What Makes Us Human?

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 '...

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, s...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

31 Mar 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 '...

30 Mar 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...

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...

29 Jan 201512min