We all remember the famous iTunes review calling David and Tamler "repugnant." (And the T-shirt/mugs are coming soon, we promise!) But what did the reviewer mean by that? Was he calling us "immoral"? Did he actually feel disgust when he listened to the podcast? And if so, was there wisdom in his repugnance--did the feeling offer any moral insight about the podcast's value? How did an emotion that originally evolved for pathogen avoidance get into moralizing business anyway? And why do white peop...
Aug 02, 2016•1 hr 29 min•Ep 95•Transcript available on Metacast Dave and Tamler don’t agree about much, but one thing they do share is an affinity for character-based approaches to ethics. Using Tamler’s interview with Georgetown Philosopher Nancy Sherman as their guide (link to chapter included), they discuss two ancient perspectives on how to develop good character and live happy, virtuous lives: Aristotle's and that of the Stoics. Why did Aristotle focus so much on friendship and what happens when those friendships get too "watery"? Are emotions crucial f...
Jul 19, 2016•2 hr 37 min•Ep 94•Transcript available on Metacast Scandinavian film scholar Yoel Inbar joins the podcast for a deep dive on the Swedish film Force Majeure , a darkly funny meditation on what our instinctive behavior in a moment of panic can reveal about our characters and relationships. The story: while having lunch on a ski slope in the French Alps, a family believes that an avalanche is bearing down on them. Just as it seems the avalanche is going to hit them, the father (Tomas) grabs his phone and gloves and runs indoors, abandoning his wife...
Jul 05, 2016•2 hr 39 min•Ep 93•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler continue their intermittent “classic paper series” with an episode on Jonathan Bennett’s “The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn” (published in 1974—before the reason vs. emotion debate was all cool again). Using fictional and historical examples, Bennett raises a number of questions that are central to our understanding of human morality, such as what ought to guide our behavior--human sympathy or moral beliefs? Do emotions like empathy/sympathy have judgments built into them? Are ...
Jun 21, 2016•1 hr 9 min•Ep 92•Transcript available on Metacast Inspired by a recent ProPublica report on racial bias in an algorithm used to predict future criminal behavior, David and Tamler talk about the use of analytic methods in criminal sentencing, sports, and love. Should we use algorithms to influence decisions about criminal sentencing or parole decisions? Should couples about to get married take a test that predicts their likelihood of getting divorced? Is there something inherently racist about analytic methods in sports? Plus, David asks Tamler ...
Jun 07, 2016•1 hr 24 min•Ep 91•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler have their first real fight in a while over an article defending "social mixing"--distributing babies randomly across families such that no infant is genetically related to the parents who raise them.. Then they discuss a study published in Science in 2013 in which participants could earn money if they agreed to let mice be killed in a gas chamber. Do free markets threaten our moral characters and cause us to abandon our principles? What are mechanisms behind this phenomenon whe...
May 25, 2016•1 hr 21 min•Ep 90•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler welcome author and environmental science professor Jennifer Jacquet to the podcast to discuss the pros and cons of shame. What's the difference between shame and guilt? Is shaming effective for generating social progress or getting tax cheats to pay up? Is twitter shaming on the rise or on its way out? And what does David do when he's alone in the dark? But before all of that, David and Tamler introduce a new way to support the podcast--through our Patreon account (patreon.com/v...
May 10, 2016•2 hr 38 min•Ep 89•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler celebrate Passover with a high-spirited episode on guns, revenge, liberals, being offended, the fear of death, and whether kids have a right to be loved. Thanks to all you listeners for emailing your questions, comments, and complaints--this was a fun, energetic discussion. Plus, a blast from the past from an unusually alert Pizarro: Michael Shannon reading a sorority letter. But won't somebody please think of the children ???!! Links Mr. Robot Season 2 premiere date [usanetwork...
Apr 26, 2016•1 hr 21 min•Ep 88•Transcript available on Metacast We hit the jackpot with this one! Economist Robert Frank (you may remember him from such episodes as The Greatest Books Ever Written ) joins David and Tamler to talk about his new book Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. What role does pure chance play in making or breaking our careers and lives? Are effort and talent enough to succeed, or does the ball need to bounce our way? Where do we get our will-power and talent--is that ultimately a matter of luck as well? And what...
Apr 12, 2016•1 hr 20 min•Ep 87•Transcript available on Metacast We know that criminal punishment has consequences, both good and bad, and that many people think that offenders deserve it. But what does punishment mean ? What is society trying to express in the way it punishes criminals? And since people from all sides of the political spectrum agree that the prison population is way too big, is there a way to convey that meaning with alternative forms of sanctions? David and Tamler discuss Yale Law Professor Dan Kahan's classic paper "What do alternative san...
