Skeptic Michael Shermer - Exploring Objective Moral Truths Vs Cultural Fashion

Subscribe to The Daily Heretic for long-form conversations that test ideas against evidence, not trends. 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@hereticsclips/videos In this episode of Heretics, host Andrew Gold is joined by leading skeptic Michael Shermer to tackle a timeless question made urgent by modern culture wars: do objective moral truths exist, or are we simply chasing the fashions of the moment? Shermer — founder of Skeptic magazine and executive director of The Skeptics Society — has spent decades interrogating claims about truth, belief, and human behaviour. Here, he applies that skeptical lens to morality itself. Is right and wrong grounded in something real and enduring, or are moral norms endlessly rewritten by politics, power, and social pressure? And what happens to societies when moral certainty becomes performative rather than principled? The conversation explores how moral ideas evolve, why some values appear universal across cultures, and where relativism begins to undermine social trust. Shermer explains how science, philosophy, and evolutionary psychology can inform moral reasoning without collapsing it into “anything goes.” He also examines why moral discourse today often feels punitive and unstable — driven less by persuasion and more by signalling. Crucially, this episode digs into the tension between skepticism and conviction. When does healthy doubt sharpen ethics — and when does it hollow them out? Shermer discusses how skepticism can defend moral clarity by demanding consistency and evidence, not by dissolving standards altogether. He also reflects on why moral debates are increasingly framed as existential battles, and how that framing incentivises outrage over understanding. Along the way, Shermer touches on how scandals involving power and secrecy have reshaped public trust, complicating our relationship with institutions and moral authority. When failures are exposed, people often swing between cynicism and absolutism. Shermer argues for a third path: principled skepticism that resists both moral panic and moral nihilism. This is not a lecture, and it’s not a culture-war rant. It’s a careful, challenging exchange about how to think clearly when moral language is constantly weaponised. If you’ve felt whiplash watching yesterday’s certainties become today’s taboos — or wondered whether anything solid remains beneath the noise — this conversation offers tools to navigate that confusion without surrendering to it. Watch the full podcast here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2NUiGIsMcXfqfZEr4UjHga?si=0af96685c8094955 #MichaelShermer #MoralPhilosophy #Skepticism #ObjectiveTruth #CriticalThinking #HereticsPodcast #CultureDebate #Ethics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices