Ethics Untangled

Duncan Sheehan is Professor of Business Law at the University of Leeds. He is interested in trusts and personal property law, especially secured transactions law. He has a particular recent interest in the application of the philosophy of action to the law, as well as a wider interest in private law theory more generally. Unjust enrichment is a distinctive and, some might say, weird area of law. It is supposed to cover cases in which someone acquires a benefit of some kind at the expense of another person in a way that is unjust, and which leads to a requirement for restitution. It's not the same as fraud or theft, partly because the person who has been unjustly enriched might never have intended to be enriched. But it has proven surprisingly difficult for legal scholars to say exactly what it is, or what precisely links all the cases that are usually brought together under the heading of unjust enrichment, which has led some to call for it to be abolished. Nonetheless, Professor Sheehan does think it's a thing, and thinks it should continue to be a thing, and in this conversation he explains why. As someone who was once massively overpaid by my employer (and was honest enough to give the money back, otherwise I probably wouldn't be admitting to it here) I was interested to find out what the law thinks about this issue... Duncan's book, The Scope and Structure of Unjust Enrichment will be published in February 2024. Chapters 1 and 3 cover the issues discussed in the podcast. Duncan also recommends the following two articles: Hedley, S. 'What is Unjust Enrichment for?' (2016) 16 Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal 333 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2805475) Jaffey, P. 'The Unjust Enrichment Fallacy and Private Law' (2013) 28 Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 115 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3799149) Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Dr Jamie Dow is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the IDEA Centre. He is particularly interested in Ancient Philosophy, and much of his research is concerned with what philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle can tell us about the ethical questions we face today. Recently, he's been thinking about the use of aesthetic features in persuasive speech. Sonorous, humorous or rhetorically elegant language can help us to get our message across more effectively and change people's minds. There are lots of ways of doing this. We might want to describe our opponent's position in a humorous way to invite our listeners to join us in ridiculing it. We might want to vary the rhythm and pitch of our speech to lend it musicality. We might want to begin successive sentences with a repeated phrase, in a sequence of three (a 'tricolon') where the final sentence cleverly subverts the expectation set up by the preceding two. Or pepper our prose with pellets of punchy alliteration. But is this stuff okay, or is there always something morally suspect about this kind of approach? If we want people to come round to our point of view for the right reasons, shouldn't we be focusing purely on the content of what we're saying? To try to answer this question, Jamie uses two examples of persuasive speech which use aesthetic approaches very effectively - speeches by Barack Obama and Martin Luther King. He also talks about the implications of his research for people who are using persuasive speech in everyday life. You can hear the Obama speech here (the section discussed in the podcast starts at around 21:25): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQnlnk6Y7Kk&t=207s The King speech is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgVrlx68v-0 Jamie's paper, published in the British Journal of Aesthetics, is here: https://academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aesthj/ayac061/7187071 Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Paula Satne is a Lecturer in Applied Ethics at the IDEA Centre. Her research focuses on theoretical and applied issues related to human evil and the ethics and politics of forgiveness and memory. Her recent research is on Kantian forgiveness, political forgiveness and public commemoration of politically motivated wrongdoing, punishment, pacifism, and conflict resolution, and our shared complicity and responsibility for structural injustice (i.e., climate change, poverty, and war). Krisanna Scheiter is Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Union College. She specializes in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Her research focuses on Plato and Aristotle's accounts of emotion, desire, imagination, and thinking. Most recently her work explores Plato and Aristotle's account of the mind, knowledge, and truth. In addition, she continues to examine Aristotle's account of revenge and why he thinks sometimes we are justified in seeking revenge against wrongdoers. In this episode I met with both of them to discuss the edited volume they have recently published on punishment, forgiveness and revenge. These are ideas that are interesting on a personal level: is it good to forgive? Are there any circumstances in which we might be required to forgive? Can there ever be any value in taking revenge on people who have wronged us? But they also arise on a societal or international level: should groups of people forgive or forget historic wrongs that have been perpetrated against them? What is the point of punishment, and does the state have the right to punish its citizens? Apologies for the slight sound issues with this episode, which was recorded remotely. This episode includes discussion of the death penalty in the context of a discussion of Seneca’s views. Both Krisanna and Paula want to make it clear that, unlike Seneca, they do not personally endorse the death penalty. Paula and Krisanna's book, Conflict and Resolution: The Ethics of Forgiveness, Revenge and Punishment is available here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-77807-1. A chapter from the book, written by Paula, is available open access here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-77807-1_16. Krisanna's chapter (not open access) is here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-77807-1_2 Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Joseph Lacey is Associate Professor of Political Theory at University College Dublin. He is about to embark on a five-year project looking at the moral agency of participants in elections. That's politicians, special advisers, journalists and so on. But it's also you and me: people who engage with political messaging, perhaps take some interest in what's going on behind the scenes and, ultimately, vote in elections. In this episode Joseph talks about the questions he's interested in, his plans for the research, what's distinctive about the method he's going to use, and what he hopes to get out of it. Here are some readings suggested by Joseph as good and relevant to the topic: Beckman, Arthur. 2018. ‘Political Marketing and Intellectual Autonomy: Political Marketing & Intellectual Autonomy’. Journal of Political Philosophy 26(1): 24–46. Beerbohm, Eric. 2016. ‘The Ethics of Electioneering’. Journal of Political Philosophy 24(4): 381–405. Green, Jeffrey. 2010. The Eyes of the People: Democracy in an Age of Spectatorship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lipsitz, Keena. 2004. ‘Democratic Theory and Political Campaigns’. Journal of Political Philosophy 12(2): 163–89. Scammell, Margaret. 2014. Consumer Democracy: The Marketing of Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Robbie Morgan is a lecturer and consultant here at the IDEA Centre. His research focuses on issues in the philosophy of sex, particularly as this intersects with feminist philosophy. As well as sexualisation, he's currently engaged in research about language change, the metaphysics of touch, conscientious objection in medicine, and the value of consensual sexual activity. In this conversation, we discuss sexualisation. Unwanted sexualisation is at the very least an inappropriate behaviour. At worst it can be an illegitimate exercise of power which involves harassing, bullying, or terrorising another person. But how exactly should we define sexualisation, and what if anything is distinctively harmful about it? Here are the readings Robbie mentions in the episode: Anonymous. 2011. “What It’s like to Be Pregnant in Philosophy.” What Is It Like to Be a Woman in Philosophy? 2011. https://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/what-its-like-to-be-pregnant-in-philosophy/. Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 1995. “Objectification.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 24 (4): 249–91. Olberding, Amy. 2014. “Subclinical Bias, Manners, and Moral Harm.” Hypatia 29 (2): 287–302. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1781/1953), The Confessions. Translated by J.M. Cohen. Penguin Books: 108-109. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Ruby Hornsby is a PhD student at the IDEA Centre. Her research is about 'artificial friends' - robots and their interactions with humans - and whether these interactions can be part of a good human life. What do we get out of friendship and how much of that is possible when the supposed friend we're talking about is not a person with an inner life of their own, but an artificial being that has been programmed to act in a friendly way towards us? And what if our interactions with robots are a bit like our interactions with fictional characters? Does this mean we can't have friendships with them, or is there some form of quasi-friendship that might still be possible, and might have something to offer us? And what about the ethics of these relationships? Do we leave ourselves open to exploitation or deception by entering into them? Some links: Ai-Da House of Lords (2022) Care homes and social robots (2020) Sex robots and companionship (2023) Sony's AIBO dog (2023) Research Ruby did alongside IDEA's Natasha McKeever on sex robots (2022) Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

