Phil Ford and J.F. Martel from the great "Weird Studies" podcast join us for a whirling discussion of Edgar Allan Poe’s mesmerizing tale of decadence and disease “The Masque of the Red Death." We also talk about weird fiction more generally, wh

Open the Pod, Dave (with Sam Harris)

1 Oct 18th, 2022 2h 34m

We welcome Sam Harris back to the show for a deep dive into Stanley Kubrick’s confounding 1968 masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey." How long is the Dawn of Man? What does the second monolith do exactly? Why are the humans so banal and expressio

Life With No Head (With Sam Harris)

Jun 4th, 2019 2h 16m

Sam Harris returns to the podcast to talk about meditation and his new Waking Up meditation app. What are the goals of mindfulness practice - stress reduction and greater focus, or something much deeper? Can it cure David's existential dread? T

Stalemates and Closets (with Sam Harris)

1 Feb 28th, 2015 2h 46m

Sam Harris gets back in the VBW ring for another round on moral responsibility, ethical theories, and the grounds for our obligations to other people. Are we at a genuine stalemate when it comes to blame and desert? Is Tamler a closet consequen

Dishonesty, Character, and Dan Ariely

Nov 12th, 2012 1h 11m

In a Very Special Episode of Very Bad Wizards, Dan Ariely joins David to chat about cheating, character, teling your significant other about kissing someone at a conference, and the importance of moral rules. Tamler and David sandwich the chat

Revenge, Pt. 2: The Revenge

Oct 8th, 2012 1h 5m

Dave and Tamler continue their discussion about their favorite topic. They talk about the evolutionary origins of retributive behavior, cross-cultural differences in revenge norms, and the proportionate punishment for someone who gives your wi

Revenge, Pt. 1

Sep 20th, 2012 51m 35s

Dave allows Tamler to rant about Sam Harris’s strawman attacks on moral relativism before launching into discussion about revenge, justice, True Grit, and Michael Dukakis. Though they differ on many issues, Tamler and Dave agree that it’s hard

The Devil's Playground

Mar 24th, 2020 1h 25m

David and Tamler begin by talking about the question on everyone’s mind right now – are we obligated to be pansexual? Then, since many of us have more free time on our hands these days, we thought it might be a good idea to revisit Bertrand Rus

Clap Your Hand for Robert Wright

Jul 25th, 2017 1h 47m

Special guest Robert Wright joins the podcast to discuss his latest book "Why Buddhism is True." What is the Buddhist conception of not-self? When we become aware that the boundaries between us and the world are fluid, what is the “we” that arr

A Brief History of Values

Jul 12th, 2017 1h 26m

What happens when we discover why we believe the things we believe? What if we discover that our values are the product of our cultural tradition, or personal experience, or natural selection? Should we be more skeptical of our values once we l

Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 (Now with more poo poo)

Nov 4th, 2012 1h 7m

After a clip from The Third Man, Dave and Tamler continue their discussion from Episode 6 on Ted Bundy, utilitarians, and trolley problems. They also talk about Tamler’s TED talk envy, inappropriate acts with trees, and make a plea for more lis

Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)

Oct 20th, 2012 1h 1m

Tamler contemplates ending it all because he can't get 'Call Me Maybe' out of his head, and Dave doesn't try to talk him out of it. This is followed by a discussion about drones, psychopaths, Canadians, Elle Fanning, horrible moral dilemmas, an

"We believe in nothing!" (Cultural diversity, relativism, and moral truth)

Sep 8th, 2012 1h 1m

Tamler and Dave discuss recent work in philosophy and psychology about the differences in moral values and practices across cultures. We talk about the implications of moral diversity: does it mean that we cannot criticize that practices of ot

The "Dangerous Truth" about Free Will (Free Will and Morality, Pt. 2)

Sep 1st, 2012 1h 13m

Tamler and David discuss whether giving up our belief in free will makes us more likely to abandon our moral standards. Links “You Can’t Handle the Truth!” Jesse Bering “Scientists say free will probably doesn’t exist, but urge: “Don’t stop b

Brains, Robots, and Free Will (Free Will and Morality Pt. 1)

Aug 30th, 2012 1h 10m

Dave and Tamler start out talking about the new wave of skepticism about free will and moral responsibility in the popular press from people like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne. Neuroscience figures heavily in their arguments, but Dave and Tamler

Episode 282: Fearful Symmetry (Borges' "Death and the Compass")

9 days ago 1h 25m

A Rabbi is found dead in a hotel room, stabbed in the chest. The room is filled with Kabbalah texts and a single page in an typewriter that reads “The first letter of the name has been written.” The celebrated detective and “reasoning machine”

Episode 281: Choose Your Fighter

1 month ago 1h 22m

We dig into the biggest rivalry in Tamler’s profession, analytic vs. continental philosophy. Are analytic philosophers truly the rigorous, precise, clear thinkers they take themselves to be? And is continental philosophy really just a bunch pre

Episode 279: The Greenhouses We Burned Along the Way (Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" Pt. 2)

Feb 27th, 2024 1h 9m

David and Tamler conclude their discussion of Lee Chang-dong’s "Burning" – we talk about the hunger dance at twilight, Ben’s greenhouse burning habit, Shin Hae-mi’s mysterious disappearance, Lee Jong-su’s clumsy and doomed quest to find out wha

Episode 278: Schrödinger's Everything (Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" Pt. 1)

Feb 13th, 2024 1h 32m

David and Tamler fall under the spell of Lee Chang-dong’s 2018 masterpiece Burning, a movie where nothing is what it seems, or maybe it is. An alienated young man meets what seems like his dream girl from his small town, but she’s about to leav

Episode 277: The Merits of Buggery (Nagel's "Sexual Perversion")

Jan 30th, 2024 1h 35m

David and Tamler play the old hits – Thomas Nagel and sex robots. In the main segment we talk about Nagel’s essay “Sexual Perversion”, a surprising essay on many fronts (Sartre, erotic fiction, conceptual analysis, much more). What’s the nature

Episode 276: Attention Please

Jan 16th, 2024 1h 27m

David and Tamler are back for the new year and one of our resolutions was to do more episodes on William James. Today we talk about his account of ‘Attention’ from his 1890 volume The Principles of Psychology – another remarkably prescient chap

Episode 275: The Ineffable Center (Borges' "The Aleph")

Dec 26th, 2023 1h 34m

An episode interesting from every point of view, we train our eyes on Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Aleph.” The first segment wins the kudos of the learned, the academician, the Hellenist, as we talk about the favorite things we saw this year. The se

Episode 274: Can I Get a Kidney Voucher? (with Vlad Chituc)

Dec 13th, 2023 1h 35m

RETURNING guest Vlad Chituc joins us for a wide-ranging discussion about donating his kidney to a stranger, the effective altruism movement, and his sexuality. Was EA’s turn to ‘long-termist’ goals like preventing evil AI inevitable? Have they

Episode 273: Ah. Ah. (Miyazaki's "Spirited Away")

Nov 29th, 2023 1h 57m

David and Tamler board the train for Hayao Miyazaki’s mystical dreamy coming of age masterpiece Spirited Away. This is a true VBW deep dive. Plus a study by our secret crush suggests we may not be optimizing the value of our conversations. Mast

Episode 272: Neigh Means Yay

Nov 15th, 2023 1h 24m

The morality of zoophilia has received shockingly little attention in contemporary ethical discourse…until now. David and Tamler break down the paper “Zoophilia is Morally Permissible” from the latest issue of The Journal of Controversial Ideas