What is truth? In a special edition of The Moral Maze, we discuss perhaps the most significant question in all of human thought. It sits at the foundation of how we understand reality, and how we communicate and behave towards one another.

The obvious answer is that the strongest possible way to arrive at the truth in a shifting world of AI and authoritarian control is through a commitment to empirical data and provable facts. However, this can only ever get us so far because truth is always told from somewhere. Even objective facts can be curated from one perspective. Stories about ourselves and the world have been necessary, alongside partial data, to keep the social order and to prevent us from being overwhelmed. The historian uses limited sources to tell a story about our past. Language constrains how we articulate who we are, what we do and how we think and feel. Where science falters in expanding the horizons of truth, artists and theologians step in with their own insights that truth can be discovered through poetry and mysticism. That’s before the postmodernists come along and state that what we think of as truth is constructed rather than discovered; that the ‘truth’ we seek doesn’t really exist; that it’s all a fiction to give our lives meaning and purpose.

Chair: Michael Buerk

Tommy Robinson's carol concert claimed to be "putting Christ back into Christmas". Church of England Bishops quickly pointed out that Christ never went away and warned about Christmas becoming another proxy in the culture wars. Many of Robinson's supporters are turning to Christianity. Some have openly stated that the Christian faith is a cultural ballast, representing British freedoms and values, and a defence against a perceived threat posed by Islam and immigrants. For others, Christianity and Christmas is being appropriated in the most un-Christian way, the Holy Family were persecuted refugees, and a central message of Jesus was one of radical hospitality for the stranger.

This year, Christmas comes at the time of a wider debate about so-called "civilizational erasure" in Europe, following the publication of America's National Security Strategy. It boldly states that, within a few decades, NATO members will be "majority non-European", encourages the resistance - and praises the influence - of "patriotic" European parties, including Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, a far-right anti-immigration party.

Is a full-throated defence of Christmas a sign of strength or weakness? What's the bigger threat to Europe: "cultural erasure", or far-right populism?

Chair: Michael Buerk

As Australia begins its pioneering social media ban for under-16s, governments around the world will be watching closely. The move, which represents a significant challenge to Big Tech's dominance, aims to protect children from online harms like cyberbullying, grooming, exposure to violent/misogynistic content, as well as anxiety and depression linked to excessive screen time and addictive platform designs. Should other countries, including the UK, follow suit?

Evidence suggests social media ‘doom scrolling’ changes our brainwave activity, affecting attention spans (children are reading less than in the past), altering reward pathways with dopamine ‘hits’, and influencing emotional regulation and social processing (combined with a decline in outdoor play). Critics argue a blanket social media ban treats all under-16s as a homogeneous risk group, denying them moral agency, rather than distinguishing between responsible and problematic use. Others fear a loss of mainstream online community spaces could lead to further isolation and push some teenagers toward more dangerous platforms or behaviours.

Should children be banned from social media?

Chair: Michael Buerk

The jury trial has been around for almost 1,000 years. Magna Carta, in 1215, enshrined the principle that “No free man shall be... imprisoned… except by the lawful judgement of his peers.” That could be about to change, under the proposal by the Justice Secretary, David Lammy, to restrict jury trials to the most serious cases. The aim is to deal with an unprecedented backlog in the courts. Britain, thus far, has been in the minority: most countries around the world rely on judges – not juries – to evaluate the evidence, assess guilt, and deliver justice.

Chair: Michael Buerk

The Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, whose BBC Reith Lectures start this week, is calling for a moral revolution to change our societies for the better, charting how small groups of committed people – abolitionists, suffragettes, and temperance activists – have brought about positive social change.

Politics, Bregman argues, is in trouble in an age of apathy and backsliding democracy: “The moral rot runs deep across elite institutions of every stripe”, he says, “if the right is defined by its shameless corruption, then liberals answer with a paralyzing cowardice”.

So where might our moral salvation come? What are the deep values that underpin our contrasting political worldviews – left and right – and which should we look to prioritise now? Does any part of the political spectrum have the greatest claim to morality?

Chair: Michael Buerk

The Channel 4 documentary, ‘Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator’ has carried out a controversial genetic analysis of the Nazi leader. The test shows "very high" scores - in the top 1% - for a predisposition to autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This not a diagnosis, however, and there have been concerns about whether such speculation stigmatises these conditions.

While we shouldn’t seek to explain a person’s moral character and actions simply through genetics, there are many other aspects of our lives we can’t control, and which can nevertheless influence our behaviour and the judgements of others. These, include our upbringing and the circumstances we happen to be placed in (war, oppression, abuse) as well as the outcome of our actions (e.g. whether someone happens get away drink-driving, or not). If this is all a question of moral luck, how much should it be taken into consideration in our judgments of others? And where does that leave human agency, responsibility and culpability?

