Very Bad Wizards
Episode Archive
Episode Archive
260 episodes of Very Bad Wizards since the first episode, which aired on August 30th, 2012.
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Episode 4: Revenge, Pt. 1
September 20th, 2012 | 51 mins 34 secs
Dave allows Tamler to rant about Sam Harris’s straw man 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 to satirize a
guy with shiny boots. -
Episode 3: "We believe in nothing!" (Cultural diversity, relativism, and moral truth)
September 8th, 2012 | 1 hr 1 min
Tamler and Dave discuss recent work in philosophy and psychology about the differences in moral values and practices across cultures.
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Episode 2: The "Dangerous Truth" about Free Will (Free Will and Morality, Pt. 2)
August 31st, 2012 | 1 hr 13 mins
Tamler and David discuss whether giving up our belief in free will makes us more likely to abandon our moral standards.
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Episode 1: Brains, Robots, and Free Will (Free Will and Morality Pt. 1)
August 30th, 2012 | 1 hr 10 mins
Dave and Tamler talk about the new wave of skepticism about free will and moral responsibility in the popular press from people like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne, and argue that neuroscientific data adds little of substance to the case other than telling us what we already know: human beings are natural biological entities. Dave comes out as a Star Trek nerd and asks whether we're all, in the end, like Data the android. They also wonder whether a belief in free will is all that's keeping us from having sex with our dogs. Finally, Dave grills Tamler about his new book on the differences in attitudes about free will and moral responsibility across cultures.