Moral Maze
Moral Maze is a live discussion programme on BBC Radio 4, broadcast since 1990. Since November 2011, it has also been available as a podcast.[1][2]
Genre
Individual cross examinations of successive witnesses by a group of panellists on live radio
45 mins (Wednesdays 20.00)
UK
English
Dan Tierney (BBC Religion & Ethics)
20 August 1990
Structure[edit]
Four regular panellists discuss moral and ethical issues raised by a recent news story. Michael Buerk delivers a preamble launching the topic, then a series of 'witnesses' – experts or other relevant people – are questioned by the panellists, who then discuss what each witness said.
The regular panellists are:
Notable former panellists include Rabbi Hugo Gryn (who died in 1996), Janet Daley, Edward Pearce, Geoffrey Robertson, Michael Mansfield, politician Michael Gove, Claire Fox, Michael Portillo, Ian Hargreaves, Kenan Malik, scientist Steven Rose, philosophers Simon Blackburn and Roger Scruton, and historian David Starkey, who often attracted controversy for his blunt manner.
Criticism[edit]
In his book Bad Thoughts (US title Crimes Against Logic), libertarian philosopher Jamie Whyte, who has been a witness on the programme, advises readers to listen to The Moral Maze for innumerable examples of faulty reasoning. Journalist and author Nick Cohen has also criticised the programme, in a piece highlighting the media careers of Trotskyite-turned-libertarian former cadres of the Revolutionary Communist Party, centred on Spiked magazine.[3]
On 2 April 2021, Scottish broadcaster Lesley Riddoch criticised the programme, for taking an approach where observers and experts would discuss a particular problem, without the actual participants being part of the discussion. Riddoch also stated that the programme was too selective, elitist and abstract.[4]