“Don’t Ask That!” with Sam Berstler

Jeffrey Howard (UCL) asks what moral responsibilities social media platforms have to refrain from amplifying harmful content.  Read the paper at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10982-026-09557-8 Follow our sister podcast, UCL Uncovering Politics: https://uncoveringpolitics.com/ 

Daniel Viehoff (UC Berkeley) asks what citizens are ethically allowed to do when public officials threaten to inflict injustice on them. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/book/61684/chapter-abstract/540883622?redirectedFrom=fulltextAnd for an even deeper philosophical dive, see https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/papa.12218

Chiara Cordelli (Chicago) explores why existing critiques of capitalism fall short — and offers her own alternative, which focuses on the imperative to democratize investment. Read the paper at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/what-is-the-wrong-of-capitalism/CD320C659A33C006C6562D363FD5D954

Leif Wenar (Stanford) explores the doctrine of effective altruism, explaining why it leads us astray when thinking about our duties to the global poor and to the future.Read the paper at: https://www.wired.com/story/deaths-of-effective-altruism/

Renée Jørgensen (Michigan) explores the ethics of using big data to allocate police attention, and why doing so is morally questionable.Read the paper at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470594X251379074?download=true

Cécile Laborde (Oxford) asks who should be protected by discrimination law, and whether the socially advantaged can be victims of wrongful discrimination.Read the paper at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X241283034

Sam Berstler (MIT) explores how merely asking questions can sometimes be morally wrong, violating our rights to privacy.Read the paper at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/papa.12249

Jeremy Waldron (NYU) talks through what’s so bad about lying, and why certain lies are distinctively destructive to our political life.Read the paper at: https://politicalphilosophyjournal.org/article/id/15481/

Join us for a show looking at the best new scholarship in political and social philosophy, featuring lively conversations with leading thinkers. Join hosts Jeffrey Howard and Emily McTernan as they explore some of the thorniest ethical questions of our time.