Descartes Before the Horse

In this episode, Dr Miller and Dr Zaphir dive into a surreal philosophical roleplay set in a fantasy inn with no vacancies and a knife storm brewing outside. The only way to avoid sleeping on a barstool (or being stabbed by airborne cutlery) is to convince one of three eccentric conference attendees to share their room — but each comes with a belief system you must accept.You meet:Roko, a tech bro prophet of the coming machine god, who warns that the Basilisk is watching your tweets and will punish non-believers retroactively.Susan, a whiskey-sipping Pascalian who offers a cozy wager: believe in God and maybe get cocktails in heaven, or don’t and risk overpriced beer in hell.Beard Wizard, a twitchy cultist who demands your money and dental fillings to prepare for the arrival of immortal small dogs from Planet Moloch, who definitely does not correspond to any existing real world cults. Super swearsies.Come join us and see if threats of the afterlife is sufficient to warrant belief.

In this episode, Luke throws Liam and our special guest philosopher Dr Sameema Zahra into a sunburnt version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: an island with not enough water, dubious fishing arrangements, and a suspiciously rickety hut. Along the way we learn who betrays, who stays “mostly consistent,” and how long you should really wait before cannibalism becomes an option. It’s survival ethics with a splash of existentialism and we talk about what it means to be rational in extreme situations.

How many people would you sacrifice to save a loved one? Liam puts his moral consistency to the test in Luke's oddly bloodthirsty version of the trolley problem. It's not trolleys that Liam has to contend with though - it's werewolves!

On this new season of Descartes Before the Horse, Dr Liam Miller takes on the role of dungeon master and throwing an unwitting Dr Luke Zaphir up against Plato's Cave. Can he escape the cave and gain true knowledge of things? And while role playing as the folksy Immanuel Kant no less! It's a tough job to escape the Cave to perceive the truth of the universe while still maintaining his rigid morality? Or will he throw Plato out of a window and not bother?Theme music:"Aquarium" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Should we be worried about ChatGPT? What is it good at? What should we let it do? Should we let AI make decisions for us?

What is masculinity anyway? Is gender identity is under siege from an onslaught of feminist propaganda? We take a charitable look at Jordan Petersen, Andrew Tate, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro – and examine the stated beliefs and rhetoric of some of the most influential speakers in the conservative movement. Where is it that men should go from here?To see the sources used in this episode:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5jN8c8UEChWYcPUJ7LjiNrSGSgTBObusIf you have questions, comments, or a topic you'd like to share, email us at horsedescartes@gmail.com

Should we be teaching students how to protest? Should a teacher get involved in political discussions with students and reveal their biases? Is it better to teach practical skills that will be of immediate tangible benefit to students? Or perhaps it’s better to teach controversy, not values? All of these ideas, good and bad are discussed with Dr Peter Ellerton from the Critical Thinking Project.

Luke and Liam explore what love is. Are we obliged to love our parents? Must declarations of love be met with actions of love? What do we owe to our children? To our parents? Must we be grateful for being born? We didn’t ask for it after all.