Best Jim Mertens Podcasts (2025)

1
35. What Should We Do About Disruptive Speech? With Carl Fox 47:36

6h ago47:36

47:36

Misinformation, fake news, hate speech, satire, the arts, political protest. These are all examples of what you might call disruptive speech. A free speech absolutist would say that all of these forms of speech should be tolerated, if not welcomed. On the other hand, it does look as though some of them are disruptive in a good way, and others are d…

1
34. Is AI Stealing Artists' Labour? With Trystan Goetze 47:52

9d ago47:52

47:52

Recent developments in AI, including image generation and large language models, have created huge excitement and opened up some really interesting possibilities. But they've also attracted significant criticisms, not least of which is the accusation that they involve large scale theft. This is because they are trained on huge datasets that include…

1
33. Is Internet Access a Human Right? With Merten Reglitz 45:46

23d ago45:46

45:46

When I was doing my undergraduate degree back in the 90s, the Internet was a bit of a novelty. It was fun to play with, and you could see theoretically how it was probably going to be quite important. I'm not sure I would have predicted how completely it now pervades every area of human life, though: work, civil society, leisure and social interact…

1
32. Where's the Harm in Health and Safety? With Simon Cassin 46:07

1M ago46:07

46:07

After time in the army and the fire service, Simon Cassin became a health and safety professional, and is now the managing director of a training and development consultancy called Ouch. Unusually for someone working in health and safety, he's dedicated some serious study to understanding the deep philosophical ideas underlying the profession, focu…

1
31. Why is Sex Work So Gendered? With Natasha McKeever 40:16

2M ago40:16

40:16

*CONTENT WARNING: This podcast contains some frank discussion of sex and sex work.* While there are all kinds of sex work, by far the most common scenario involves a man paying a woman for sex. It is, in other words, a highly gendered activity. Why? It turns out the answer to this question isn't as obvious as it might at first seem. It turns out, i…

1
30. What Should Doctors Be Doing With Your Data? With Jon Fistein 49:07

2M ago49:07

49:07

Do you know what medical information is held about you? Do you know who is allowed to have access to it? Doctors collect lots of data - often quite personal - about their patients. This data needs to be collected, stored, and shared, sometimes quite widely, so that the patients can receive effective care, but also so that the medical profession can…

1
29. What Is Touching Through? With Robbie Morgan and Will Hornett 51:50

4M ago51:50

51:50

Today's question is one which you might not immediately recognise as important or, so to speak, pressing. The question is, what is touching through? It also might not be immediately apparent why this is an ethical question. As Robbie Morgan from the IDEA Centre and Will Hornett from the University of Cambridge explain, however, it's a metaphysical …

1
28. What's Wrong With Conspiracy Theories? With Patrick Stokes 47:25

4M ago47:25

47:25

Conspiracy theories seem to be an increasingly prevalent feature of public discourse. No sooner has some significant event taken place, but the internet is full of alternative explanations for that event, involving hidden and nefarious decision-makers. These theories run the gamut from the wildly outlandish to the somewhat plausible, and your view …

1
27. How Do You Assure AI in the NHS? With Adam Byfield 47:55

4M ago47:55

47:55

Adam Byfield is Principal Technical Assurance Specialist at NHS England. His job involves providing ethical assurance for technical systems which are used in the NHS, including those which employ artificial intelligence. It's well known that AI, as well as providing some really exciting benefits, raises some distinctive ethical issues, but it was r…

1
26. Should We Be Worried About Teledildonics? With Robbie Arrell 39:52

5M ago39:52

39:52

Should we be worried about teledildonics? *CONTENT WARNING. This episode contains frank descriptions of sexual practices of various kinds, and discussion of sexual assault and rape, including rape by deception.* Teledildonics is a word that refers to the use of networked electronic sex toys to facilitate sexual or quasi-sexual interactions between …

1
25. Should Lawyers be Fighting for a Cause? With Alex Batesmith 47:39

5M ago47:39

47:39

Alex Batesmith has had a fascinating career. After beginning as a criminal barrister in Leeds, he went on to work as a United Nations prosecutor in Cambodia and Kosovo, working on cases involving genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He's now a legal scholar working at Leeds University, and has been researching the values and motivation…

1
24. Is Your Gender Like Your Name? With Graham Bex-Priestley 51:10

6M ago51:10

51:10

Gender is, of course, one of the most contentious ethical and political topics you can find at the moment. There are numerous practical and policy debates - for example those relating to medicine, prisons and sport - which can seem completely intractable, and which provoke the strongest possible opinions on all sides. Sitting behind these practical…

