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.
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Episode List
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Episode 105: Wizards With (Reactive) Attitudes
December 28th, 2016 | 1 hr 23 mins
Tamler and David discuss the increasingly trollish nature of Aeon Magazine articles, then discuss (and argue about) philosopher Victoria McGeer's 2012 article "Co-reactive attitudes and the making of moral community."
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Episode 104: Smelling Salts for Morality: Our Top 3 Movies About Empathy (with Paul Bloom)
December 13th, 2016 | 1 hr 33 mins
empathy, movies, paul bloom
Paul Bloom joins Tamler and David to discuss their picks for the top three movies about empathy.
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Episode 103: Very Bad Utopias
November 29th, 2016 | 1 hr 7 mins
David and Tamler give thanks to their listeners and Patreon supporters with an episode chosen by our top Patreon subscribers--the drafting of a "constitution" for our very own Utopia.
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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.