One view is that moral blame should be based solely on someone’s intentions and the choices they make. Moral responsibility, it’s argued, rests on rational will, and unlucky life chances should not excuse bad or criminal behaviour. However, in the criminal justice system, mitigating circumstances, while not excusing bad behaviour, are presented to reduce the severity of a person's culpability.

How do we untangle what is in someone’s control, and what is a matter of luck, when it comes to the combinations of nature and nurture that make up the people we are? If we focus too much the things we can’t control, would we ever be able to make any moral judgments at all? Or should we think more about the presence of moral luck in our everyday lives and work harder to understand rather than blame?

Chair: Michael Buerk

This year’s John Lewis Christmas advert puts an emotional focus on a father-son relationship. It shows a dad and his teenage boy struggling to put their feelings into words. It points to what many observe as a wider crisis in fatherhood. Numerous studies suggest that an involved father significantly improves a child's life chances. However, in the UK, a teenager is more likely to own a mobile phone than live with their dad, according to a 2025 report from the Centre for Social Justice.

The reasons are complex. Traditionalists cite changing gender roles leading to conflicting societal expectations on men and a confusion of male identity. Progressives suggest the pressure on dads to be strong for their family, both financially and emotionally, makes it difficult for them to demonstrate vulnerability, and that leads to guilt, stress and burnout. Youth workers report how the lack of a male role model at home can make space for other damaging influences - in the real world and online, in gangs and in the “manosphere” - pushing a very narrow definition of masculinity, and begetting more ill-equipped fathers.

What should be the role of a father, practically, emotionally and morally? How, if at all, should it be different from that of the mother? Do we expect too much or too little of fathers? Do children always need fathers in their lives? How should we address the ‘rinse-and-repeat’ cycle of absent fathers?

Chair: Julie Etchingham

Later this month, millions of demonstrators are due to take to the streets across the USA for a second time, under the banner “No Kings”. Organisers say, “America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people”. They are mobilizing to protest against what they see as democratic backsliding during Trump’s second presidency.

Faith in democracy has been shaking all over the world. Recent Pew research suggests that, since 2017, public dissatisfaction with democracy far outweighs satisfaction across 12 high-income countries, including the UK, France and Germany. There are different interpretations of what’s causing this, and how to fix it.

Some observers think that Trump’s more controversial policies – from DOGE to attacks on elite institutions to the dismantling of DEI programmes – could have been inspired by the ideas of Curtis Yarvin, a computer engineer turned political theorist. He's known for founding an anti-democracy philosophical movement called ‘The Dark Enlightenment’, dismissing America's democratic values and instead calling for the return of an absolute monarchy, run by a 'CEO' figure.

Are democratic values a fiction, designed to prop up the elites? Or are they the only safeguard we have against tyranny?

Chair: Michael Buerk

*This is a special episode of the Moral Maze recorded at ‘How The Light Gets In’ philosophy and music festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals

Prime Minister Kier Starmer has described the UK’s formal recognition of a Palestinian state as a “moral duty”, saying the change in policy would, "revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution". The rising number of UN members following suit this week, marks a turning point in their approach to Israel since it began its war against Hamas in Gaza, following the October 7th atrocities. In that time, tens of thousands have been killed and more than one million displaced by Israel's military offensive.

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had long opposed a Palestinian state because it would constitute “an existential danger to Israel”. Meanwhile, over a century of colonial legacies, wars, and failed diplomatic endeavours has led to scepticism that Palestinians’ aspirations for equality and freedom can ever be achieved. To what extent is the recognition of Palestine a moral priority in such a long and intractable conflict between two peoples who have competing claims to land, and who see the other as a threat?

Chair: Michael Buerk

Graphic details of Charlie Kirk’s death have been almost unavoidable on social media in recent days. Similarly, shocking footage of an unprovoked knife attack on 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina last month, has been widely circulated. Add to that the videos coming out of Gaza, Ukraine or Sudan. Seeing such images changes us. We can’t unsee them. They shock us, anger us, frighten us, stir our empathy, shift our moral compass.

Do we have a moral duty to watch real-life violence order to gain a deeper understanding of a situation? For example, would George Floyd’s death have had the same imaginative power if it hadn’t been filmed? Or is the truth-seeking instinct sometimes misplaced, driven by morbid curiosity and voyeurism, risking desensitisation, compassion fatigue or, conversely, chronic anxiety and stress? Do such stark images give us a moral anchor in a storm of spin and misinformation, or are we in danger of missing important context and using the intimately personal moment of a human death as a weapon in a heated political arena? With social media moderators being cut and TV news channels under pressure to beat the competition for pictures, what does the choice to publish and consume ever more extreme content say about us, and the dignity of those whose lives and deaths we are a witness to?

When should we choose to see or not to see – to know or not to know?

Chair: Michael Buerk