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To know or not to know?
Graphic details of Charlie Kirk’s death have been almost unavoidable on social media in recent days. Similarly, shocking footage of an unprovoked knife attack on 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina last month, has been widely circulated. Add to that the videos coming out of Gaza, Ukraine or Sudan. Seeing such images changes us. We can’t unsee them. They shock us, anger us, frighten us, stir our empathy, shift our moral compass. Do we have a moral duty to watch real-life violence order to gain a deeper understanding of a situation? For example, would George Floyd’s death have had the same imaginative power if it hadn’t been filmed? Or is the truth-seeking instinct sometimes misplaced, driven by morbid curiosity and voyeurism, risking desensitisation, compassion fatigue or, conversely, chronic anxiety and stress? Do such stark images give us a moral anchor in a storm of spin and misinformation, or are we in danger of missing important context and using the intimately personal moment of a human death as a weapon in a heated political arena? With social media moderators being cut and TV news channels under pressure to beat the competition for pictures, what does the choice to publish and consume ever more extreme content say about us, and the dignity of those whose lives and deaths we are a witness to?When should we choose to see or not to see – to know or not to know?Chair: Michael Buerk Panel: Giles Fraser, Sonia Sodha, James Orr and Tim Stanley. Witnesses: Paul Conroy, Hilda Burke, Jamie Whyte and Rik Peels. Producer: Dan Tierney.
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56:35
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56:35
Is ‘net zero’ a moral pursuit?
The party conference season kicked off with claims and counter claims about the viability of Nigel Farage’s proposals for government. One issue that unites Reform and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives is scrapping the 2050 net zero target, echoing US President Donald Trump's pledge to "drill, baby, drill" and embark on new oil and gas exploration.This is a turbulent time in international politics. The prospect of achieving a global consensus on climate action seems a forlorn hope. What’s more, critics of the UK net zero target argue that the costs will cause a decline in living standards for little overall benefit. Forget economic arguments: what is the moral thing to do in the face of a warming planet, rising sea levels, more extreme weather, food and water insecurity, and human displacement?Readers of Immanuel Kant might be tempted to invoke his ‘categorical imperative’, a moral rule that says you should act in a way that you would want to apply to everyone, regardless of your personal desires or the potential outcomes of your actions. In climate terms, it means pursuing net zero as a moral good in itself. Utilitarian ethics, however, says that the right action is the one producing the most happiness and the least unhappiness for the greatest number of people. Therefore, it could be argued that the detrimental consequences of pursuing net zero in the UK, combined with its questionable global benefit, make it immoral.Is ‘net zero’ a moral pursuit?Chair: Michael Buerk Panellists: Matthew Taylor, Ella Whelan, Giles Fraser and Anne McElvoy. Witnesses: Maurice Cousins, Alice Evatt, Tony Milligan and Sorin Baiasu. Producer: Dan Tierney
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56:39
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56:39
Does the media reflect or exacerbate public disquiet?
One story has been dominating the news for several weeks: immigration. Whether it’s debates about how to stop the small boats, protests outside asylum hotels, speeches pledging mass deportations or balaclavad ‘patriots’ painting red crosses on roundabouts, there’s been no shortage of reporting and impassioned opinions on the subject. It is no doubt an important issue for many people, but is it as big as our perception of it? ‘Media’ comes from the Latin word medius, meaning "middle". It is a form of communication which mediates between our perception of the world and reality. Print and broadcast media are governed by codes of practice which prohibit the distortion of truth through the publication of inaccurate or misleading information. But are there more subtle ways in which the media can influence public opinion, creating a feedback loop of ‘newsworthiness’? Defenders of print journalism contend that it takes its news priorities and agenda from real public concern and real events of objective importance. Journalists and columnists may put a spin on them, but their concern is to report and dramatise, not to distort. Critics of the papers – particularly the right-wing press – believe they have their own political axes to grind, and they set the collective news agenda while having an interest in stirring public anger via commercial ‘clickbait’. Even the BBC has had its impartiality scrutinised by those who believe it has given undue prominence to Nigel Farage (who is currently experiencing a surge in the polls) in its political coverage for more than a decade. In that time, however, social media has completely changed how we consume the news. Mainstream media, for all its faults, has a process of accountability when its deemed to have made errors of editorial judgment. Whereas social media algorithms are designed to promote discontent above fact-checking. On balance, does the media reflect or exacerbate public disquiet?Chair: Michael Buerk Panellists: Inaya Folarin Iman, Tim Stanley, Mona Siddiqui and Matthew Taylor. Witnesses: Zoe Gardner, Paul Baldwin, George Monbiot and Baroness Tina Stowell MBE.Producer: Dan Tierney.
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56:30
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56:30
What is the moral value of disgust?
The decision of OnlyFans and Instagram to ban the porn star Bonnie Blue, who engaged in sequential sex with more than a thousand men in 12 hours, indicates the strength of the backlash of disapproval to the stunt. The reaction of many people has been what the psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls 'moral bafflement', the idea that most of us instinctively condemn some behaviours without being able to say why they are wrong. Western morality says, “don’t hurt other people”, but Bonnie Blue arguably hurt nobody. This was understood to be safe sex between consenting adults (although the psychological or social impact is harder to determine). Others might form their judgments based on values within sacred texts, but religion is no longer the moral and cultural force it once was.How much attention should we pay to our knee-jerk sense of right and wrong when judging the actions of other people? Evolutionary psychologists describe how the emotion of disgust was a survival mechanism against the spread of disease. Thus, ritual purity, enforced by religious edict, was vital for the moral and spiritual life of our ancestors. But does disgust still carry moral weight in a modern, secular, and technologically advanced society, or is it merely an evolutionary hangover?Just because we think something is wrong, how do we know that it is? And do we have the right, as a society, to translate our instinctive disapproval into prohibition? What is the moral value of disgust? Chair: Michal BuerkPanellists: Ash Sarkar, Tim Stanley, Anne McElvoy and Matthew Taylor.Witnesses: Stacey Clare, Julie Bindel, Jussi Suikkanen, John Haldane.Producer: Dan Tierney
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56:45
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56:45
Is it time to ditch historical figures as heroes?
The Bank of England has been accused of being the 'Bank of Wokeness' after proposing to cut historical figures from banknotes. Images of Winston Churchill, Jane Austen and Alan Turing could be replaced by images of themes such as nature, innovation, or key events in history. It raises the possibility of British birds, bridges, or bangers and mash featuring on the next series of £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes and would take us down the route favoured by the Euro which feature many an imaginary structure or window. But what do we lose when we potentially erase these historical figures from a place in our pocket? Are they problematic figures who are essentially divisive? Or are we discarding important figures who achieved greatness and still embody moral values? Is the concept of heroism one we need to reject altogether or do stories of human endeavour still represent the best way to promote culture and identity?PANEL: Anne McElvoy, Ash Sarkar, Matthew Taylor, Tim Stanley WITNESSES: Paul Lay, Historian Maddy Fry, Writer and Journalist Professor Simon Goldhill, Historian Professor Ellis CashmoreCHAIR Michael Buerk PRODUCER: Catherine Murray ASST PRODUCER: PETER EVERETT PRODUCTION CO-ORDINATOR: Pete Liggins EDITOR: Tim Pemberton
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56:49
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56:49