All Episodes
Very Bad Wizards — 346 episodes
The Lotus Eaters Episode 3: The Halfway House to Humanity [unlocked]
The Lotus Eaters Episode 2: Intangible as Wind [unlocked]
The Lotus Eaters Episode 1: The Journey Begins [unlocked]
Episode 338: The Lotus Eaters (Nolan's "The Odyssey")
Episode 337: First Contact? (Tarkovsky's "Solaris")
Episode 336: That Oceanic Feeling (Stanisław Lem's "Solaris")
Episode 335: The Wright Stuff
Episode 334: Let's Get Metaphysical
Episode 333: P-hacking the Mind
Episode 332: Talking to Myself ("The Other" by Jorge Luis Borges)
Episode 331: Who's Your Law Daddy? (Plato's "Crito")
Episode 330: A Fact-Based Podcast (Gogol's "The Overcoat")
Episode 329: Why We Suffer
Episode 328: Weapons Free
Episode 327: You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")
Episode 326: The Most Important Episode of Your (Academic) Life
Episode 325: It Is Happening Again
Episode 324: Irruption of the Sacred
Episode 323: Debate Me 'Phro
Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought")
Episode 321: The Journey Begins (Plus Blind Ranking Philosophers)
Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist")
Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")
Episode 318: A PTA Meeting
Episode 317: For Shame
Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")
Episode 315: Ceaseless Striving (Schopenhauer's Pessimism)
Episode 314: The In-Betweeny Place
Episode 313: The Spontaneous Eruption of Now
Episode 312: MechaSkeptic
Episode 311: The Way to Dusty Death (Shakespeare's "Macbeth")
Episode 310: Bayes, Brains, and Buddhists
Episode 309: Dissolving Into the One
Bonus Episode: Va Va Boom (Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly")
Episode 308: The Gray Man who Dreamed (Borges' "Shakespeare's Memory")
Episode 307: What's in the BOX?
Episode 306: What to Expect When You're Expecting (David Lynch's "Eraserhead" with Barry Lam)
Episode 305: Emile Is the Name of the Goat (with Paul Bloom)
Episode 304: The Planes Don't Land
Episode 303: Measure This
Episode 302: Metaphysical Edging
Episode 301: Believing is Seeing?
Episode 300: If We Only Had A Brain
Episode 299: Oh the Humility!
Episode 298: Pass the Peace Pipe
Episode 297: No Pleasure in Meanness (Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find")
Episode 296: The Other CRT
Episode 295: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Episode 294: The Scandal of Philosophy (Hume's Problem of Induction)
Episode 293: Who Is the Dreamer? (Borges' "The Circular Ruins")
Episode 292: Boundary Issues
Episode 291: Shoe Shining
Episode 290: Blinded by the Light (Plato's Cave Pt. 2)
Episode 289: Shadows on the Wall (Plato's Cave Pt. 1)
Episode 288: The Despised Foot (The Denial of Death Pt. 2)
Episode 287: Gods With Anuses (The Denial of Death Pt. 1)
Episode 286: Laugh and the World Laughs With You
Episode 285: On Culture and Agriculture
Episode 284: Reel Choices
Episode 283: When Elephants Podcast
Episode 282: Fearful Symmetry (Borges' "Death and the Compass")
Episode 281: Choose Your Fighter
Episode 280: Mad Masque (with Phil Ford and J.F. Martel)
Episode 279: The Greenhouses We Burned Along the Way (Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" Pt. 2)
Episode 278: Schrödinger's Everything (Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" Pt. 1)
Episode 277: The Merits of Buggery (Nagel's "Sexual Perversion")
Episode 276: Attention Please
Episode 275: The Ineffable Center (Borges' "The Aleph")
Episode 274: Can I Get a Kidney Voucher? (with Vlad Chituc)
Episode 273: Ah. Ah. (Miyazaki's "Spirited Away")
Episode 272: Neigh Means Yay
Episode 271: Concept-Con 2023
Episode 270: Take Me to the River (Blood Meridian, Pt. 3)
Episode 269: Death Hilarious (Blood Meridian, Pt. 2)
Episode 268: Blood Meridian, Part 1
Episode 267: The Thickness of Reality
Episode 266: I Want to Half-Believe
Episode 265: Kekulé (Oh Yeah!)