For this episode I spoke to Professor Fiona Woollard. Professor Woollard is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. She has research interests in normative ethics, applied ethics, epistemically transformative experiences and the philosophy of sex and pregnancy. She has published on topics including the distinction between doing and allowing harm, climate change and the non-identity problem, the moral significance of numbers, pornography and the norm of monogamy. Her recent research has led her to ask a question which turns out to be surprisingly difficult to answer: what is a mother? Not necessarily, in her view, a woman with a child. In this interview she explains why she doesn't think this is the right way of defining a mother, and what she thinks is a better way. To get there, we tried to get to grips with some vexed questions about gender. Professor Woollard's page at Southampton is here. Here's the advert we refer to at the start of the interview. Some of the books and papers Professor Woollard talks about in the interview: Ashley, Florence. (forthcoming) ”What Is It like to Have a Gender Identity? Gender Subjectivity and the Phenomenological Constitution of Gender Identity” Mind. Bettcher, Talia Mae. (2009) “Trans Identities and First-Person Authority” In Laurie Shrage (ed.), You've Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hays, Sharon. (1998) The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. London: Yale University Press. Jenkins, Katharine. (forthcoming) Ontology and Oppression: Race, Gender and Social Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kukla, Quill and Lance, Mark. (forthcoming) “Telling Gender: The Pragmatics and Ethics of Gender Ascriptions” in ERGO. Ruddick, S. (1980). "Maternal Thinking". Feminist Studies, 6(2), 342–367. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Dr Joe Saunders is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Durham. He primarily works on ethics and agency in Kant and the post-Kantian tradition. He also has interests in the philosophy of love and media ethics. In this episode we talk about how we should behave online. How bad is social media as a forum for discussion, for example of political or social issues? What specific pitfalls can we fall into and how should we avoid them? What are our responsibilities to each other? And is civility the answer? Here's Joe: https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/joe-saunders/ And here he is on Twitter (be nice!): https://twitter.com/Saunders_Joe Some of the books and papers which Joe mentions in the episode: Levy, Neil (2021). Virtue signalling is virtuous. Synthese 198 (10):9545-9562. Nguyen, C. Thi (2020). Echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Episteme 17 (2):141-161. Olberding, Amy. The Wrong of Rudeness: Learning Modern Civility from Ancient Chinese Philosophy. 2019. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-wrong-of-rudeness-9780190880965 Olberding, Amy. Righteous Incivility. Online at: https://aeon.co/essays/whats-the-difference-between-being-righteous-and-being-rude Ronson, Jon. So You've Been Publicly Shamed. 2015. Riverhead Books. https://www.amazon.co.uk/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/1594487138 Tosi, J. and Warmke, B. Grandstanding: The use and abuse of moral talk. 2020. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/grandstanding-9780190900151 By the way, at one point in the episode I talk about the practice on social media of finding the worst possible version of your opponent's argument in order to dunk on it. I've since become aware of the very useful term 'nutpicking' to refer to this phenomenon: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nutpicking. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

