Is lying in a business negotiation ever justified? Should you disclose your reservation price? And where does smart dealmaking end and dishonesty begin?

You can negotiate hard, protect your position, and still act with integrity. But most people in business have never been told how.

Charles Sherwood spent 30 years as a Founding Partner at Permira, one of Europe's leading private equity firms, sitting across the table from some of the most experienced dealmakers in the world. He has a view on all of it. This is not the conversation you expect.

Charles argues that ordinary morality does not stop at the boardroom door — that the same rules which govern honesty in everyday life apply just as fully in a business negotiation. That the invisible hand of the market is no excuse for dishonesty. That loyalty penalties in insurance and banking are a form of exploitation. And that the most underused phrase in business negotiation is simply: "I'm not willing to disclose that at this point."

Along the way he draws on 30 years of deals, boardrooms, and hard-won experience to test where ordinary morality applies in business — and where people wrongly assume it doesn't.

Charles is a Founder Partner of the private equity firm Permira, and the author of A Fair Bargain: The Ethics of Negotiation, published by LSE Press.

➡️ A Fair Bargain: The Ethics of Negotiation: https://press.lse.ac.uk/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.afb

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https://www.phlexiblephilosophy.com/phlexible-philosophy-podcast

Is it wrong to eat meat? Should you have to kill it yourself? And why does a fairer food system have to be a more expensive one?

You can eat well, cheaply, and with more choice than any generation in history. Someone, somewhere, is paying for it, usually the poorest people, the animals, or the planet. Philosopher Julian Baggini has spent years working out how our food system actually functions, and what it would take to make it fair.

This is not the conversation you expect. Julian argues that eating animals is not wrong in itself, that going vegan does not eliminate animal suffering, that lab-grown meat could be the food world's Theranos, and that the injustice baked into cheap food is a feature, not a bug. Along the way he lays out seven principles for a better food system and tests them against real cases: chocolate, coffee, salmon, cultured meat, and even food in space.

Julian is the author of more than 20 books, including "How the World Eats: A Global Food Philosophy". He co-founded The Philosophers' Magazine and has built his career making serious ideas clear for everyone.

➡️ How The World Eats: A Global Food Philosophy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-World-Ea...

➡️ Julian Baggini: https://www.julianbaggini.com (‪@microphilosophy‬)

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https://www.phlexiblephilosophy.com/phlexible-philosophy-podcast

You're walking past a shallow pond and a child is drowning. You could save them at minimal cost to yourself. Should you?

In 1972, philosopher Peter Singer asked exactly that question — and used it to argue that we are all morally obligated to give far more than we do. That argument gave birth to one of the most influential moral movements of our time: Effective Altruism.

In this episode, Hamza sits down with philosopher David Edmonds to follow the argument from Singer's drowning child all the way to the rise and collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried.

They discuss:

— Why some charities are genuinely 1000x more effective than others

— The trolley problem and what it reveals about our moral intuitions

— Whether moral saints exist and whether we'd even want them to

— Derek Parfit's glass bottle and the ethics of future generations

— What SBF's collapse means for the Effective Altruism movement

— The role of risk and uncertainty in moral theorizing

David Edmonds is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Oxford University. With Nigel Warburton he co-founded Philosophy Bites — one of the most listened-to philosophy podcasts in the world with over 49 million downloads. His latest book is Death in a Shallow Pond (2025).

🎥 Youtube: https://youtu.be/ymK8WuQdGms?is=lIHzI7ybfCCbf_4t

📖 Death in a Shallow Pond: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Shallow-Pond-Philosopher-Strangers/dp/0691254028

Listen to other episodes below👇

https://www.phlexiblephilosophy.com/phlexible-philosophy-podcast