GETTING OFFENSIVE WITH NIHAL

Another video (or rather audio) that I had not realised was online. I had been invited to Nihal’s show on the BBC’s Asian Network for a two-minute spot to promote the Festival of South Asian Literature, at which I was speaking. I ended up staying an hour debating free speech, multiculturalism and the giving of offence.

ONCE MORE INTO THE MORAL MAZE

The autumn series of The Moral Maze has just begun. Last night was a debate on the morality of taxation. And, from the summer series, here are audios of the programmes in which I took part:

Does celebrity activism make the world a better place? 20 April 2011

What are the boundaries of privacy? 11 April 2011

Sexualization and Slut Walks 18 May 2011

Should science define morality? 1 June 2011

REFLECTIONS ON SCIENCE, MORALITY & THE MORAL MAZE

The Moral Maze is a show with its strengths and weaknesses, a format better suited to debating some issues than others. This week’s programme, on the relationship between science and morality, was somewhat messy, inevitably perhaps given the complexity of the issue, the subtlety of many of the arguments and the depth of knowledge required. Nevertheless, there were, I thought,  useful parts of the debate. I was particularly struck by Joshua Greene‘s skepticism about the ability of science to settle moral questions, given the general thrust of his academic research.

Greene is perhaps the world’s leading moral psychologist and his work has thrown much light on the character of our moral evaluations. There are, Greene argues, two modes of moral thinking. One is intuitive, the other consciously reasoned. The analogy he often uses is that of the distinction between automatic and manual modes in a digital camera.  The automatic mode is quick but inflexible. The manual mode is flexible but slow. Much the same is true, he suggests, of the two modes of moral thinking. He also famously suggests that Kantian notions of rights and duties emerge from our intuitions while conscious, reasoned moral evaluations are driven by utilitarian cost-benefit analyses.

BACK IN THE MORAL MAZE

A new series of The Moral Maze begins tonight on BBC Radio 4 (we will be debating celebrity activism). From the last series here are audios of the programmes in which I took part:

Is multiculturalism a good?  9 February 2011

Marriage – who should it be for? 16 February 2011

Does everyone deserve a second chance? 2 March 2011

Are we medicalizing morality? 9 March 2011

I have previously written posts about the debates in two of these  programmes – the ones on multiculturalism and on second chances. And if you’re masochistic enough to want to torture yourself by listening to all my Moral Maze contributions, you can find them on my archive site.

HOMER, AESCHYLUS AND MELANIE PHILLIPS

‘Vengeance is simply justice with bad pr’. So claimed melanie Phillips on The Moral Maze last night, in a programme that began as a discussion of the possibilities of penal redemption and ended as a debate on the role of vengeance in the judicial system. It was a great line (Phillips was defending another panelist Anne McElvoy who had argued for the importance of vengeance to justice). And it was, of course, partly tongue in cheek. But it also summed up much of what is wrong with the contemporary debate about justice.

JESUS AND MO ON KENAN, DOUGLAS AND TARIQ

My little contretemps with Douglas Murray on The Moral Maze seems to have inspired a Jesus and Mo cartoon:

The original is here. (Follow the link on the board to see what led to the cartoon.) I’ve always loved Jesus and Mo. I do so even more now .

I’M STILL A CRITIC OF MULTICULTURALISM, HONEST

I have long been a critic of multiculturalism. And I have debated the issue with Tariq Modood more times than I care remember, including on Start the Week, Newsnight Review, and at public meetings in London, Bristol, Manchester and countless other places. So when The Moral Maze decided this week to debate multiculturalism, in the wake of David Cameron’s speech, and invited Modood to be one of the witnesses, it seemed inevitable that I would be grilling him.

If only life were so simple. As it turned out, I ended up on the ostensibly pro-multiculturalism side, grilling not Modood but Douglas Murray, the self-described ‘neo-conservative’, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, and himself an acerbic critic of multiculturalism.