The Philosopher's Zone - Program podcast Folgen

What was Shakespeare’s religion and what did he think about personal identity?  Did he believe that the personal identity we have is had because we are this living body rather than that?  How does commitment to religious faith or to marriage affect your identity?  And should we think of Shakespeare not just as an inventor of characters but as a thinker?

Ethnic groups across the planet are beginning to act like corporations that own a 'natural' copyright in their 'culture' and 'cultural products' which they protect, often by recourse to the law, and on which they capitalise in much the same way as do incorporated businesses in the private sector.

The Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik argues that he killed to do good for his country. Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organisers of the Holocaust, displayed neither guilt nor hatred, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply 'doing his job'. It was for him that the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ was coined. Ivan Milat, however, had a life-long history of behavioural disturbance and a propensity for sadistic violence. So how do we understand the problem? Is it just a lack of empathy or is there more than this to the problem of evil?