US writer and author of The Constitution of Knowledge Jonathan Rauch, explains what ‘truth’ is and why and how we must defend it. In a fascinating account of how liberal democracies ‘produce’ knowledge, Jonathan describes this unwritten ‘constitution of knowledge’ as a global process of error checking with millions of people around the world, thousands of institutions, all searching for each other’s errors. Rauch says this social production of knowledge which began around 200 years ago&nbs...
Sep 05, 2022•50 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Welcome to Season 3 of Principle of Charity, where we explore social issues with curiosity, generosity and humility. It’s been remarkable seeing the growth in our audience over the last season. The big news is, Season 3 launches next week! We’ve got some fantastic topics and guests already in the can, exploring identity politics, inequality, whether we can mould our kids, alternative medicine, and so much more, with the world’s top experts. We’re also trialing a few new ideas, like splitting eac...
Aug 30, 2022•39 sec
To round off Season 2, Principle of Charity producer Jonah Primo talks with hosts Emile Sherman and Lloyd Vogelman, delving into what they’ve learned from the season, whether they’ve changed their minds, how the podcast has evolved and where it goes from here. ~~ You can be part of the discussion @PofCharity on Twitter, @PrincipleofCharity on Facebook and @PrincipleofCharityPodcast on Instagram. Your hosts are Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman. Find Lloyd @LloydVogelman...
Jun 06, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 14
What do we do with our mental suffering? From everyday anger and disappointments, to life defining moments of grief and pain, we are all dealing with our emotional life, much of which can be challenging. In this episode we are going to explore two great models - meditation and psychoanalysis, to look at what they have in common and how they differ. Meditation, particularly mindfulness meditation, has made its way into the west and permeates so much of society these days. The catchphrase m...
May 23, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 13
When someone breaks the law, most of us have an instinct that they should be punished. In fact, that they deserve to be punished. At the base of this is a sense that we are morally responsible for our actions and we should get our ‘just deserts’ if we make bad choices. This assumption is deeply encoded in the criminal law itself. Sure, there are other reasons we may want to put criminals behind bars – keeping society safe, deterring others from committing the same crime, even rehabi...
May 09, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Immigration is such a hot topic. Our borders are, in a sense, our collective skin and the question of who we let in seems to activate our primal instincts. Who comes in can feel and can at times be dangerous. Yet we want new ideas, new brain and brawn-power to fuel our country. A larger population can bring greater economic growth and prosperity. And with fertility rates below replacement level in most wealthy countries, our population will decline without immigration. ...
Apr 25, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Up until not that long ago, storytellers were encouraged to flex their creative muscles, to look outside themselves, and armed with their imagination as well as a lot of research, to bring to life characters, stories and worlds that they didn’t inhabit themselves, often worlds vastly different to the culture they’ve grown up in. But relatively recently, storytellers have received a huge challenge from the progressive left, a challenge that has now permeated the creative...
Apr 11, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 10
In this episode, we explore the two great movements of the political right - liberalism of the right and conservatism. They are such different political philosophies, yet they share the same bed, uneasily much of the time, in right wing politics. By liberalism, we mean the political philosophy that champions individual rights and freedoms, private property and equality before the law. It’s linked with the rise of democracies and of capitalism, replacing social structures defined by ...
Mar 28, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 9
What do we do, as a society, with people who want to die? We’re talking here about those with a terminal illness , who know that the rest of their waking hours will be filled with much pain, and who want to choose when and how to end it. Do we have the right to end our life on our terms, or is life so precious that even we can’t extinguish it? And if we do open the door, what are the potential pitfalls? Could it be used against the vulnerable, manipulating those who feel like a burd...
Mar 14, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Why is it so important to understand other points of view? How do we escape our own bubbles of bias? And when should we stop listening and focus on winning? In this special episode, we shine a light on the ‘Principle of Charity’ itself. We look at what exactly it is and why it’s so important. We then go one layer deeper and ask when it might be problematic or unhelpful to use it. To do all of this, we have the fabulous Tim Minchin. Tim is a renowned musician, comedian, compose...
Feb 28, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Everyone is talking about “social impact”, or “purpose”, as a way for business to deliver greater good to society. But does having a social purpose actually help society any more than a business just focused on making goods that people want to buy, for profit? Is social impact hollow virtue signaling, a marketing tool to make customers feel warm and fuzzy? Or does it in fact signal a profound shift in our attitude to capitalism, where the common good is finally put first, where it belongs...
Aug 09, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 6
We first touch on the perennial question, whether technological disruption, this time in the form of AI, will ultimately eat our jobs so entirely that there’s no paid work left for us to do. We then take this prospect seriously enough to ask - will that in fact be a good thing? Is paid employment the cornerstone for the good life; rich with purpose, meaning, providing us the reward for our efforts, keeping us out of mischief, and holding society together? OR, is work, in fact,...
Jul 26, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 5
We are not here to argue whether climate change is real or not. It’s real, and it’s bad. We are here to ask the much edgier question - should we fight or adapt? Our guests include Rebecca Huntley, one of Australia’s leading social researchers, who shifted her entire career to exclusively fight climate change, using her expertise in human behavior to galvanise action. We also have Alan Heeks, a representative of the Deep Adaptation movement, which urges us to accept the catastrophic reality of cl...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Leading economist Gigi Foster lets us in on the dirty little secret - our lives have been given a dollar value, and it’s used by governments to make a whole range of decisions, from whether we’re given that life saving medicine, to when to shut down an economy because of a pandemic. Covid19 has let us into this secret room, as we as a society grapple with how much economic pain we should suffer to protect the lives of the elderly and vulnerable. One of Gigi’s most articulate critics, moral ...
Jun 28, 2021•57 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Media professor and feminist Catharine Lumby sees a role for pornography in a healthy sexual diet, whereas public ethics professor Clive Hamilton has the self-confessed unfashionable view that it’s destructive and demeaning. They’ve clashed in the media, and we bring them together for the first time to see if we can tease out this complex topic, in a conversation that exemplifies the principle of charity. Everyone seems to be looking at pornography but its rarely discussed. 35% of a...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 2
Fat Pig Farm owner and author Matthew Evans and vegan animal advocate Ondine Sherman of Voiceless join us to discuss whether it’s moral to eat meat. How are we to make sense of the incredibly complex topic of meat. First of all, is it right to take a sentient life? What about our evolution, our nature, our culture, and our taste-buds, all powerful forces that drive most of us to eat meat? Each year over 70 billion land animals and a trillion sea animals are killed for food. The vast ...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 1
An Introduction to Principle of Charity and its hosts, Lloyd Vogelman and Emile Sherman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 09, 2021•4 min
