Set up a debate

Lying is never morally justified

Whether truthfulness is an exceptionless duty or one value that must sometimes give way to kindness, safety, or justice.

Good outcomes can justify morally questionable means

Whether the moral quality of an action is determined by its results or whether some acts are wrong regardless of what they achieve.

We owe as much to distant strangers as to our neighbors

Whether physical and social distance reduce our moral obligations, or whether every person's needs weigh equally regardless of relationship.

Suffering is necessary for a meaningful life

Whether hardship is an essential ingredient of depth, growth, and meaning, or an evil to be minimized wherever possible.

Democracy is the best form of government

Whether rule by the people is superior to rule by the wise, the strong, or the expert, and on what grounds.

Borders should be open to anyone who wishes to migrate

Whether states have the right to exclude peaceful migrants, or whether freedom of movement is a basic human right that borders violate.

Free speech should protect even hateful expression

Whether the case for free expression extends to speech that demeans groups, or whether such speech may be restricted to protect the dignity and safety of its targets.

The state may restrict choices to protect people from themselves

Whether governments may override individual choices for the individual's own good, or whether adults have a right to make their own mistakes.

Sufficiently advanced AI deserves moral consideration

Whether an artificial system could have interests that matter morally, and what we would owe it if it did.

Social media does more harm than good

Whether the connection, expression, and information that social platforms provide outweigh the polarization, distraction, and mental health costs they impose.

Privacy should yield to security when the two conflict

Whether the state may monitor citizens to prevent crime and terrorism, and how much liberty a society should trade for safety.

Parents should be allowed to genetically enhance their children

Whether parents may use genetic technology to improve their children's traits beyond preventing disease, and what that would do to parenthood, equality, and the children themselves.

Science is the only reliable source of knowledge

Whether empirical science exhausts what can genuinely be known, or whether mathematics, ethics, introspection, testimony, and the humanities deliver knowledge of their own.

We should defer to experts even when we disagree with them

Whether intellectual humility requires laypeople to adopt expert consensus over their own judgment, or whether such deference is a form of abdication.

Gender is a social construction rather than a natural fact

Whether the roles, expectations, and identities attached to being a man or a woman are made by societies or given by biology.

Tradition deserves more respect than progress

Whether inherited practices carry accumulated wisdom that reformers should defer to, or whether attachment to the past is a barrier to improvement.

The purpose of education is to produce good citizens, not successful individuals

Whether schools exist to form people who can sustain a shared public life or to equip individuals to pursue their own advancement.

Public shaming is a legitimate form of accountability

Whether collective condemnation of wrongdoers is a proper way for communities to enforce norms, or a form of mob punishment without limits or due process.

Happiness is the highest good

Whether the ultimate aim of a human life is to be happy, or whether other goods such as virtue, truth, or achievement matter independently of how they make us feel.

A society without art would be impoverished in a way that matters morally

Whether art is essential to the moral and human quality of a society, or a luxury that adds pleasure but not moral substance.

The death penalty is justified for the worst crimes

Whether the state may deliberately kill a person as punishment, or whether the practice is incompatible with justice and human dignity.

Punishment should aim to rehabilitate, not to give offenders what they deserve

Whether the justification of punishment lies in transforming the offender and protecting society, or in the moral demand that wrongdoing be answered.

Acts that harm no one but the actor should never be crimes

Whether the state may criminalise self-regarding conduct for the actor's own good or for public morality, or whether harm to others is the only legitimate ground for prohibition.

Eating animals is morally wrong

Whether the pleasure and convenience of eating meat can justify killing and confining sentient creatures.

Every citizen should receive an unconditional basic income

Whether guaranteeing everyone an income without conditions is a matter of justice and freedom, or a costly policy that undermines work and reciprocity.

Adult children have a duty to care for their aging parents

Whether the relationship between parents and children generates binding obligations, or whether care must be freely given to be genuine.

Large inequalities of wealth are unjust even when acquired fairly

Whether the fairness of the process that produces a distribution is enough to justify it, or whether outcomes matter independently.