Mar 22, 2016•1 hr 15 min•Ep 86•Transcript available on Metacast Philosophers can be funny and funny movies can be philosophical. David and Tamler welcome frequent VBW guest and arch-enemy of empathy Paul Bloom to discuss their five favorite comic films with philosophical/psychological themes. Groundhog Day was off-limits for our top five (we would've all chosen it) so we start by explaining why it's the quintessential movie for this topic. Links [all movie links are to imdb.com] Paul's Top 5 The Big Lebowski Shaun of the Dead The Man with Two Brains / All of...
Mar 12, 2016•1 hr 10 min•Ep 85•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler talk about the perils of trying to step outside of your own perspective in ethics, science, and politics. What do Rawls' "original position" thought experiment, Pascal's Wager, and Moral Foundations Theory have in common? (Hint: it involves baking.) Plus, what movies (and other things) would serve as a litmus test when deciding on a potential life partner? What might liking or not liking a certain film, book, or TV series tell you about a person, and whether or not the relations...
Feb 23, 2016•2 hr 33 min•Ep 84•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler continue their series of breaking down a classic essay/article in their fields. For this installment, David assigns Tamler Anthony Greenwald's fascinating 1980 review article "The Totalitarian Ego." What do totalitarian regimes, scientific theories, and your own cognitive biases have in common? As it turns out, quite a bit. Why do egos rewrite our memories, preserve our beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence, and make us think we're way more important than we are? And how...
Feb 09, 2016•1 hr 2 min•Ep 83•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler take a break from their main jobs as TV critics to talk about a masterpiece in political philosophy: "Two Concepts of Liberty" by Isaiah Berlin. While they both celebrate the style and substance of this classic essay, in a startling twist Tamler praises conceptual analysis and David expresses a few misgivings about his Kantianism. What is the elusive idea of positive liberty, and how can its pursuit lead to totalitarian rule? When is it more important to buy boots than read Russ...
Jan 26, 2016•1 hr 6 min•Ep 82•Transcript available on Metacast Hello, listener. Hello, listener? That's lame. Maybe I should give you a name, but that's a slippery slope. You're only in my head. Or maybe we're in your head. Are you listening to this with headphones? Shit. It's actually happened, I'm talking to imaginary listeners. What I'm about to tell you is top secret, a conspiracy bigger than all of us. There's a powerful group of people out there that are secretly running the world. I'm talking about the guys no one knows about, the guys that are invis...
Jan 12, 2016•2 hr 47 min•Ep 81•Transcript available on Metacast It's our last episode on campus protests and political correctness for a while, we promise! But it's a fun one. David and Tamler welcome two guests on the opposite side of the debate spectrum. Recent Yale Alum, cognitive scientist, freelance writer, (and writer of novel-length emails) Vlad Chituc joins both of us to defend the Yale protests, provide some context, and explain why the good people at FIRE are hypocritical about free expression. In the middle segment, Tamler talks with his notorious...
Dec 21, 2015•2 hr 41 min•Ep 80•Transcript available on Metacast Special guest Valerie Tiberius joins us to talk about values, well-being, and friendship. What role should reflection play in the good life? What about emotion? How can we make our values more consistent and sustainable? Do we know our friends better than we know ourselves? Plus, are philosophers experts? Experts of what? What are the boundaries of our discipline? And what motivates a gay Mormon to stay in the Church? In the first segment, David and Tamler list a few things they're grateful for ...
Dec 04, 2015•2 hr 48 min•Ep 79•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler return to the minefield of campus politics and talk about recent events at Yale, Missouri, and Amherst. Are the protests are long overdue response to systematic oppression and prejudice? Or is this new generation of students coddled, hypersensitive, and hostile to free speech? A little bit of both? Can our hosts get through this episode without fighting? Links The New Intolerance of Student Activism by Conor Friedersdorf [theatlantic.com] President Peter Salovey's statement to Y...
Nov 24, 2015•1 hr 9 min•Ep 78•Transcript available on Metacast Special guest Eric Schwitzgebel joins David and Tamler to discuss the moral behavior (or lack thereof) of ethicists. Does moral reflection make us better people, or does it just give us better excuses to be immoral? Who's more right about human nature--Mencius or Xun Zi? What did Kant have against bastards and masturbating? Plus, we talk about jerks, robot cars, and killing baby Hitler. (Godwin's Law within 1:42--might be a new record for us). Links Eric Schwitzgebel publications. (Has links to ...
Nov 09, 2015•1 hr 20 min•Ep 77•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler list three things they've changed their minds about in their careers. (This episode was recorded before Episode 75, but that one was way too long already.) What does Tamler think about X-phi these days? Has Dave lost his faith in the power of reason? What the hell is 'non-cognitivism'? Plus, Dave disagrees with John Hodgman about the metaphysical property of a hot dog. And a couple of listener shout-outs, including giving credit to a listener for giving us a topic idea we discus...
