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In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 7 of the show! Join your hosts, Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, from the Macquarie University Ethics and Agency Research Centre, as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ applied ethics and moral agency • AI ethics: alignment, copyright, authorship, education, work, robots • digital media, empathy, attention, radicalisation • bioethics: pregnancy, uterus transplant, conscientious objection, devices • food/animal/conservation ethics • race, religion, human rights, identity, belief and cognitionThis podcast is a philosophy and ethics show that examines how people can live well as moral agents amid social, technological, medical, and political complexity. Across its conversations with academic guests, it explores both foundational questions—such as the nature of belief, emotion, rationality, memory, identity, responsibility, trust, and cooperation—and applied problems where ethical theory meets real-world institutions and practices.
A major throughline is the ethics of emerging technologies and media. Discussions consider how algorithmic systems shape attention, empathy, and public discourse; how platforms can contribute to radicalisation or misinformation; and how virtual environments like video games raise questions about whether moral norms apply in fictional spaces. Several episodes focus on artificial intelligence, including alignment and safety concerns, responsible AI in education, AI’s impact on work and autonomy, the gendering of AI and robots, and debates about authorship, disclosure, and copyright in generative tools. Related legal and policy issues—such as intellectual property, platform governance, and the risks of “model collapse”—are treated as ethical questions as well as regulatory ones.
The podcast also has a strong bioethics and health-policy dimension. Topics include pregnancy and disease concepts, conscientious objection in healthcare, uterus transplantation, pandemic moral conflict, AI in clinical decision-making, gender bias in surgery, and the ethical tensions created when commercial actors (such as medical device representatives) operate within hospitals. Broader social justice themes appear through examinations of race, religious privilege and secular law, legal identity and human rights, deliberative democracy and exclusion, and epistemic appropriation of concepts associated with marginalised groups. Environmental and food ethics also feature, including animal welfare, research ethics, milk production, and conservation in the age of synthetic biology.
| Episodes: |
Can bacteria make decisions? Exploring cognition in nonneural organisms, with Dr Matthew Sims2026-Jun-23 27 minutes |
Is pregnancy a disease? With Professor Anna Smajdor2026-Jun-16 29 minutes |
Strategic Human Rights Litigation in Australia, with Dr Ebony Birchall2026-Jun-09 36 minutes |
Digital Empathy and Social Media, with Dr Bhanuraj Kashyap2026-Jun-02 30 minutes |
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Special Episode: AI, Copyright, and Model Collapse, with Professor Alain Strowel 2025-Aug-26 30 minutes |
Ontology and the Ethics of Milk: A Relational Materialist Approach2025-Jul-22 25 minutes |
Loneliness and Being Other/ed in Autism2025-Jul-15 29 minutes |
Synthetic Biology and the Goals of Conservation, with Christopher Lean2025-Jul-08 31 minutes |
Feeling is Believing? Exploring Belief as Emotion with Professor Miriam Schleifer McCormick2025-Jul-01 31 minutes |
The Gamer's Dilemma: Navigating Morality in Virtual Worlds, with Dr. Tom Montefiore2025-Jun-25 27 minutes |
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Do People Really Believe in Conspiracy Theories? With Dr Robert Ross 2025-Apr-10 17 minutes |
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Public Reason and Conscientious Objection in Healthcare, with Dr Doug McConnell 2025-Apr-10 34 minutes |
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Can ChatGTP be an author? Exploring the ethics of AI creative writing assistance with Paul Formosa. 2025-Mar-03 33 minutes |
Exploring the roles of medical device reps in Australian hospitals: ethical challenges, with Dr Brette Blakely2025-Feb-24 30 minutes |
The law and religious privilege, with Mareike Riedel2024-Jul-16 30 minutes |
Epistemic Appropriation and the history of being “woke”, with Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky2024-Jul-09 27 minutes |
Film-Philosophy, Cinematic Ethics and the Transformative Experience of Film, with Robert Sinnerbrink2024-Jul-02 33 minutes |
Empathy, Moral Understandings and Psychopaths with Heidi Maibom2024-Jun-25 29 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 3: Responsible AI and the Future of Education, with Virginia Dignum2024-Jun-18 18 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 2: Generative AI and Copyright – Where to from here? With Rita Matulionyte2024-Jun-11 26 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 1: The AI Alignment Problem, with Raphaël Millière2024-Jun-04 28 minutes |
Should we aim for a world without work? With Jean-Philippe Deranty2023-Dec-12 42 minutes |
From Theory to Practice: The Ethics of Uterus Transplantation with Mianna Lotz2023-Dec-05 28 minutes |
Legal Identity and Human Rights with Christopher Sperfeldt2023-Nov-28 23 minutes |
AI, Robots and Gender with Inês Hipólito2023-Nov-21 26 minutes |
AI, Ethics and Meaningful Work with Sarah Bankins2023-Nov-14 24 minutes |
Do human races exist? An exploration of social constructionism about race with Adam Hochman2023-May-15 22 minutes |
Remembering and self-narratives with Regina Fabry2023-May-08 24 minutes |
The Pleistocene Social Contract with Kim Sterelny2023-May-01 21 minutes |
Animal welfare and food ethics with Rachel Ankeny2023-Apr-24 27 minutes |
Smartphones, mind-wandering, and the attention economy with Jelle Bruineberg2023-Apr-17 17 minutes |
Exclusion and Uptake in Deliberative Democracy with Professor Sarah Sorial2022-Sep-20 18 minutes |
Bad Beliefs with Professor Neil Levy2022-Sep-13 18 minutes |
Enculturation, Cognition and Technology with Professor Richard Menary2022-Sep-06 19 minutes |
Moral Conflicts in a Pandemic with Professor Wendy Lipworth2022-Aug-30 15 minutes |
Moral Responsibility and Anger with Professor Michael McKenna2022-Aug-23 30 minutes |
In the CAVE Season Two Coming this Wednesday!2022-Aug-22 1 minute |
Gender Bias in Surgery with Dr Katrina Hutchison2022-Feb-14 29 minutes |
YouTube, Radicalisation, and Conspiracy Theories with A/Prof Mark Alfano2022-Feb-14 14 minutes |
The Ethics of using Animals in Research with Dr Jane Johnson2022-Feb-14 14 minutes |
The Ethical Impacts of Social Robots on Human Autonomy with A/Prof Paul Formosa2022-Feb-14 21 minutes |
The Ethics of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare with Professor Wendy Rogers2022-Feb-14 18 minutes |