1
23. What Is Trust? With Christopher McClean 34:19

7M ago34:19

34:19

Chris McClean is the global lead for digital ethics at Avanade, a large tech innovation and consulting firm. He's also studying for his PhD at the University of Leeds, spending his time thinking about risk and trust relationships, especially in cases with a significant power imbalance, and where the people making the decisions are different from th…

1
22. How Should We Think About Informal Political Representation? With Wendy Salkin 49:27

8M ago49:27

49:27

For this episode, I spoke to Wendy Salkin, a philosophy professor at Stanford University, about informal political representatives: people who speak or act on behalf of groups in the political sphere without being elected to do so. Familiar examples include Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malala Yousafzai, and Greta Thunberg. Informal political r…

1
21. Should We Be Worried About Academic Freedom and No-platforming? With Gerald Lang 39:16

9M ago39:16

39:16

In May 2023, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill received Royal Assent after two years of debate in Parliament. The new Act will strengthen the statutory duty already imposed on English higher education providers by previous legislation to secure freedom of speech within the law. Arif Ahmed, a former philosophy professor at Cambridge Univ…

1
20. What's the Meaning of Life? With Predrag Cicovacki 49:25

9M ago49:25

49:25

Never let it be said that we don't tackle the big questions on this podcast. This week we're discussing no less a subject than the meaning of life, with Predrag Cicovacki. Predrag is Professor of Philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross (USA), where he has been teaching since 1991. He has served as a visiting professor in Germany, Russia, Luxemb…

1
19. What is Technological Bias and What Should We Do About It? With Meredith Broussard 33:14

10M ago33:14

33:14

Meredith Broussard is a data journalist and associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University, as well as research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. Her book More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech explores the way technology reinforces inequality and as…

1
18. Do the Dead Have Rights? With Joseph Bowen 42:18

10M ago42:18

42:18

Ethical questions about the dead are frequently interesting, puzzling, surprising, and weird. All of these things become clear in this conversation with Dr Joseph Bowen. Joe is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds, specialising in moral, political, and legal philosophy. As well as whether the dead have rights, his research focuses on…

1
17. Does Love Transcend Time? With Troy Jollimore 46:00

11M ago46:00

46:00

This episode is an exploration of the relationship between love and time with Troy Jollimore. As well as being a Professor in the Philosophy Department at California State University, Troy is a successful poet. His first collection of poetry, Tom Thomson in Purgatory, won the National Book Critics Circle award in poetry for 2006. His third, Syllabu…

1
16. Are Africans Unfairly Excluded From Discussions About Environmental Ethics? With Munamato Chemhuru 42:12

11M ago42:12

42:12

Dr. Munamato Chemhuru is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo, Zimbabwe, and a Senior Research Associate in Philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg in South Africa. He has been working on a project entitled Conceptualising Environmental Justice through Epistemic Justice in Africa, co…

1
15. Do Politicians With Dirty Hands Owe Reparations to Victims? With Christina Nick 41:45

12M ago41:45

41:45

Politicians sometimes have to make decisions where there is no option that looks good, morally speaking. They may have to get their hands dirty, acting in a way that looks immoral - sometimes powerfully so - in order to avoid some greater evil. This is called the problem of dirty hands, and it's long been of interest to philosophers. However, most …

1
LLM1. Finn Mackay on Queer Identities and Attraction [Leeds Love Month special episode] 12:28

1y ago12:28

12:28

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Dr Finn MacKay on queer identities and attraction. https://www.drfinnmackay.co.uk/about Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/idea…

1
LLM2. Tom O’Shea on Whether We Can Be Responsible For Our Attractions [Leeds Love Month special episode] 20:56

1y ago20:56

20:56

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Dr Tom O’Shea on whether we can be responsible for our attractions. https://www.tomoshea.org/ Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.co…

1
LLM3. Dating and Attraction Q&A [Leeds Love Month special episode] 1:06:10

1y ago1:06:10

1:06:10

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring a Q&A session with Finn MacKay and Tom O'Shea. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/c…

1
LLM7. Troy Jollimore on Whether We Love For Reasons [Leeds Love Month special episode] 33:34

1y ago33:34

33:34

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Troy Jollimore on whether we love for reasons. https://www.troyjollimore.com/ Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl Linke…

