Ana Barandalla joins us to talk about Philippa Foot’s book Natural Goodness. In this episode, we discuss Foot’s project in moral philosophy, and what it means to have objectivity in ethics.

With Amy Ward

Continuing on the Foot train, this episode delves more deeply into Philippa Foot’s response to arguments for how the doctrine of double effect should influence our thinking about ethics.

*content warning: brief comments on abortion

With Amy Ward

Although the trolley problem is a well-known meme, not many people know of its origins in philosophy. In this episode, I introduce the doctrine of double effect and discuss why Philippa Foot created the trolley thought experiment in the first place.

*content warning: brief comments on abortion

With Amy Ward

This episode is a conversation with Lesley Jamieson about Iris Murdoch’s moral vision within the context of her contemporaries and how she is set apart by saying that morality is in everyday actions and perception. For Murdoch, making choices is much more complicated than it seems like in a thought experiment with two options. And, Lesley gives us an idea of what the good person might look like in terms of Murdoch’s philosophy.

With Amy Ward

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Cathy Mason for a conversation about Iris Murdoch’s idea of love. In Murdoch’s philosophy, love is not just a feeling or emotion, but something that helps us to act morally by turning outwardly to see the world as it is.

With Amy Ward

Sasha Lawson-Frost shares her thoughts and experiences of unselfing to continue our exploration of Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy. Unselfing is a way of turning outwards to the world to be able to engage with reality and act morally.

With Amy Ward

There are many ways of practicing Iris Murdoch’s moral vision, and the examples she gives involve turning our attention outward and yielding our view to something external. This episode includes comments from Dr. Cathy Mason about the importance of art in morality.

With Amy Ward

In Iris Murdoch fashion, we look at the images involved in the idea of the Good Person in Murdoch’s own work, and specifically, Murdoch’s classic story about M and D. Asking this question (what is the good person like?) shifts our focus to a person’s character and the internal work that is involved in morality. Asking what the good person does, encourages us to look more at the actions. A good person is able to act virtuously, but this is as much about their character as about their isolated moments of choice. This episode includes comments from Dr. Cathy Mason.

With Amy Ward 

It’s Iris Murdoch time! I introduce Murdoch’s moral philosophy by looking at ethical theories that she disagrees with—in particular, she thinks that morality cannot be understood as single moments of choice. Instead, morality is throughout our lives and involves clear vision of reality.

With Amy Ward

In a discussion with Rebekah Howlett, we chat about a concrete example of why isolated thinking can be harmful towards other groups of people. In particular, we talk about societal expectations of men and women in the workplace and how the system favours particular people over others.