In this episode we have special guest Panashe Chinya. Panashe is a medical student at the University of Leeds, who previously intercalated on the MA in Biomedical and Healthcare Ethics at the IDEA Centre. The presentation and subsequent discussion are based on the dissertation that Panashe completed during her MA at IDEA which asks if mandating moral enhancement for health care professionals as a means to deal with racism and implicit biases in the field could be ethically justified. Could moral enhancement really help to combat racial injustice in healthcare? Can responsibilities to patients be balanced against the autonomy and moral freedom of the health care professional? And how do we square concerns around impacts to personal identity that moral enhancement might raise with the duty of care that health care workers have to their patients? Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

In this episode, Dr Andrew Kirton talks to Dr Jim Baxter about the issues explored in Jim’s new book, Moral Responsibility and the Psychopath: The Value of Others. Are psychopaths morally responsible? Should we argue with them? Remonstrate with them, blame them, sometimes even praise them? Is it worth trying to change them, or should we just try to prevent them from causing harm? And how should society treat them, particularly if they have committed crimes? To answer these questions, we first need to understand what a psychopath is, which means engaging with insights from psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience. We also need to know what moral responsibility is, which is a deep and difficult philosophical question. And then we need to join the dots, applying the criteria of moral responsibility to a category of person whose emotional engagement with the world may be shallow, but who are not obviously irrational. In a conversation that ranges across all of these areas, Jim ultimately argues that at least some psychopaths lack the ability to value others, which is fundamental to moral life, and are therefore not morally responsible for their actions. Finally, the discussion turns to the implications of this position for how psychopaths should be treated in the criminal law. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

In this episode, Dr Andrew Kirton talks to Dr Jim Baxter about the issues explored in Jim’s new book, Moral Responsibility and the Psychopath: The Value of Others. Are psychopaths morally responsible? Should we argue with them? Remonstrate with them, blame them, sometimes even praise them? Is it worth trying to change them, or should we just try to prevent them from causing harm? And how should society treat them, particularly if they have committed crimes? To answer these questions, we first need to understand what a psychopath is, which means engaging with insights from psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience. We also need to know what moral responsibility is, which is a deep and difficult philosophical question. And then we need to join the dots, applying the criteria of moral responsibility to a category of person whose emotional engagement with the world may be shallow, but who are not obviously irrational. In a conversation that ranges across all of these areas, Jim ultimately argues that at least some psychopaths lack the ability to value others, which is fundamental to moral life, and are therefore not morally responsible for their actions. Finally, the discussion turns to the implications of this position for how psychopaths should be treated in the criminal law. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

This podcast discusses the ethics of the controversial medical condition of Borderline Personality Disorder, examining whether the high prevalence of diagnoses of Borderline Personality Disorder in female patients who have experienced trauma is the result of implicit biases around gender, and whether excessive blame towards patients with Borderline Personality Disorder constitutes a form of hermeneutic injustice. Along the way, we discuss the specifics of BPD, and explain the cutting-edge philosophical concepts of epistemic injustice and hermeneutic injustice – assuming no prior knowledge." Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

A short trailer to let you know what Ethics Untangled is all about, including an extract from episode 1. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

