Canceling Plato

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Canceling Plato"

The Gray Area with Sean Illing (Host: Avishai Artsy, Vox)
Date: June 19, 2026

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1. Episode Overview

This episode examines censorship, academic freedom, and the politics of university curriculum through the story of Martin Peterson, a former philosophy professor at Texas A&M University. Peterson resigned after being forbidden to teach Plato’s Symposium under a new policy limiting classroom discussion of race, gender, and sexuality. The episode explores questions about who should control academic content, the value of classic philosophical texts, and the moral complexities academics face under restrictive education laws.

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2. Key Discussion Points & Insights

Background: The Ban on Plato’s Symposium

• [02:04] Martin Peterson explains he was required to revise his moral issues syllabus, removing Plato’s Symposium due to policies prohibiting discussion of gender and sexuality.

  “We have a new policy in place for certain topics that we aren’t allowed to talk about at all, and that’s one of those issues… And I’m in the philosophy department. And that’s, of course, absurd.”

• The text discusses different forms of love, including same-sex relationships—deemed unacceptable under the new rules.

Why Teach Plato?

• [04:02] Peterson details Symposium, especially Aristophanes’ speech on the origins of sexual identity and naturalness of same-sex love in ancient Athens.

  “Just reading Aristophanes’ speech and discover how ancient thinkers thought about certain types of relationships being perfectly normal… is revealing. It’s perhaps shocking to some people. I’m not defending Plato... just discovering that those ideas and practices have been around for a very long time.”

Texas A&M’s New Policy: What Happened and Why

• [06:42] The Texas A&M regents, appointed by the governor, implemented the restrictive policy after firing lecturer Melissa McCool for discussing LGBTQ+ perspectives in children's literature.

  “It’s a political process… they see it as their task to implement the governor’s view about how the university should be run, which is problematic.”

• [08:46] Peterson was not allowed to request an exemption due to teaching a “core class,” making censorship inescapable by design.

  “It’s by design… as a matter of fact, it’s not the real option for us to do that. We are not allowed to submit the courses.”

Impact on University Curriculum

• [10:01] Wide-reaching consequences: whole classes fulfilling the school’s “cultural discourse” requirement are rendered essentially untouchable under the new policy.

  “They cannot be taught anymore. And the cultural discourse requirement is being revised. Things aren’t what they used to be anymore.”

The Academic Community’s Response

• [10:28] Peterson says colleagues overwhelmingly view the policy as damaging but are afraid to speak out after seeing colleagues fired for dissent.

  “It’s bad for the university. It’s bad for our reputation. The value of a degree from Texas A&M will no longer be what it used to be.”

On Censorship, Motives, and Media Attention

• [11:45] Peterson switched from using a same-sex marriage Supreme Court ruling to Symposium in his syllabus, thinking Plato would be less controversial; was surprised at the outcome.

  “It’s pretty rare that everything an author wrote is censored… typically the most controversial parts, probably the parts we have to talk about, we ought to talk about, that are being censored. So, of course it is censorship. There is no doubt about that.”

• [13:57] Pushback claims he staged a “hoax”; he refutes this and details how media attention snowballed after sharing his censorship email.

  “How can it be inappropriate to teach Plato in a philosophy class? …It was not a setup.”

• [15:33] The censorship story touched a nerve, widely covered because it appeared absurd:

  “Plato is not dangerous. Plato is not part of a problem. …If we end up censoring the classic, someone has been dead for more than 2,300 years, that just makes no sense.”

Peterson’s Response and Course Adaptation

• [17:01] After Plato was banned, Peterson created a unit on free speech and academic freedom, including an NYT article about the incident and a guest lecture on academic freedom law.

Student & Campus Reactions

• [21:55] Students—both liberal and conservative—generally supported Peterson’s academic freedom and appreciated his approach to fostering debate.

  “I’ve received lots of positive comments… even from very conservative students who thanked me for encouraging them to articulate their views.”

The Scope & Limits of Academic Freedom

• [23:42] Peterson makes a distinction: academic freedom isn’t limitless, but says pre-emptive, ideological censorship distorts the essence of higher education.

  “Of course we should be held accountable for what we say in the classroom. But I do believe that we shouldn’t censor professors before they’ve said something controversial.”

Political Influence & Public Universities

• [25:00] Peterson acknowledges regents' accountability to taxpayers, but insists academic expertise should guide classroom content, not shifting political winds.

  “It’s not up to the board to control what individual professors say in the classroom. They have to trust your professors.”

Resignation and Moving Forward

• [26:43] After extensive advocacy yielding no policy change, Peterson accepted a post at Southern Methodist University (SMU), emphasizing the difference in academic freedom at private institutions.

  “So in a sense, you could say that they have won. I have received a lot of attention for my views, but it hasn’t changed anything. So I think I've done what I can.”

The Bigger Picture: US Higher Education Climate

• [28:21] