essay
Virtues and vices
Against humility
Intellectual humility has recently been hailed as the key to thinking well. The story of Barbara McClintock proves otherwise
Rachel Fraser
essay
Ethics
Main character syndrome
Why romanticising your own life is philosophically dubious, setting up toxic narratives and an inability to truly love
Anna Gotlib
video
Personality
A ‘dumpster archeologist’ reconstructs strangers’ stories via what they’ve discarded
14 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
The value of our values
When Nietzsche used the tools of philology to explore the nature of morality, he became a ‘philosopher of the future’
Alexander Prescott-Couch
essay
Virtues and vices
Make it awkward!
Rather than being a cringey personal failing, awkwardness is a collective rupture – and a chance to rewrite the social script
Alexandra Plakias
video
Bioethics
Is it ethical to have a second child so that your first might live?
10 minutes
essay
Ethics
Moral progress is annoying
You might feel you can trust your gut to tell right from wrong, but the friction of social change shows that you can’t
Daniel Kelly & Evan Westra
essay
Sports and games
Performance-enhancing vices
Selfishness channels ambition, envy drives competition, pride aids the win. Does it take a bad person to be a good athlete?
Sabrina Little
essay
The environment
Emergency action
Could civil disobedience be morally obligatory in a society on a collision course with climate catastrophe?
Rupert Read
essay
Ethics
The scourge of lookism
It is time to take seriously the painful consequences of appearance discrimination in the workplace
Andrew Mason
essay
Bioethics
The dangers of AI farming
AI could lead to new ways for people to abuse animals for financial gain. That’s why we need strong ethical guidelines
Virginie Simoneau-Gilbert & Jonathan Birch
essay
Public health
It’s dirty work
In caring for and bearing with human suffering, hospital staff perform extreme emotional labour. Is there a better way?
Susanna Crossman
video
Ethics
For Iris Murdoch, selfishness is a fault that can be solved by reframing the world
6 minutes
essay
Sports and games
The moral risks of fandom
Players, coaches and team owners sometimes do terrible things. What, if anything, should their fans do about that?
Jake Wojtowicz & Alfred Archer
essay
Computing and artificial intelligence
Frontier AI ethics
Generative agents will change our society in weird, wonderful and worrying ways. Can philosophy help us get a grip on them?
Seth Lazar
essay
Space exploration
Capturing the cosmos
When self-replicating craft bring life to the far Universe, a religious cult, not science, is likely to be the driving force
Jay Olson
essay
History of science
The rights of the dead
From the Irish Giant to the Ancient One, is it ever ethical for scientists and museums to study bodies without permission?
Anita Guerrini
essay
Comparative philosophy
Forging philosophy
A 17th-century classic of Ethiopian philosophy might be a fake. Does it matter, or is that just how philosophy works?
Jonathan Egid
essay
Ethics
Ethics has no foundation
Ethical values can be both objective and knowable – torture really is wrong – yet not need any foundation outside themselves
Andrew Sepielli
essay
Space exploration
The final ethical frontier
Earthbound exploration was plagued with colonialism, exploitation and extraction. Can we hope to make space any different?
Philip Ball
essay
Ethics
Wrestling with relativism
Bernard Williams argued that one’s ethics is shaped by culture and history. But that doesn’t mean that everyone is right
Daniel Callcut
essay
History of ideas
Equality without compromise
Liberal philosophy has clipped the wings of the egalitarian ideal. We should return to the bolder ideals of Iris Murdoch
Christine Sypnowich
essay
Thinkers and theories
Remember Richard Price!
Demonised by the political establishment for his radical, dissenting views, this 18th-century Welsh polymath deserves better
Huw Williams
essay
Philosophy of religion
Reckoning with compassion
After an abuse scandal destroyed my Buddhist community, I had to reconsider what it means to live an ethically attuned life
Jessica Locke