[BONUS] Overton Windows Episode 1: Israel and Palestine
Episode 264: The Rule You Follow (The Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men")
Episode 263: Free Yoel
Episode 262: Supposing Truth is a Woman (Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil")
Episode 261: Death of the Author
Episode 260: The Scream That Never Found a Voice (Murakami's "Sleep")
Episode 259: Losing Time ("Tár" with Paul Bloom)
Episode 258: Mystic Peeza
Episode 257: Aural Fixation
Episode 256: The Right to Punish?
Episode 255: Beloved Child of the House (Susanna Clarke's "Piranesi")
Episode 254: Nobody's Parfit
Episode 253: Tarkovsky's Starchild
Episode 252: Yes We Sene-can
Episode 251: First Order, Then Chaos
Episode 250: Metaphors All the Way Down
Episode 249: Phlegm and Carelessness (Hume's "The Sceptic")
Episode 248: Checkmate, Grasshopper
Episode 247: Open the Pod, Dave (with Sam Harris)
Episode 246: Existential Poker-Face (David Foster Wallace's "E Unibus Pluram")
Episode 245: Pragmatically Speaking
Episode 244: Thanks for the Memories? (Borges' "Funes the Memorious)
Episode 243: Finding My Religion
Bonus Episode: The Ambulators (A "Deadwood" Podcast)
Episode 242: Losing My Religion
Episode 241: Very Bad Orgies (Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut")
Episode 240: Evil
Episode 239: Lose Yourself
Episode 238: I Am Not Ivan Ilyich...Am I?
Episode 237: Glitches Ain't Shit
Episode 236: Your Outie Is Skilled at Lovemaking (With Paul Bloom)
Episode 235: Animated Objects
Episode 234: Like A Dog (Kafka's "The Trial" Pt. 2)
Episode 233: Keeping It Surreal (Kafka's "The Trial" Pt. 1)
Episode 232: Mind Over Matter
Episode 231: Ideal Critics (Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste")
Episode 230: Be Happy (Lars von Trier's "Melancholia")
Episode 229: Skin Deep?
Episode 228: Forever Jung
Episode 227: A Terrible Master (David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water").
Episode 226: Unraveling Time Traveling (with Barry Lam and Christina Hoff Sommers)
Episode 225: Forbidden Modules
Episode 224: Hurts So Good (With Paul Bloom)
Episode 223: The Hopeless Dream of Being (Bergman's "Persona")
Episode 222: Choosing Sartre for All Mankind
Episode 221: Granite Cocks vs Robot Overlords
Episode 220: On Your Marx
Episode 219: Multiplied by Mirrors
Episode 218: ...But You Can't Hide (Michael Haneke's "Caché")
Episode 217: Dropping Paradigms (Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions")
Episode 216: Oral Judgments
Episode 215: Touch My Pink Monkey
Episode 214: You Shouldn't Feel Bad (Except You Should)
Episode 213: What Is It Like To Be a Robot Fish Man? (with Ted Chiang)
Episode 212: Follow Your Nose (with Yoel Inbar)
Episode 211: To Live and Die in Kurosawa's "Ikiru"
Episode 210: The Priming of the American Mind (with Jesse Singal)
Episode 209: Basic Instincts (with Paul Bloom)
Episode 208: Dream Theater
Episode 207: Sometimes a Paper Tray is Just a Paper Tray
Episode 206: Angel Chasing (Ted Chiang's "Hell is the Absence of God")
Episode 205: Making Your Nervous System Your Ally (William James on "Habit")
Episode 204: Happy Freedom Day! (with Lauren Anderson)
Episode 203: Gorgias, Tell Me Something I Don't Know (with Agnes Callard)
Episode 202: Not as It Ought to Be (H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space")
Episode 201: Very Bad Lizard People
Episode 200: Our 200th Episode Spectactular
Episode 199: When Philosophy Goes Sideways
Episode 198: Is Mental Illness a Myth? (Thomas Szasz's "The Myth of Mental Illness")
Episode 197: The Long Slow Death That Is Life
Episode 196: The Loneliest Paper in Philosophy
Episode 195: Jesus on Trial (Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov")
Episode 194: God Has No Mother (with Chris Matheson)
Episode 193: Free Wanting (Frankfurt's "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person")
Episode 192: Postmodern Wet Dreams (Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote")
Episode 191: All the Rage
Episode 190: We Pod. We Pod-Cast. We Podcast. (Frankfurt's "On Bullshit")
Episode 189: The Anality of Evil (Freud's "Civilization and its Discontents")
Episode 188: Conceptual Mummies (Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols")
Episode 187: More Zither
Episode 186: The One with Peter Singer
Episode 185: The Devil's Playground
Bonus Episode: Top 5 Deadwood Characters
Episode 184: Tainted Glove
Episode 183: Accept the Mystery (with Paul Bloom)
Episode 182: The Paper That Launched a Thousand Twitter Wars (With Yoel Inbar)
Episode 181: The Fraudulence Paradox (David Foster Wallace's "Good Old Neon")
Episode 180: Chekhov's Schrödinger's Dagger (Kurosawa's "Rashomon")
Episode 179: Talking Shit
Episode 178: Borges' Obsession-Obsession ("The Zahir")
Episode 177: Pure Linguistic Chauvinism
Episode 176: Split-Brains and the (Dis)Unity of Consciousness
Episode 175: At Least We Didn't Talk About Zombies (Nagel's "What is it Like to be a Bat?")
Episode 174: More Chiang for Your Buck ("Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom" Pt. 2)
Episode 173: Talking to Your (Alternate) Self [Ted Chiang's "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom"]
Episode 172: Are You Free (to like the Chappelle special)?
Episode 171: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Theodicy? (The Book of Job)
Episode 170: Social Psychology Gets an Asch-Kicking
Episode 169: A Bug's Life (Kafka's "The Metamorphosis")
Episode 168: The Big Lebowski vs Pulp Fiction (Pt. 2)
Episode 167: The Big Lebowski vs Pulp Fiction (Pt. 1)
Episode 166: Total Recall (Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling")
Episode 165: Life With No Head (With Sam Harris)
Episode 164: Choosing to Believe
Episode 163: Should I Stay or Should I Go? (Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas")
Episode 162: Parents Just Don't Understand (with Paul Bloom)
Episode 161: Reach-Around Knowledge and Bottom Performers (The Dunning-Kruger Effect)
Episode 160: Everything is Meaningless: The Book of Ecclesiastes
Episode 159: You Have the Right to Go to Prison
Episode 158: False Dichotomies and Oral Reciprocity
Episode 157: Notes From Underground (Pt. 2)
Episode 156: Notes From Underground (Pt. 1)
Episode 155: Alfred Hitchcock's Money Shot
Episode 154: Metaphysical Vertigo (Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")
Episode 153: Progress in Psychology: A Reply to BootyBootyFartFart
Episode 152: Ruthlessness, Public and Private
Episode 151: Viddy Well, My Listeners (Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange")
Episode 150: Paul Bloom Insisted That We Talk About Sex Robots
Episode 149: Death, Immortality, and Porn (Intuition) Pumps
Episode 148: Am I Wrong?
Episode 147: Effective Altruism and Moral Uncertainty (with The One True Scotsman, Will MacAskill)
Episode 146: Sore Losers (Does Sports Make Us Unhappy?)
Episode 145: Lost in Borges' Garden
Episode 144: Borges' Babylon
Episode 143: The Psychology of Personality
Episode 142: Suicide (with Matthew Nock)
Episode 141: Implicit Bias
Episode 140: Milgram's Mice
Episode 139: Honor, Identity, and Headbutts
Episode 138: Memory, Pain, and Relationships (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Episode 137: Are Buddhists Afraid to Die? (with Shaun Nichols)
Episode 136: The Good Life (with Laurie Santos)
Episode 135: Utilitarianism and Moral Identity
Episode 134: Digital Outrage (with Molly Crockett)
Episode 133: Death and Dreams
Episode 132: Emotional Willpower (with David DeSteno)
Episode 131: I Have No Genitals and I Must Scream
Episode 130: Dehumanization and Disintegration (with Paul Bloom)
Episode 129: Dystopias
Episode 128: Fragmented Values and Sex Panics (with Christina Hoff Sommers)
Episode 127: Moral Luck
Episode 126: The Absurd
Episode 125: Can You Feel It?
