What is the meaning of honor? James is joined by Prof. Helen De Cruz, the Danforth Chair in the Department of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, to discuss the meaning of honor in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Their wide-ranging discussion goe

The Ethics of OnlyFans – with Kaden and Tyler Hylls

Oct 30th, 2020 55m

OnlyFans – a content creation network launched in 2016 – has quickly become a pop culture phenomenon, allowing fans to subscribe to creators’ channels and get privileged access to their content. Because OnlyFans is one of the few sites which al

Consequences in The Wasteland

Sep 25th, 2020 18m 5s

Wasteland 3 – the new roleplaying game from inXile Entertainment – enables the player to make numerous choices which affect the simulated game world. As such it is a fascinating examination of consequentialist ethics in video game form! What is

Do AI Algorithms Ruin Our Lives? with Aaron Rabinowitz

Sep 11th, 2020 51m 13s

Aaron Rabinowitz, host of the Embrace the Void Podcast, joins James to talk about the AI algorithms which are ruining our lives! How does YouTube decide what videos we should watch next? How does Facebook determine what posts should invade our

How Pop Culture Shapes Our Identity – with Chris Stedman

Aug 21st, 2020 59m 6s

Chris Stedman is an author, interfaith activist, and lover of pop culture – particularly pop music. Just before the launch of his new book “IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives”, Chris joins James to talk about how

Ethics of Star Trek Live Show at Virtual Trek Con – with Scott Baker

Jul 24th, 2020 56m 57s

In this special live show James discusses the ethics of Star Trek with filmmaker Scott Baker. Part of the Virtual Trek Con, Scott and James explore how Star Trek examines ethical themes throughout its many decades on air. Check out the video of

Ethics After the Apocalypse – The Last of Us Parts 1 and 2

Jul 9th, 2020 26m 33s

Post-apocalyptic fiction puts humanity in impossible situations in order to explore how we react: when civilization breaks down, what’s left of us? The Last of Us parts 1 and 2 explore this question more thoroughly than any other videogame, and

Dungeons & Dragons WAS Racist! – with Corey Clapp

Jun 27th, 2020 45m 44s

Recently Wizards of the Coast – owners and developers of the Dungeons & Dragons games and franchise – outlined how they intended to change their games to remove objectional racist stereotypes. This, only a few weeks after our earlier episode in

Superheroes and Social Justice – with Martin Casas

Jun 20th, 2020 49m 5s

Martin Casas has had an unusual career: he worked in politics for years, starting as a White House intern, then supporting the campaigns of Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and most recently St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson. But in recent years, he’s

Can Comedy Go Too Far? – with Nadia Kamil

Jun 15th, 2020 1h 6m

Are there ethical limits on comedy? Can a joke be so extreme, so offensive, or just so mean that it becomes unethical? James is joined by actress, writer, and comedian Nadia Kamil to discuss “Can comedy go too far?” Using a notorious bit by Ste

Politics in Pop Culture – Gabe Fleisher

May 11th, 2020 59m 20s

Gabe Fleisher has been a political junkie since he was a child, starting his now-famous Wake Up To Politics daily newsletter before the age of ten. Now Gabe has a podcast on St. Louis Public Radio, and is blazing a trail as one of America’s mos

The Etiquette of “Animal Crossing” – Rachel Reams

May 10th, 2020 52m

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” is a pop-culture phenomenon. The new installment of the long-running Nintendo series came out just as many of us were starting our COVID-19-induced lockdowns, and offers millions of people an escape, giving playe

Is Immortality a Curse? – Altered Carbon

Apr 17th, 2020 36m 4s

Is immortality a good thing? Death is the great inevitability of hum an life – we all know, deep down, that one day we will die. And most of us don’t want to die. So, for millennia, human beings have sought methods –religious, occult, and techn

Are Pokémon Trainers Evil? – with Dr. Jen McCreight

Apr 10th, 2020 53m 6s

When trainers battle with Pokémon, is it as bad as dog fighting? And how about eating Pokémon – what’s up with that? This week James is joined by Dr. Jen McCreight, the scientist in charge of Research Communications at 23andMe, a genomics PhD,

Picard Season 1 Wrap-Up with LaShana Lewis

Apr 3rd, 2020 46m 12s

LaShana Lewis returns for a spoiler-filled wrap-up of Picard, which recently dropped its Season 1 finale. What did we think of the show? How did it develop the ethical themes we explored in our earlier episode on the virtues of Jean-Luc Picard?

When do Artificial Intelligences Become People? – with Meia Chita-Tegmark

Mar 27th, 2020 52m 39s

When do artificial intelligences become people? This is one of the most profound ethical questions of all, a question raised by numerous works of science fiction over many decades. Using the 2014 film “Ex Machina” as a springboard, James explor

Does Death Media Make You a Monster? – with Kat Weir

Mar 25th, 2020 59m 42s

Dive into the dark, disturbing, yet compelling world of “death media” with self-described “death media weirdo” Kat Weir! Death media is the increasingly popular genre of podcasts, TV-shows, films etc. focused on death and the darker side of lif

Simulating Morality in Video Games

Mar 11th, 2020 36m 49s

In the beginning, games simulated simple things: a bat and ball, driving a car. More recently, however, games have started exploring morality, using different ways to give players choices between right and wrong. How do video games simulate mor

Saving Our Minds from Mind Flayers - with Andy Norman

Feb 26th, 2020 26m 48s

How can we prevent our minds from being taken over by dangerous ideas? This week James is joined by philosopher Andy Norman, who previews his new book which is all about how to protect our minds from Mind Flayers! How can we make sure we are t

Who Gets to Tell Which Stories? – with Amanda Poppei

Feb 7th, 2020 58m 31s

Who gets to tell which stories? If you are a man, can you successfully and ethically write stories starring women? If you are straight, will you ever really be able to capture the experience of being gay, and should you try? Using the novels of

The Virtues of Jean-Luc Picard – with LaShana Lewis

Jan 31st, 2020 58m 18s

Jean-Luc Picard: Starship captain, diplomat, flautist, archaeologist, lover of Gilbert and Sullivan, devotee of Shakespeare, and drinker of Earl Grey tea. Picard is the quintessential “Star Trek” captain, a paragon of Humanist virtues. As this

Is Dungeons and Dragons Racist?

Jan 24th, 2020 1h

Dungeons and Dragons is the archetypal roleplaying game, the progenitor of much nerd culture - and right now it’s having a resurgence. But embedded in the rules and world of D and D is a troubling approach to race which some suggest is racist.

The Moral World of “The Witcher”

Jan 17th, 2020 21m 51s

“The Witcher” has become a phenomenon. The character was born in the short stories of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, popularized in a video game series from CD Projekt Red, and is now fully mainstream with his own Netflix show. The world of

What Do You Do When Creators Disappoint You? – With Callie Wright

Jan 10th, 2020 58m 21s

What do you do when you discover that your favorite author, movie director, or game designer is a terrible person? Should that change how we interact with their art, or does it simply not matter? This week James is joined by Callie Wright, crea

Can Harry Potter Be Your Bible?

Dec 22nd, 2019 49m 48s

What does it mean to treat a nonreligious book like “Harry Potter” as “sacred,” and what can we learn when we do? This week James interviews Vanessa Zoltan, one of the co-creators of the incredibly popular podcast “Harry Potter and the Sacred T