Very Bad Wizards
a philosopher and a psychologist ponder human morality
About the show
Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cognitive science, and who have a marked inability to distinguish sacred from profane. Each podcast includes discussions of moral philosophy, recent work on moral psychology and neuroscience, and the overlap between the two.
Very Bad Wizards on social media
Episode List
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Episode 102: Red, Black, and Blue
November 15th, 2016 | 1 hr 37 mins
Tamler and David talk about the 2016 US presidential election, and more serious things like Black Mirror's "San Junipero" episode.
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Episode 101: Having Desert and Eating It Too
October 31st, 2016 | 1 hr 28 mins
David and Tamler argue over how much we can learn about moral responsibility from the way we attribute blame and praise in the domains of art and sports.
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Episode 100: It's a Celebration
October 13th, 2016 | 1 hr 38 mins
David and Tamler celebrate their 100th episode with champagne, bourbon, an online test of our moral judgments, and an AMA.
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Episode 99: Mockingbirds, Destructo-Critics, and Mr. Robot
September 27th, 2016 | 2 hrs 3 mins
David and Tamler tackle claims of decepto-criticism in psychology, discuss the dilemmas of 7th grade theater production, and have a lengthy discussion of Mr. Robot Season 2.
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Episode 98: Mind the Gap
September 13th, 2016 | 1 hr 22 mins
David and Tamler tackle the naturalistic fallacy.
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Episode 97: Dogmatic Slumber Party
August 30th, 2016 | 1 hr 23 mins
David and Tamler take on motivated reasoning and our biased processing of information to favor positions we are predisposed to believe.
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Episode 96: Memory and Meaning in "Memento" (with Paul Bloom)
August 16th, 2016 | 1 hr 26 mins
Paul Bloom joins us to discuss Christopher Nolan's "Memento."
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Bonus Episode: More Doobie-ous Theories About "Mr. Robot" (Season 2)
August 9th, 2016 | 29 mins 55 secs
In this bonus emergency episode Tamler and David talk about mid-season Mr. Robot (S2) theories.
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Episode 95: The Repugnance of Repugnance
August 2nd, 2016 | 1 hr 28 mins
Tamler and David tackle the emotion of disgust and the role it should play in moral judgment
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Episode 94: Buttery Friendships
July 19th, 2016 | 1 hr 36 mins
Tamler and David discuss Nancy Sherman's thoughts on Aristotle, Stoicism, and how to live a good, happy life.
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Episode 93: Avalanches, Blame, and Cowardice (With Yoel Inbar)
July 5th, 2016 | 1 hr 39 mins
Tamler and David are joined by VBW regular Yoel Inbar to discuss the themes of cowardice and character in the recent Swedish film "Force Majeure."
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Episode 92: Jonathan Edwards' Basement
June 21st, 2016 | 1 hr 8 mins
David and Tamler discuss Jonathan Bennett's classic paper "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn."
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Episode 91: Rage Against the Machines
June 7th, 2016 | 1 hr 24 mins
Tamler and David discuss a recent article that claims that an algorithm used to predict criminal behavior is racially biased, and argue about the wisdom of using algorithms across other domains in life.
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Episode 90: Of Mice and Morals
May 24th, 2016 | 1 hr 20 mins
David and Tamler have their first real fight in a while over an article defending "social mixing"--distributing babies randomly across families such that no infant is genetically related to the parents who raise them. Then they discuss a study published in "Science" in 2013 in which participants could earn money if they agreed to let mice be killed in a gas chamber.
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Episode 89: Shame on You (with Jennifer Jacquet)
May 10th, 2016 | 1 hr 37 mins
David and Tamler welcome author and environmental science professor Jennifer Jacquet to the podcast to discuss the pros and cons of shame.
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Episode 88: A Doobie for Elijah
April 26th, 2016 | 1 hr 20 mins
David and Tamler celebrate Passover with a high-spirited episode on guns, revenge, liberals, being offended, the fear of death, and whether kids have a right to be loved.