Episode 124: Dr. Strawson or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Episodic Life
Episode 123: What Chilling Effect? (Intelligence Pt. 2)
Episode 122: Nothing but a "G" Thing (Intelligence Pt. 1)
Episode 121: The Beauty of Illusion - David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive"
Episode 120: Clap Your Hand for Robert Wright
Episode 119: A Brief History of Values
Episode 118: We Don't Love Them Hoax
Episode 117: Extended Minds, Extended Foreskins
Episode 116: Pain, Pleasure, and Peer-Reviewed Penises
Episode 115: Which Field is More Fu@%ed: Philosophy or Psychology?
Episode 114: Great Vengeance and Furious Anger (Top 5 Movies About Revenge)
Episode 113: Pascal, Probability, and Pitchforks
Episode 112: Gettier Goggles
Episode 111: Our Language Doesn't Have a Word For This Title (with Yoel Inbar)
Episode 110: Stepsisters and Neck Braces (with Yoel Inbar)
Episode 109: Moral Pluralism: Behind the Lube
Episode 108: The Gimp Exception
Episode 107: Winking Under Oppression (with Manuel Vargas)
Episode 106: American Grandstand
Episode 105: Wizards With (Reactive) Attitudes
Episode 104: Smelling Salts for Morality: Our Top 3 Movies About Empathy (with Paul Bloom)
Episode 103: Very Bad Utopias
Episode 102: Red, Black, and Blue
Episode 101: Having Desert and Eating It Too
Episode 100: It's a Celebration
Episode 99: Mockingbirds, Destructo-Critics, and Mr. Robot
Episode 98: Mind the Gap
Episode 97: Dogmatic Slumber Party
Episode 96: Memory and Meaning in "Memento" (with Paul Bloom)
Bonus Episode: More Doobie-ous Theories About "Mr. Robot" (Season 2)
Episode 95: The Repugnance of Repugnance
Episode 94: Buttery Friendships
Episode 93: Avalanches, Blame, and Cowardice (With Yoel Inbar)
Episode 92: Jonathan Edwards' Basement
Episode 91: Rage Against the Machines
Episode 90: Of Mice and Morals
Episode 89: Shame on You (with Jennifer Jacquet)
Episode 88: A Doobie for Elijah
Episode 87: Lucky You (with Robert Frank)
Episode 86: Guns, Shame, and the Meaning of Punishment
Episode 85: A Zoo with Only One Animal (with Paul Bloom)
Episode 84: Lifting the Veil
Episode 83: Ego Trip
Episode 82: Totalitarian Slide-Rulers
Episode 81: Domo Arigato, Mr. Robot (With Yoel Inbar)
Episode 80: The Coddling of the Wizard Mind (with Vlad Chituc and Christina Hoff Sommers)
Episode 79: Good Lives, Good Friends, and Gay Mormons (with Valerie Tiberius)
Episode 78: Wizards Uprising
Episode 77: On the Moral Nature of Nazis, Jerks, and Ethicists (with Eric Schwitzgebel)
Episode 76: Cha-Cha-changes
Episode 75: A Golden Shower of Guests
Episode 74: Lies, Damned Lies, and Ashley Madison
Episode 73: Authentic Apes and Infinite Torture
Episode 72: Tweenie Turing Tests, AI, and Ex Machina (with Joshua Weisberg)
Episode 71: The Murky Morals and Mysterious Metaphysics of "Mr. Robot"
Episode 70: Some Favorite Things
Episode 69: CHiPs on Our Shoulders (Lessons in Objectivity)
Episode 68: Risky, Reckless, and Regretful
Episode 67: Funny How?
