Moral Maze

Today, humanity reaches towards the Moon once more. The first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years.

But as NASA’s Artemis 2 lifts off, some troubling moral questions follow in its wake.

Are the billions of pounds being spent a visionary investment in our future, or a luxury we can't afford while poverty, disease, and a climate crisis demand urgent action here on Earth?

Who benefits from space exploration? The wealthy nations th...

The Church of England marks a historic moment: the installation of its first female Archbishop of Canterbury. A symbol, many would say, of progress in an institution often accused of resisting it. And yet, even as she takes office, around 600 churches reportedly refuse to recognise the authority of ordained women. For them, this is not prejudice but principle. An adherence to theological conviction.

It comes amid fresh scrutiny abou...

Rising oil prices triggered by war have renewed fears of an economic shock. Governments are already under pressure to step in: to cap prices, cushion bills and shield households from the consequences. Yet crises were once understood differently. During earlier shocks, citizens were often told to tighten their belts, to accept rationing, higher prices and shared sacrifice. But memories of past hardship can also be misleading. There ...

Relations between Britain and the United States have rarely been described as simple, but they have long been called special. Yet in recent days that relationship has come under strain, after a sharp exchange between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer over the latest international crisis and Britain’s response to it. For more than eighty years the United Kingdom has defined its place in the world partly through its alliance with the Uni...

Conflict has deepened in the Middle East since the United States and Israel launched a coordinated wave of air and missile strikes across Iran, targeting military facilities, nuclear sites and the country’s leadership.

Supporters argue the attacks were necessary. Iran’s missile programme, its support for armed proxies across the region and its long-running nuclear ambitions have convinced some Western leaders that waiting would only...

What is truth? In a special edition of The Moral Maze, we discuss perhaps the most significant question in all of human thought. It sits at the foundation of how we understand reality, and how we communicate and behave towards one another.

The obvious answer is that the strongest possible way to arrive at the truth in a shifting world of AI and authoritarian control is through a commitment to empirical data and provable facts. Howev...

Tommy Robinson's carol concert claimed to be "putting Christ back into Christmas". Church of England Bishops quickly pointed out that Christ never went away and warned about Christmas becoming another proxy in the culture wars. Many of Robinson's supporters are turning to Christianity. Some have openly stated that the Christian faith is a cultural ballast, representing British freedoms and values, and a defence against a perceived ...

As Australia begins its pioneering social media ban for under-16s, governments around the world will be watching closely. The move, which represents a significant challenge to Big Tech's dominance, aims to protect children from online harms like cyberbullying, grooming, exposure to violent/misogynistic content, as well as anxiety and depression linked to excessive screen time and addictive platform designs. Should other countries, ...

The jury trial has been around for almost 1,000 years. Magna Carta, in 1215, enshrined the principle that “No free man shall be... imprisoned… except by the lawful judgement of his peers.” That could be about to change, under the proposal by the Justice Secretary, David Lammy, to restrict jury trials to the most serious cases. The aim is to deal with an unprecedented backlog in the courts. Britain, thus far, has been in the minorit...

The Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, whose BBC Reith Lectures start this week, is calling for a moral revolution to change our societies for the better, charting how small groups of committed people – abolitionists, suffragettes, and temperance activists – have brought about positive social change.

Politics, Bregman argues, is in trouble in an age of apathy and backsliding democracy: “The moral rot runs deep across elite institution...

The Channel 4 documentary, ‘Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator’ has carried out a controversial genetic analysis of the Nazi leader. The test shows "very high" scores - in the top 1% - for a predisposition to autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This not a diagnosis, however, and there have been concerns about whether such speculation stigmatises these conditions.

While we shouldn’t seek to explain a person’s moral charact...

This year’s John Lewis Christmas advert puts an emotional focus on a father-son relationship. It shows a dad and his teenage boy struggling to put their feelings into words. It points to what many observe as a wider crisis in fatherhood. Numerous studies suggest that an involved father significantly improves a child's life chances. However, in the UK, a teenager is more likely to own a mobile phone than live with their dad, accordi...

Later this month, millions of demonstrators are due to take to the streets across the USA for a second time, under the banner “No Kings”. Organisers say, “America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people”. They are mobilizing to protest against what they see as democratic backsliding during Trump’s second presidency.

Faith in democracy has been shaking all over the world. Recent Pew research suggests that, since 2017, publ...

Prime Minister Kier Starmer has described the UK’s formal recognition of a Palestinian state as a “moral duty”, saying the change in policy would, "revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution". The rising number of UN members following suit this week, marks a turning point in their approach to Israel since it began its war against Hamas in Gaza, following the October 7th atrocities. In that time, tens of thousands have been k...

Graphic details of Charlie Kirk’s death have been almost unavoidable on social media in recent days. Similarly, shocking footage of an unprovoked knife attack on 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina last month, has been widely circulated. Add to that the videos coming out of Gaza, Ukraine or Sudan. Seeing such images changes us. We can’t unsee them. They shock us, anger us, frighten us, stir our empath...

The party conference season kicked off with claims and counter claims about the viability of Nigel Farage’s proposals for government. One issue that unites Reform and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives is scrapping the 2050 net zero target, echoing US President Donald Trump's pledge to "drill, baby, drill" and embark on new oil and gas exploration.

This is a turbulent time in international politics. The prospect of achieving a global con...

One story has been dominating the news for several weeks: immigration. Whether it’s debates about how to stop the small boats, protests outside asylum hotels, speeches pledging mass deportations or balaclavad ‘patriots’ painting red crosses on roundabouts, there’s been no shortage of reporting and impassioned opinions on the subject. It is no doubt an important issue for many people, but is it as big as our perception of it?

‘Media...

The decision of OnlyFans and Instagram to ban the porn star Bonnie Blue, who engaged in sequential sex with more than a thousand men in 12 hours, indicates the strength of the backlash of disapproval to the stunt. The reaction of many people has been what the psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls 'moral bafflement', the idea that most of us instinctively condemn some behaviours without being able to say why they are wrong. Western mora...

The Bank of England has been accused of being the 'Bank of Wokeness' after proposing to cut historical figures from banknotes. Images of Winston Churchill, Jane Austen and Alan Turing could be replaced by images of themes such as nature, innovation, or key events in history. It raises the possibility of British birds, bridges, or bangers and mash featuring on the next series of £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes and would take us down the...