The Minefield

Joe Biden has presented himself as a person who knows pain and loss, a tragic figure of uncommon empathy and compassion. Does this tell us anything about how political leadership may be changing under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Before walking it back, Scott Morrison said he expected a COVID-19 vaccine "to be as mandatory as you can possibly make [it]". The Prime Minister thereby brought to the fore a series of complicated, but fundamental, ethical questions.

What if the hoped for COVID-19 vaccine is delayed by months – or years? Do we have the emotional and interpersonal resources to bear up under the strain? Alda Balthrop-Lewis joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss the habits and practices which might help us cultivate the kind of inner life, and life with others, that could see us through the pandemic.

Many of us are prone to express our sense of having hardship inflicted upon us by the COVID-19 pandemic — only to be reminded that someone else, somewhere else, has it much worse than we do. Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens discuss when we are permitted to complain, without being guilty of ingratitude.

The fee changes to university degrees announced by the federal government are designed to produce “job ready graduates” by funnelling students into “job-relevant” courses — but at the expense of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Professor Moira Gatens joins Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens to discuss what society loses when philosophy is devalued.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents us with an all-too concrete situation in which seemingly minor, individual actions can have dire consequences for thousands of others. Is the pandemic an extreme situation that makes unusual demands of us, or does it simply make visible the kinds of moral demands which are upon us even in more 'normal' times?

COVID-19 has reversed the dynamics and inner-logic of globalisation. As we begin imagining a world after COVID-19, will things go back to “normal”? Should things go back to “normal”

How does liberal democracy manage incommensurable disagreement? Do the moral and political demands for justice and inclusion trump the principles of free expression and open debate? What is the moral status of "opinion"?

Teams across codes and countries are facing the prospects of competing in empty or largely empty stadiums. Whatever that might mean for the players themselves, the lack of crowd noise is proving too off-putting for fans watching from home. Kasey Symons from Swinburne University joins us to discuss why.

Following the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, there are serious calls to defund or even "abolish" the police in the United States. It’s a serious proposal, and it deserves to be taken seriously. But what does it mean, and how can it be done? Yale Law School Professor Tracey Meares joins us to discuss what police abolition looks like.