<p>In her second Reith Lecture, Dr Gwen Adshead asks if there’s such a thing as “evil.”?
In a career spanning nearly 40 years the forensic psychiatrist has heard many of her patients ask: “ I have done evil things but does that make me evil.”?
Dr Adshead says that we have often confused “evil” with mental illness. She argues that we all have capacity for ... Show More
Jan 2025
Introducing two gripping BBC podcasts: Intrigue and Gangster
Hear thrilling investigations and stories of crime, power and control from Intrigue and Gangster.Intrigue from Radio 4 tells dramatic true stories with gripping narratives, including the award-winning series, To Catch a Scorpion.In the latest Gangster series, Livvy Haydock invest ... Show More
2m 2s
Dec 2024
Can we change violent minds?
In her final lecture, the forensic psychiatrist Dr Gwen Adshead, assesses how we deal with violent offenders and asks is it time for a re-think? The UK has more than 70 people on whole life tariffs, at incredible expense – all to appease a sense of revenge, she says.Dr Adshead as ... Show More
57m 40s
Dec 2024
Does Trauma Cause Violence?
How best do we understand how to manage powerful emotions such as rage, fear and shame? With very rare access, Forensic Psychiatrist Dr Gwen Adshead gives her third Reith Lecture inside HMP Grendon, where she talks to prisoners and staff, and asks the question: “Does trauma cause ... Show More
57m 48s
Feb 2024
Lisa Herzog, "Citizen Knowledge: Markets, Experts, and the Infrastructure of Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2023)
For better or worse, democracy and epistemology are intertwined. For one thing, politics is partly a matter of gathering, assessing, and applying information. And this can be done responsibly or incompetently. At least since Plato, a leading critique of democracy has focused on t ... Show More
1h 7m
May 2023
If you don’t have multiracial democracy, you have no democracy at all
The history of American democracy has always been fraught when it comes to race. Yet no matter how elusive it may be, Harvard Kennedy School professors Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Archon Fung say true multiracial democracy not only remains a worthy goal, but achieving it is critic ... Show More
45m 54s
Sep 2023
The Civic Bargain: A Conversation with Josiah Ober on Ancients and Moderns
Amidst increasing acrimony and political strain, many worry that democratic governance has an expiration date. To answer these concerns, Josiah Ober looks to the ancients. Here, he discusses his recent book (co-authored with Brook Manville), The Civic Bargain: How Democracies Sur ... Show More
1h 3m
Mar 2023
Toby Green and Thomas Fazi, "The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left" (Hurst, 2023)
During the first months of the pandemic, governments worldwide agreed that ‘following the science’ with hard lockdowns and vaccine mandates was the best way to preserve life. But evidence is mounting that ‘the science’ was all politics and time reveals the horrific human and econ ... Show More
1h 16m
Oct 2019
Larry Diamond, "Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency" (Penguin, 2019)
Larry Diamond joins us this week to talk about the threat China’s model of authoritarian capitalism poses to liberal democracy in the United States and around the world. Economics drives politics, and it’s easy to admire China’s growth while looking past things like increasing su ... Show More
41m 46s
Dec 2020
TURNOUT Episode 10: ‘If we raise our expectations we would have a better system’
This series began in the past, to better understand the origin and history of our ongoing fight for voting rights. And as Turnout comes to a close, we consider its future. Where do we go from here? What lessons can we take with us, and what impact might this election have on our ... Show More
36 m