Why Are Things Beautiful?

A new history of ideas presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices. Each week Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week he's asking 'What is Justice'? Helping him answer it are barrister Harry Potter, criminologist David Wilson, philosopher Angie Hobbs and historian Alice Taylor.For the rest of the week Harry, David, Angie and Alice will take us further into the history of ideas about justice with programmes of their own. Between them they will examine civil disobedience, Kant's theory of Justice, Habeas Corpus and philosopher John Rawls' ideas on how to create a just society. Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

6 Apr 201512min

The Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand believed that behaving rationally meant putting your own interests first: you actually have a moral duty to be selfish. Altruism or self-sacrifice are immoral, she claimed, as is asking for help from others. Clearly this goes against most traditional views of ethics, but Rand's views have become influential, particularly in some corners of American politics. Rand's protege, Nathaniel Branden, developed her ideas to stress the importance of self-esteem - the route to personal fulfilment was feeling good about yourself. Many people, even those who would reject Ayn Rand's core philosophy, have subsequently believed that low self-esteem is at the root of social problems such as crime and educational underachievement, and that we should aim to boost it. But is self-esteem really such a good thing? As Paul Broks discovers, the research suggests that some people have too much self-esteem, not too little. Maybe the route to a good life is not through feeling good about yourself, but being resilient to knocks that fate deals you.

3 Apr 201513min

Naomi Appleton explores the Buddha's Four Noble Truths in a week of programmes asking how do I live a good life. She speaks to a buddhist nun in Edinburgh who used to be a model, and investigates the link between mindfulness and the Four Noble Truths. With contributions from Ani Rinchen Khandro and Professor Willem Kuyken.Naomi Appleton is the Chancellor's fellow in Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh. The producer is Miles Warde.

2 Apr 201512min

Hardworking families, alarm clock Britain, shirkers and strivers...there's no doubt that ideas about the moral power and value of hard work are embedded in our culture. But where did these ideas come from? The historian, Justin Champion, explores the ideas of the German thinker and father of sociology Max Weber.In his most famous book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber set out his idea that the roots of our beliefs about the value of hard work and material success are to be found in the religious thinking of Protestantism, the Puritans especially and Calvin in particular. For them finding a vocation, working hard and achieving material success were evidence that they were one of the elect: the people God had saved from eternal damnation.Those religious ideas have resonance today, albeit translated into a secular setting: Justin talks to Steve Finn, a former armed robber now involved in running, Blue Sky, a social enterprise that offers employment to ex-offenders so they can turn their lives around. He also hears from the entrepreneur Sara Murray for whom work and life are happily intermingled and whose sense of mission around the success of her company, Buddi, drives her.Justin also looks at the darker side. With the writer Madeleine Bunting, he explores how our culture's obsession with the "work ethic" can leave people unable to participate feeling deficient and judged.Producer: Natalie Steed.

1 Apr 201513min

Philosopher Jules Evans wants to prove there's been a revival of Aristotle's ideas about flourishing and how to live a good life. "These ideas, which many of you might think are a bit dusty, they are central to modern politics, so the National Office of Statistics now measures national eudaimonic wellbeing, their flourishing." To prove his point he visits Gus O'Donnell, former head of the civil service, who explains: "If you think of one thing governments could do, it would be to get rid of misery. Making multi-millionaires a little happier, to me that's not one the pressing public policy issues of our age." And James O'Shaughnessy explains why he's helping to set up a chain of schools called Floreat based on Aristotle's flourishing concept. Jules Evans is the author of Philosophy for Life. The producer is Miles Warde.

31 Mars 201513min

A new history of ideas presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices. Each week Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week he's asking 'How do I live a good life'? Helping him answer it are historian Justin Champion, neuropsychologist Paul Broks , theologian Naomi Appleton and philosopher Jules Evans.For the rest of the week Jules, Paul, Justin and Naomi will take us further into the history of ideas about the good life with programmes of their own. Between them they will examine Aristotle's idea of flourishing, selfishness, the Protestant work ethic and Buddhism's Four Noble Truths.Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

30 Mars 201512min

There's a tiny bone needle at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire. For archaeologist Matt Pope it's hugely significant. 13,000 years ago local people used it to construct tailored clothing which allowed them to survive and thrive at the very limits of Ice Age civilisation.Skip forward millennia and the first human visitor to Mars will be protected by a thin skin of man-made fabric, a suit containing the only biological processes for millions of miles. Our ability to create tools that take us into new and hostile environments is, for Matt Pope, the key to man's evolutionary journey.It's a view he shares with the first philosopher of technology, Ernst Kapp. Living through Germany's rapid industrial revolution Kapp came to believe that we could extend all the functions of the human mind and body through technology. Together, man and his tools would know no limits.

30 Jan 201512min

Surgeons of the distant past were little more than skilled butchers, trying to minimise the agony of their bone-sawing craft. Surgery itself was a last-resort and one you might not survive, and if you did, one of many brutal contagious diseases might wipe you out instead. But spool forward through history, past the growth in sanitation, inventions of anaesthesia, antibiotics, radiation therapy and the discovery of germ theory, and look at the world of the present-day medic. Safe, effective drug treatments are par for the course, and surgeons, operating in controlled, clinical environments, can count light-rays and robots-assistants alongside scalpels in their quiver of surgical instruments. Clearly medical technology has come a long way. But along with changing how we look, how we think and how we live, have these developments changed who we are as a species? And are we heading in a positive direction? The meteoric rise of elective, 'cosmetic' surgery is testament to the changing expectations we place on our bodies, but the idea of either drugging or cutting ourselves in pursuit of perfection leaves many feeling uneasy. Not everyone feels this way however; 'transhumanists' believe that it's not just possible, but philosophically noble, to try to break through our biological limitations through drugs, genetic modification, or enhancement therapies. They believe the future of our species relies on actively pursuing the dream of 'Superintelligence, Superlongevity and Superhappiness'. But at what cost?Surgeon Gabriel Weston looks at the past, present, and the weird and wonderful future of medicine to find the answer.

29 Jan 201512min