Oct 26, 2015•1 hr 3 min•Ep 76•Transcript available on Metacast Dave and Tamler celebrate their 75th episode by welcoming six BFFs of the podcast and asking them to share the biggest thing they've changed their minds about in their professional careers. You'll hear Dan Ariely on our moral duty to take science into the real world, Laurie Santos on the the role of neuroscience in explaining psychological findings, Yoel Inbar on what it means to do good science as a psychologist, Eric Schwitzgebel on his metaphysical epiphany about materialism, Nina Strohminger...
Oct 06, 2015•3 hr 30 min•Ep 75•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler return after an end of summer hiatus to finally talk about the ethics of deception….eventually. But first they break down a recent article in the journal Science documenting an attempt to replicate 100 recent psychology experiments. What does it mean that just over 1/3 of the studies were successfully replicated? Is social psychology in crisis or is this just how science works? Will David somehow try to pin the blame on philosophers? Plus--a brief and almost certainly regrettabl...
Sep 16, 2015•2 hr 54 min•Ep 74•Transcript available on Metacast In what is possibly our most repugnant first segment ever, David and Tamler break down the ethics of zoophilia and investigate the true nature of consent. In the second segment we answer some listener emails and address our first question in our new capacity as International Ethics Experts. ™ If your family is religious, how honest should you be with your children about your non-belief? Do the comforting aspects of religious belief outweigh the fears and anxieties? What’s the deal with Christian...
Aug 12, 2015•1 hr 9 min•Ep 73•Transcript available on Metacast It finally happened: David and Tamler welcome special guest Joshua Weisberg to the podcast to talk about Turing machines, Chinese Rooms, and AI. What does it mean for a machine to acquire intelligence? What is the proper test? How much processing power would it take? Do computers shed light on how human beings think? Why is John Searle trapped in a Chinese room, anyway? Plus, a spoiler-filled discussion (beginning at 58:20) of the recent movie Ex Machina. David tries to assert his feminist bonaf...
Jul 28, 2015•2 hr 33 min•Ep 72•Transcript available on Metacast David and Tamler go deep into the best TV show of the summer, "Mr. Robot. They talk about the moral ambiguity of its central character, the distorted vision of reality it portrays, and play a round of "Real or Not Real" with all the main characters. Plus, what the swooning critics ignore about Pixar's "Inside Out"--its irresponsible failure to reference the relevant literature in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Links Two philosophers explain what Inside Out gets wrong about the mind [v...
Jul 14, 2015•1 hr 7 min•Ep 71•Transcript available on Metacast Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, papers by Williams and movies from Sweden. Long graphic novels that celebrate being. These are a few of our favorite things. Dave and Tamler offer some moral psych-themed recommendations to help you get your summer off to a good start. Plus, is porn bad for you now that it doesn't come in brown paper packages tied up in string? Links Pornucopia by Maria Konnikova [aeon.com] Maria Konnikova on Twitter [twitter.com] Zhana Vrangolova [zhanavrangolova.com]...
Jun 29, 2015•2 hr 35 min•Ep 70•Transcript available on Metacast Dave and Tamler try to figure out what we talk about when we talk about objectivity. In past episodes we’ve claimed that logic and science (when it isn't fraudulent) are objective. Tamler has claimed repeatedly that "Louie" is an objectively better TV show than "Jessie." Dave is constantly claiming that Kant is objectively the best philosopher. But to be honest, we say these things without being exactly sure what we’re saying. Today we try to be sure--only to get more confused. Plus, we get into...
Jun 17, 2015•2 hr 34 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast Dave drags Tamler into the nerd abyss by making him watch an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Tapestry,” from the 6th season. It's available on Netflix instant in the US, and likely worldwide on many sites of varying legality). We talk about the themes of the episode: regret, risk aversion, the arrogance of hindsight, and the dream of living your past “knowing what you know now.” What are the things that shape our character? Should we embrace our mistakes or would we change something ...
Jun 01, 2015•1 hr 14 min•Ep 68•Transcript available on Metacast Dave and Tamler break the cardinal rule of comedy by trying to analyze it. What are the origins and functions of humor? Can a theory explain what makes us laugh? Is humor entirely subjective? Why would anyone find Mr. Bean funny? Plus, we lose some geek cred by confessing some iconic comedians that we never liked, and ask why the American Psychologist Association loves to torture people. Links Report Claims American Psychological Association Secretly Supported Torture Policy [time.com] The philo...
May 18, 2015•1 hr 17 min•Ep 67•Transcript available on Metacast Special guest Yoel Inbar (author of Hitchcock’s Women: From Margaret Sullivan to Tippi Hedren) joins us to talk about Hitchcock’s long take masterpiece/gimmick Rope. Based loosely on the case of Leopold and Loeb, Rope tells the story of two young men who have read Nietzsche and decide to murder a schoolmate in order to cement their Ü bermensch status. Did they read Nietzsche correctly? Is conventional morality nothing but a construct to keep the inferior masses in line? Are professors accountabl...
Apr 20, 2015•1 hr 25 min•Ep 66•Transcript available on Metacast 