1
LLM8. MM McCabe on Love and Desire in Plato’s Symposium [Leeds Love Month special episode] 28:07

1y ago28:07

28:07

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Professor MM McCabe on love and desire in Plato’s symposium. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/mm-mccabe Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.faceb…

1
LLM9. Love Q&A [Leeds Love Month special episode] 28:51

1y ago28:51

28:51

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring a Q&A with MM McCabe and Troy Jollimore. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company…

1
LLM10. Brian Earp on the Ethics of Psychedelically-Assisted Relationship Therapy [Leeds Love Month special episode] 37:50

1y ago37:50

37:50

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Dr Brian Earp on the ethics of psychedelically-assisted relationship therapy. https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/people/brian-d.-earp Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.soc…

1
LLM11. Robbie Arrell on Consent Issues Raised by Teledildonic Technology [Leeds Love Month special episode] 46:48

1y ago46:48

46:48

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Dr Robbie Arrell on consent issues raised by teledildonic technology. https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/ethics/staff/2728/robbie-arrell Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social F…

1
LLM12. The Future of Love Q&A [Leeds Love Month special episode] 26:16

1y ago26:16

26:16

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring a Q&A session with Brian Earp and Robbie Arrell. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com…

1
LLM4 Kate Lister on Whether We Evolved to be Monogamous [Leeds Love Month special episode] 16:09

1y ago16:09

16:09

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Kate Lister talking about whether we evolved to be monogamous. https://leedstrinity.academia.edu/KateLister Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://w…

1
LLM5. Pilar Lopez Cantero on Experiences of Breakup and How To Move On Well [Leeds Love Month special episode] 14:51

1y ago14:51

14:51

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring Pilar Lopez Cantero talking about experiences of breakup and how to move on well. https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/staff/p-lopezcantero Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bs…

1
LLM6. Relationships Q&A [Leeds Love Month special episode] 55:20

1y ago55:20

55:20

A special episode from the Leeds Love Month live talks series, featuring a Q&A session with Kate Lister and Pilar Lopez Cantero. Ethics Untangled is produced by IDEA, The Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter/X: @EthicsUntangled Bluesky: @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linke…

1
Introducing Leeds Love Month [Leeds Love Month special episode] 1:59

1y ago1:59

1:59

A quick introduction to our special series of episodes featuring recordings from the Leeds Love Month live events organised by the Centre for Love, Sex and Relationships at the University of Leeds. In October 2023, Centre for Love, Sex and Relationships at the University of Leeds ran a series of events under the Love Month banner. There were some r…

1
14. Is There Ever Anything Wrong With Praising People? With Jules Holroyd 42:42

1y ago42:42

42:42

Jules Holroyd is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Her teaching and research focuses on understanding the nature of, and addressing, injustices. In this conversation, she turns her attention to praise. Philosophers have given a lot of attention to blame in the past, but not so much to praise. This might be because prai…

1
13. Could Rationing Help to Mitigate Climate Change? With Rob Lawlor 52:10

1y ago52:10

52:10

Rob Lawlor, a philosopher at the IDEA Centre, has been involved in an inter-disciplinary collaboration looking at one possible response to climate change, which is the introduction of rationing. With Nathan Wood and Josie Freear, he's been looking at the history of rationing as well as the ethics. So - not just whether rationing would be morally pe…

1
12. Can Omissions Cause? With David Molyneux 38:47

1y ago38:47

38:47

Doctors are bound by the ethical requirement to first do no harm. Unfortunately, harm is not something that they can always avoid. Sometimes harm comes about through the actions of doctors, but at other times it comes about because of things they haven't done. David Molyneux is a doctor of medicine who is also working on a doctorate in philosophy, …

1
11. What Should We Do About the Beauty Ideal? With Heather Widdows 41:38

1y ago41:38

41:38

Heather Widdows is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Warwick, with expertise in applied ethics, global ethics, bioethics, moral philosophy and feminist philosophy. She's interested in the demands that the beauty ideal places on people, particularly women. Her book Perfect Me was described as 'ground-breaking' by Vogue, and listed by Th…

1
10. What's It Like Being a Podcast Host and Ethics Consultant? With Kevin Macnish 44:35

1y ago44:35

44:35

Happy new year! An unusual episode to kick off 2024 as I talk to Kevin Macnish, host of the Getting Technology Right podcast. If you aren't already a listener to that excellent podcast, I heartily recommend that you become one! In this joint episode, which is also appearing in the Getting Technology Right feed, Kevin and I quiz each other on what w…

