On this bonus Slate Plus episode, Barry and Sarah Lustbader talk about the issues raised in the police discretion episode. They talk about how to implement public reasons test for officers using their discretion in low-level offenses, and what it would mean to "disbar" an officer for unethical behavior. Sarah questions why the system considers it a "favor" to a defendant to let them off, or give them a lighter sentence. What would happen if we took seriously that arrest is not the correct response to wrongdoing for malum prohibitum crimes.

Is a mobile home a home or a car? Is a car parked inside a home part of the home? The answer to these stoner philosophical questions determine the scope of police power. Over the last 100 years, the Supreme Court has presided over the expansion of police discretionary powers to stop, search, and arrest people through litigation over automobiles. This week, we look at the stories of those decisions, including Carroll, Ross, and Whren, We then turn to the political morality of police discretion, and why John Rawl's test of public reason places far more constraints on law enforcement than the Supreme Court ever would. We investigate the consequence of public reasons tests for targeted policing, racial profiling, and consider whether police should have the power to overrule democratically elected criminal laws.

Guest voices include Sarah Seo, Brandon Del Pozo, and archival audio from SCOTUS.

One place where law and morality are supposed to agree is that there should be no crime without a criminal mind, what is called “mens rea” in criminal law. But there have been a proliferation of crimes that do not require knowledge or intent, contributing to over-prosecution and overincarceration. Conservative and libertarian lawmakers have claimed the moral high ground over progressives in advocating that people who do not intend and do not know they are breaking a law be excused for their criminal conduct. Is this correct, or is it just a cover to make white-collar crimes harder to prosecute? Today we look at the battle over mens rea reform in the criminal justice system, the moral theory underlying the idea that being culpable for wrongdoing requires an objectionable state of mind, and why it is that human beings care so much more about mindset than they do about conduct.

Guest voices this week: Michael Chase, Benjamin Levin, Gideon Yaffe, State Senator Todd Kaminsky, John Guidry, and Sarah Lustbader

In this Slate Plus segment, Barry is joined by Sarah Lustbader to discuss the issues raised in Episode 1: Criminal Minds. Sarah expresses skepticism about the significance of mens rea in ordinary prosecution of street crimes, Barry uses the opportunity to discuss the issue of moral luck as an explanation of why egregiousness of outcome seems to be the driving factor for prosecution rather than mens rea. The two end with a discussion of why the deontological/consequentialist distinction is so difficult to figure out for reform-minded advocates.

From writing criminal laws to rights denied to the formerly incarcerated, every single stage of the criminal justice system runs on unquestioned assumptions about right and wrong, responsibility and excuse, freedom, protection, and discretionary decision-making. This season of Hi-Phi Nation will question and examine those assumptions. The season begins on May 2nd, 2020, and will feature exclusive invite-only Zoom events for select listeners. Go to hiphination.org to find out how to be invited.

Drake coined “YOLO,” short for “you only live once” in 2011, and then later apologized for all the douchiness it subsequently engendered.  But the spirit is ancient, and cross-cultural, speaking deeply to the kind of decision-making that is supposed to make for the good life. It seems to be saying that risk and spontaneity should be valued above prudence and planning. Is that true?

This week we take calls from listeners about their YOLO stories. We follow two college buddies who venture into the Malaysian jungle, naked, with nothing but a machete and oodles of YouTube survivalist knowledge looking for the ultimate YOLO experience.

Meanwhile, philosopher Nick Riggle meditates on the significance of YOLO, and wonders whether living twice, or an infinite number of times, would make a difference to the value we place on adventure and risk-taking. Maybe not. The spirit of YOLO then, might have nothing to do with living once, but rather about living at all.

Guest voices include James Moynihan, Daniel Olifi, Nick Riggle, and many Hi-Phi Nation listeners.

This is the season finale. Listen until the end of the episode for big news about Season 4 of Hi-Phi Nation. 

Pyotr Tchaikovsky composed and conducted his final symphony in 1893. He died 9 days later, after having knowingly drunk an unboiled glass of water during a cholera epidemic. Deep into the symphony, Symphony no. 6, there is a paradoxical passage that, when played, no one will be able to hear.  This is because Tchaikovsky scored it to contain a musical illusion. The mystery is why he put it there.

Sound illusions reveal some of the most puzzling features of the human mind, most notably its insistence that it knows reality better than reality itself. On this episode, we listen to some of the most curious auditory illusions to find out how some of the features of sounds are generated by the human mind, rather than features of the external world. The illusions reveal something deep about some of the most treasured human endeavors, including music and language.

Guest voices include Diana Deutsch, Casey O'Callaghan, and Christine Howlett. Thanks to Kenna Tuggle for violin passages.

In this bonus episode exclusively for Slate Plus members, Barry Lam and Stephen Metcalf discuss whether they can separate the morality of an activist's tactics from the morality of their causes, and Barry talks about why he finds vegans insufferable even though they might be right. Stephen worries about whether the diversity of human moral judgment requires the mask of civility, and the two discuss whether tolerance for incivility is generational. Finally, Barry asks Stephen what he thinks of restaurant owners asking politicians to leave their establishment.

In Australia, vegan and animal liberation activism has recently become intense and disruptive, invading farms, restaurants, and city centers. They’re doing everything from rescuing animals to blocking traffic, and occupying steakhouses. Some argue that these new activists are needlessly victimizing innocent farmers, business owners, and consumers. Others argue that the activists are only doing what’s necessary to stand up for the innocent victims of farmers, business owners, and consumers. 

For any cause, when change does not seem to happen, or happen quickly enough, movements can turn to more confrontational styles of protests, or “uncivil disobedience.” Is this morally defensible, or is civility a must in any kind of protest?  

Guest voices include Kimberley Brownlee, Chris Delforce, Candice Delmas, Lauren Gazzola, Paula Hough, David Jochinke, Joanne Lee, Brian Leiter, Clare McCausland, Tyler Paytas, Jacy Reese, Jeff Sebo, and Peter Singer.

In the forty years since the events at Olivia Records, gender categorization seems to pop up sporadically in the mainstream press, leading to what sociologists Laurel Westbrook and Kristen Schilt call "gender panics," and then they disappear only to emerge again at some other time. An analysis of gender panics show that people fear some gender nonconformists but seem perfectly fine with others.  It turns out that one thing in particular, just one thing, causes and then quells a gender panic, showing that the public has a very peculiar underlying theory of gender.

Meanwhile, the metaphysics of gender is the academic study of what gender is, and who belongs in a particular gender category. In that area, the descendants of the views about gender in the 70s stake their positions today, calling for the inclusion or exclusion of certain trans individuals in sex-segregated spaces. We look at some of these arguments and the contested assumptions that underlie them, and then come back out to the real world to see how trans-inclusive women-only spaces seem to be doing in America. This is part 2 of 2 about the metaphysics of gender.

Guest voices include Sandy Stone, Janice Raymond, Laurel Westbrook, Holly Lawford-Smith, and Robin Dembroff.