All Episodes

#1255 Teresa Baron: The Ethics of Procreation, Pronatalism, and Antinatalism

May 18, 2026

Dr. Teresa Baron is an Assistant Professor at Nottingham University working on reproductive ethics and philosophy of parenthood. She is the author of The Philosopher's Guide to Parenthood, Philosophy of the Family: Ethics, Identity and Responsibility (with Dr. Christopher Cowley), and The Artificial Womb on Trial. She is currently writing on the ethics of ectogenic research and editing a new Handbook of Philosophy and the Family for Routledge. More»
#1254 Lynda Boothroyd: How Culture and the Media Shape Gender Differences and Mate Preferences

May 15, 2026

Dr. Lynda Boothroyd is a Professor of Psychology at Durham University. Her research focuses on Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural understandings of interpersonal attraction and sexual selection. She has focused on body ideals in rural Nicaragua alongside experimental work both in the laboratory and in the field on the impacts of visual experience on body size preferences. More»
#1253 Ricardo Barroso: Comportamento Criminoso, do Ponto de Vista da Psicologia Clínica e da Justiça

May 14, 2026

THIS INTERVIEW IS IN PORTUGUESE. More»
#1252 David Benatar - The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

May 11, 2026

Dr. David Benatar is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town. He is best known for his advocacy of antinatalism in his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, in which he argues that coming into existence is a serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings. He’s also the author of The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions (2017). More»
#1251 Bradley Hillier-Smith: The Ethics of State Responses to Refugees

May 8, 2026

Dr. Bradley Hillier-Smith is an Associate Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. His main research interests are in global justice, human rights, migration ethics, obligations towards refugees, as well as ethical issues behind pressing social and political problems. His research aims to make a positive difference to people’s lives, wellbeing and rights through improving public policy and our social and political institutions. He is the author of The Ethics of State Responses to Refugees. More»
#1250 Quill Kukla - Sex Beyond "Yes": Pleasure and Agency for Everyone

May 7, 2026

Dr. Quill Kukla is Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and a Visiting Fellow at Leibniz University Hannover. They are the author of Sex Beyond "Yes": Pleasure and Agency for Everyone. More»
#1249 Melissa Shew: Women and Intellectual Joy

May 4, 2026

Dr. Melissa Shew has her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oregon. She is currently the Associate Director of Teaching Excellence at Marquette University, where she is also the Faculty Director of their Executive MBA Program. She is the author (together with Kimberly Garchar) of Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought. More»
#1248 Carles Lalueza-Fox - Identity: What DNA Can Tell Us About Ourselves

May 1, 2026

Dr. Carles Lalueza-Fox is Director of the Natural Science Museum in Barcelona. He participated in the Neanderthal Genome Project and led the first retrieval of the genome of an 8,000-year-old European hunter-gatherer. His latest book is Identity: What DNA Can Tell Us About Ourselves. More»
#1247 Zygmunt Baranski: Dante's Divine Comedy

Apr 30, 2026

Dr. Zygmunt Baranski is Emeritus R. L. Canala Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame, and Serena Professor of Italian Emeritus at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Baranski has worked primarily on Dante, concentrating on Dante’s relationship to medieval literary theory and criticism and on his intellectual formation. In addition, he has published extensively on Dante’s reception in the fourteenth and twentieth centuries, on medieval Italian culture and literature (in particular, Cavalcanti, Petrarch, and Boccaccio), on modern Italian literature and culture, on Pasolini, on Italian cinema, and on Italo-Polish cultural relations. More»
#1246 Rivka Weinberg: Does Life Have Meaning?

Apr 27, 2026

Dr. Rivka Weinberg is a professor of philosophy at Scripps College in Claremont, California. As a philosopher and bioethicist, Dr. Weinberg specializes in ethical and metaphysical issues regarding birth, death, and meaning. Her latest book is The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time. More»