpack what trustworthiness means, what kind of control and awareness an organisation would need in order to count as trustworthy, and why values matter in this context. Along the way, we discuss examples such as the Metropolitan Police and sketch what a genuinely trustworthy organisation might look like.

Here's what Matt suggested for further reading:

1. Katherine Hawley. 2017. 'Trustworthy Groups & Organisations.' In P. Faulkner & T. W. Simpson (eds.), The Philosophy of Trust (Oxford University Press) https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732549.003.0014
2. Matt Bennett. 'Trusting Groups.' Philosophical Psychology, 37:1, 196-215. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2023.2179478
3. C. Thi Nguyen. 2022. 'Trust as an Unquestioning Attitude.' In Tamar Szabó Gendler (ed.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Vol. 7 (Oxford University Press) https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192868978.003.0007

Hawley expresses scepticism about the possibility of trust in groups, Bennett provides a different argument to Matt's on why trusting groups is acceptable, and Nguyen is referenced by Matt in the podcast as having a different view of trust.

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode, we’re asking whether people can really have genuine emotional reactions to artificial intelligence. Many of us already feel things towards AIs – whether that’s frustration with a chatbot, affection for a companion robot, or even comfort in talking to a virtual assistant – but should we take these emotions seriously? Philosopher Rebecca Wallbank joins me to explore what counts as a ‘genuine’ emotion, whether our responses to AI differ from our responses to fiction, and what it means to say that these emotions might be profound. Together, we’ll consider whether there’s anything irrational about these reactions, and what their significance might be for our emotional lives in a world increasingly shaped by AI.

Here's Rebecca's paper on the topic:

https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/59762/chapter-abstract/508607528?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds.

As well as the podcast, Ethics Untangled is also the name for the long-form online presence of IDEA.

Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bluesky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idea_leeds/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idea-ethics-centre/