1
9. What's Wrong (or Right) With Monogamy? With Luke Brunning 44:10

1+ y ago44:10

44:10

Traditionally, monogamy has been the form of romantic relationship which people have been assumed to want to pursue. But there has recently been a growing tendency among some to question this assumption, and instead to pursue polyamorous or other forms of romantic attachment. And this tendency has been reflected in philosophical debates too. Some h…

1
8. Is Unjust Enrichment a Thing? With Duncan Sheehan 44:43

1+ y ago44:43

44:43

Duncan Sheehan is Professor of Business Law at the University of Leeds. He is interested in trusts and personal property law, especially secured transactions law. He has a particular recent interest in the application of the philosophy of action to the law, as well as a wider interest in private law theory more generally. Unjust enrichment is a dis…

1
7. Should We Use Aesthetic Techniques in Persuasive Speech? With Jamie Dow 43:26

1+ y ago43:26

43:26

Dr Jamie Dow is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the IDEA Centre. He is particularly interested in Ancient Philosophy, and much of his research is concerned with what philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle can tell us about the ethical questions we face today. Recently, he's been thinking about the use of aesthetic features in persuasive spee…

1
6. What's Interesting About Punishment, Forgiveness and Revenge? With Paula Satne and Krisanna Scheiter 43:06

1+ y ago43:06

43:06

Paula Satne is a Lecturer in Applied Ethics at the IDEA Centre. Her research focuses on theoretical and applied issues related to human evil and the ethics and politics of forgiveness and memory. Her recent research is on Kantian forgiveness, political forgiveness and public commemoration of politically motivated wrongdoing, punishment, pacifism, a…

1
5. How Should We Act in Political Campaigns? With Joseph Lacey 43:38

1+ y ago43:38

43:38

Joseph Lacey is Associate Professor of Political Theory at University College Dublin. He is about to embark on a five-year project looking at the moral agency of participants in elections. That's politicians, special advisers, journalists and so on. But it's also you and me: people who engage with political messaging, perhaps take some interest in …

1
4. What is Sexualisation? With Robbie Morgan 38:13

1+ y ago38:13

38:13

Robbie Morgan is a lecturer and consultant here at the IDEA Centre. His research focuses on issues in the philosophy of sex, particularly as this intersects with feminist philosophy. As well as sexualisation, he's currently engaged in research about language change, the metaphysics of touch, conscientious objection in medicine, and the value of con…

1
3. Can Humans and Robots Be Friends? With Ruby Hornsby 37:01

2y ago37:01

37:01

Ruby Hornsby is a PhD student at the IDEA Centre. Her research is about 'artificial friends' - robots and their interactions with humans - and whether these interactions can be part of a good human life. What do we get out of friendship and how much of that is possible when the supposed friend we're talking about is not a person with an inner life …

1
2. What is a Mother? With Fiona Woollard 47:31

2y ago47:31

47:31

For this episode I spoke to Professor Fiona Woollard. Professor Woollard is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. She has research interests in normative ethics, applied ethics, epistemically transformative experiences and the philosophy of sex and pregnancy. She has published on topics including the distinction between doing …

1
1: How Should We Behave Online? With Joe Saunders 45:15

2y ago45:15

45:15

Dr Joe Saunders is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Durham. He primarily works on ethics and agency in Kant and the post-Kantian tradition. He also has interests in the philosophy of love and media ethics. In this episode we talk about how we should behave online. How bad is social media as a forum for discussion, for example …

1
Archive episode [Season 4 Episode 1]: Can mandating moral enhancement for health care professionals as a means to deal with racism and implicit biases in the field be ethically justified? 54:54

2y ago54:54

54:54

In this episode we have special guest Panashe Chinya. Panashe is a medical student at the University of Leeds, who previously intercalated on the MA in Biomedical and Healthcare Ethics at the IDEA Centre. The presentation and subsequent discussion are based on the dissertation that Panashe completed during her MA at IDEA which asks if mandating mor…

1
Archive episode [Season 4 Episode 2]: Moral responsibility and the psychopath: the value of others (Part 1) 32:54

2y ago32:54

32:54

In this episode, Dr Andrew Kirton talks to Dr Jim Baxter about the issues explored in Jim’s new book, Moral Responsibility and the Psychopath: The Value of Others. Are psychopaths morally responsible? Should we argue with them? Remonstrate with them, blame them, sometimes even praise them? Is it worth trying to change them, or should we just try to…

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