In this shorter episode of the Utilitarian Podcast, I talk with Samo Burja about the war in Ukraine. Samo is the founder of the geopolitical analysis firm Bismarck Analysis. We talk about Western sanctions and their effects of Russias relationship to China, what a remilitarization of Europe will mean, whether Putin will be able to control Ukraine, avoiding nuclear war, possible tactics for winning the war, potential diplomatic solutions, the longer term implications of this war, and the...

On this episode of the Utilitarian Podcast, I talk with Bryan Caplan. Bryan is a professor of economics at George Mason University. His latest book is Labor Econ Versus the World: Essays on the World's Greatest Market. We talk about some of Bryan’s big ideas (like open borders and housing deregulation), whether incremental change is better than big ideas and why people disagree with Bryan. We also discuss economic policy in poor countries, and whether trying to improve such policy is more...

On this episode of the Utilitarian Podcast, I talk with Neil Sinhababu. Neil is a professor of philosophy at the University of Singapore. Our conversation has two broad topics: We talk about metaethics and we talk about world government as a way to prevent human extinction. We discuss consciousness as the basis for ethics, reductionism about ethics, whether morality can be a science and how to handle feeling alienated from your own values. We then discuss world government as a way to solve...

On today’s episode of the Utilitarian Podcast, I talk with Magnus Vinding. Magnus is the co-founder of Center For Reducing Suffering and the author of the books Suffering-Focused Ethics and Reasoned Politics. We begin by talking about suffering-focused ethics, and the worldview that comes with focusing on suffering. We discuss the risk of causing suffering and the possibility of abolishing suffering. Then we discuss intelligence in humans and in AIs. We discuss why humanity has gained power...

On today’s episode of the Utilitarian Podcast, I talk with Krister Bykvist. Krister is a Professor of Philosophy at Stockholm University and Institute for Futures Studies. We talk about the approach to moral uncertainty laid out by Krister and his co-authors in a recent book. We discuss whether we can gain evidence for moral theories, whether moral uncertainty leads to an infinite regress, the metaethical and practical implications of moral uncertainty and how to think about moral...

On this episode of the Utilitarian Podcast, I talk with Joseph Carlsmith. Joseph is a research analyst at Open Philanthropy and a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Oxford. His views and opinions in this podcast are his own, and not necessarily those of Open Philanthropy. Our conversation has three main themes. We talk about the long-term future, including the possibility of actually creating utopia. We talk about Joseph’s work on the computational power of the brain. And we...

On this episode of the Utilitarian Podcast I talk with Milan Cirkovic. Milan is an astrophysicist at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade and a researcher at The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. We talk about an effective altruist framework for thinking about aliens, astrobiology, the generalisability of physics and evolution, the Drake equation and the Fermi paradox, civilizations at different Kardashev levels, the current search for extraterrestrial life, the sociology...

On this episode of the Utilitarian Podcast I talk with Michael Huemer. Michael is a professor of philosophy at the university of Colorado. We talk about how to build a worldview, epistemology and intuitions, metaethics and consciousness, utilitarianism and effective altruism, belief clusters and rationality, the value of philosophy, infinite ethics and whether there can be experience without a self.

On this episode of the Utilitarian Podcast I talk with Kent Berridge about the science of pain and pleasure. Kent Berridge is a professor of neuroscience at the University of Michigan and the leader of the Berridge Lab for Affective Neuroscience & Biopsychology. His more than 200 academic publications have collectively been cited 69.000 times. I ask Kent about the difference between wanting, liking and learning, whether all pleasures share a common brain basis, whether there is a...

Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist. He’s the co-founder and chief science officer of the SENS Research Foundation, which is a non-profit that does basic research on aging and treatments for aging. We start with the basics of aging, and some critical reactions to the notion that ageing could ever be overcome. Then Aubrey tells us about the seven types of damage that cause ageing and their corresponding repair technologies. I also ask him about the limits of model organisms in aging...

On this episode of the Utilitarian Podcast, I talk with Andres Gomez Emilsson who is co-director of research at the Qualia Research Institute. The Qualia Research Institute is a non-profit whose goal is to study consciousness in a scientifically rigorous way. This podcast begins with a presentation that Andres gave to a group at The Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London The presentation is about the Symmetry theory of valence, which is a possible explanation of why...

Simon Rosenqvist recently completed his PhD in philosophy at Uppsala University and we cover his conclusions in this podcast. We talk about consciousness in humans, animals and machines We discuss the best formulation of utilitarianism And we talk about two problems for utilitarians: the problem of conflicts between the utilitarian judgements and moral intuitions and the problem of action guidance, which is roughly the problem that utilitarianism is not useful when deciding what we should...

I talk with Torbjörn Tännsjö about his personal relation to moral philosophy and utilitarianism, moral methodology and the role of intuitions in ethics, moral realism, nihilism and religion, the repugnant conclusion and factory farming, the standing of utilitarianism in academic philosophy and the biggest challenges of the future. 

Sandberg tells us about the current human situation, possible future trajectories, the explanation for the undersupply of efforts to reduce catastrophic risks, humanity's wisdom and coordination, the risks posed by nation states, the methodology of exploratory engineering, whether metaphors can help us understand the vastness of the future populations, how grand the universe could be if we stayed on Earth versus if we expand into the universe - and whether we should expand before we have...

Sharon Hewitt Rawlette and I discuss the metaethical thesis of her book The Feeling of Value, which centers around normative qualia. We touch upon perspectival bias, pain and pleasure, how to construct a robust moral realism, the is-ought distinction, the open question argument, evolutionary debunking arguments, the experience machine, the repugnant conclusion, the best argument against utilitarianism and whether we have made moral progress all things considered.