Episode 66: Übermensch at Work
Episode 65: Philocalypse Now
Episode 64: Believing in a Just World
Episode 63: Stalemates and Closets (with Sam Harris)
Episode 62: Brain Jizz and "Black Mirror"
Episode 61: Putting a Little Meaning in Your Life
Episode 60: Drunk on Intuitions
Episode 59: Tumors All the Way Down (With Sam Harris)
Episode 58: Do the Right Thing (with Yoel Inbar)
Episode 57: Free Willie
Episode 56: Moral Heroes and Drunk Utilitarians
Episode 55: Rooting for Evil (With Paul Bloom)
Episode 54: Pooping on Ecstasy (Pain, Pleasure, and the Ethics of Breeding)
Episode 53: The Psychology People Love to Hate (Evolutionary Psychology Pt.1)
Episode 52: Thought Experiments (Huh!) What Are They Good For? (Part 2)
Episode 51: Zombies, Trolleys, and Galileo's Balls
Episode 50: Keeping it Unreal
Episode 49: Psychopaths and Contrastivizzzzzzzz (With Walter Sinnott-Armstrong)
Episode 48: Restorative Circle Jerk
Episode 47: Schooled By Our Listeners
Episode 46: The Real Josh Knobe
Episode 45: Rounded Brains and Balanced "Play Diets"
Episode 44: Killer Robots
Episode 43: The Nature of Nudges
Episode 42: Reason, Responsibility, and Roombas (With Paul Bloom)
Episode 41: Moral Dilemmas at the Movies
Episode 40: How Many Moralities Are There? Pt. 2 (with Jesse Graham)
Episode 39: How Many Moralities Are There? (Pt.1)
Episode 38: The Greatest Movies Ever Made about Personal Identity
Episode 37: Porn, Poop, and Personal Identity (with Nina Strohminger)
Episode 36: An Irresponsible Meta-Book Review of Joshua Greene's "Moral Tribes"
Episode 35: Douchebags and Desert
Episode 34: Does Reading Harry Potter Make You Moral? (with Will Wilkinson)
Episode 33: Monkeys, Smurfs, and Human Conformity (With Laurie Santos)
Episode 32: Disagreeing About Disagreement
Episode 31: An Anthropologist's Guide to Moral Psychology (Pt. 1)
Episode 30: The Greatest Books Ever Written
Episode 29: PEDs, Tenure Pills, and "Hyberbolic Chambers"
Episode 28: Moral Persuasion
Episode 27: You, Your Self, and Your Brain (With Eddy Nahmias)
Episode 26: Evolution and Sexual Perversion (with Jesse Bering)
Episode 25: Burning Armchairs (with Joshua Knobe)
Episode 24: The Perils of Empathy (with Paul Bloom)
Episode 23: Straw Dogs (with Yoel Inbar)
Episode 22: An Enquiry Concerning Slurs and Offensiveness
Episode 21: Grad School
Episode 20: Boston, Brains, and Bad Pronunciation (with Molly Crockett)
Episode 19: The Burning Bridges Episode (Pt. 2)
Episode 18: "Boy If Life Were Only Like This" (With Joe Henrich)
Episode 17: Learning about Bushmen by Studying Freshmen?
Episode 16: Race, Reparations, and American (In)Justice (with Damani McDole)
Episode 15: The Burning Bridges Episode (Pt. 1)
Episode 14: Bonus Episode on Snitches, Tattletales, and Whistleblowers
Episode 13: Beanballs, Blood Feuds, and Collective Moral Responsibility (With Fiery Cushman)
Episode 12: Justice for #!$@ ?
Episode 11: It is Morally Wrong to Kill Morgan Freeman (with Yoel Inbar)
Episode 10: Religion, Meaning, and Morality
Episode 9: Social Psychology, Situationism, and Moral Character
Episode 8: Dishonesty, Character, and Dan Ariely
Episode 7: Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 (Now with more poo poo)
Episode 6: Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)
Episode 5: Revenge, Pt. 2: The Revenge
Episode 4: Revenge, Pt. 1
Episode 3: "We believe in nothing!" (Cultural diversity, relativism, and moral truth)
Episode 2: The "Dangerous Truth" about Free Will (Free Will and Morality, Pt. 2)
Episode 1: Brains, Robots, and Free Will (Free Will and Morality Pt. 1)