In this episode, we welcome Dr Andrew Stanners - hospital doctor and healthcare ethics teacher at the IDEA Centre. He is also a trustee for the UK Clinical Ethics Network. This episode is a continuation of our previous discussion about real trolley problems, and we explore two possible solutions to the complexity of decision-making when we have to choose who gets treatment. Andrew presents an account for needs and another for reflective equilibrium as a way of confronting this issue. Released 30 July 2020. Presented by Gabriela Arriagada Bruneau. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

The IDEA Pod returns as Dr Natasha McKeever, programme director for the online MA Biomedical and Healthcare Ethics, interviews Amaal Maqsood-Shah, an alumnus from our campus MA programme, about her MA dissertation topic – the confidentiality of information about patients’ genetic conditions. Despite guidance permitting clinicians the discretion to breach confidentiality, clinicians maintain confidences against a backdrop of litigation fears. As genomic medicine advances to return more information on the heritable basis of conditions, there is an increasing need for clinicians to understand when, and how, to communicate genetic information to at-risk relatives (The British Society for Genetic Medicine, 2017). Amaal’s dissertation seeks to challenge current guidance and provide an ethical case for the non-consensual disclosure of all genetic information generated by the proband to biological relatives. Released 19 January 2021. Presented by Natasha McKeever. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

Our special guest for this episode is Ken Lewchuk, a chartered accountant who worked for Enron before its collapse. Ken's first degree was in theology, he has an MBA from Heriot-Watt University, and he recently completed an MA in applied and professional ethics with the IDEA Centre. Graham Bex-Priestley interviews Ken about the issue of responsibility for corporate failure. In the context of Enron, Ken argues against the common view that it was "a few bad apples" that brought the house down. To understand the problem we must consider the culture that was fostered in the corporation collectively (which extends all the way back to what was taught at business school) instead of focusing on individual behaviour in isolation. Ken brings together themes from several disciplines - including psychology, economics, the philosophy of agency, and the ethics of blame and punishment - to provide an explanation for what went wrong and a suggestion for what we should do to prevent similar catastrophes from happening in the future. Released 2 February 2021. Presented by Graham Bex-Priestley. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

In this episode we have special guest Matt Murray. Matt is a medical student at the University of Leeds, who previously intercalated on the MA in Biomedical and Healthcare Ethics at the IDEA Centre. The presentation and subsequent discussion are based on the dissertation that Matt completed during his MA at IDEA on the duties and ethics surrounding end of life care for the medical professional. Matt’s dissertation was supervised by IDEA lecturer Sarah Carter-Walshaw, who joins him in this episode to discuss his research. Matt and Sarah discuss how we in society understand health and death (especially the latter), and why there is an ethical imperative to change the way that the medical profession perceives and approaches death and dying. Released 16 February 2021. Presented by Sarah Carter-Walshaw. Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

What does an ethical police officer look like? How ought we to judge the “Dirty Harry” style cop who gets results by any means? Should police to see themselves as “good guys” out to catch villains? And, must police officers “dirty their hands” in order to be truly ethical? Detective Garda and MA in Applied and Professional Ethics, Thomas O’Connor, offers a unique and compelling perspective on these questions in conversation with his former MA supervisor, Dr Josh Hobbs. Released 2 March 2021. Presented by Josh Hobbs Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

‘Project Prevention’ is a growing organisation in the US that aims to achieve the sterilisation of addicts, and offers monetary incentivisation to do so. In her dissertation, Georgina James engages with the question of whether it is morally permissible to incentivise the sterilisation of addicts, and whether something similar may be introduced to the UK. The talk discusses the concepts of autonomy, best interests, public interest and issues of exploitation and commodification. Georgina’s dissertation provided a strong argument against the permissibility of any such sterilisation of addicts. Released 16 March 2021. Presented by Tom Hancocks Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/

In this episode, we comment on one of the latest events held at the IDEA Centre, the AI and Philosophy Workshop. Postgraduate Researcher Gabriela Arriagada Bruneau speaks with Zach Gudmunsen, fellow co-organiser of the event and Michael Cannon, co-author of one of the presented papers. This episode covers different talks in the workshop, dividing them into two themes: Theory: Dr David Strohmaier - "Ontology, neural networks, and the social sciences" Professor Vincent C. Müller - "Orthogonality and Existential Risk from AI Dr Ioannis Votsis - "Machine‐Made Jabberwocky?" Practice: Professor David Hogg - "AI and Common sense" Dr Paula Boddington - "Philosophy of AI through the theory and practice of dementia" Professor John McDermid - "Embodied AI: Autonomous Systems and Ethics" We finish by commenting on the Future challenges for the development of AI. Released 30 March 2021. Presented by Gabriela Arriagada Bruneau Ethics Untangled is produced by the IDEA Ethics Centre at the University of Leeds. Twitter: @EthicsUntangled Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideacetl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idea-ethics-centre/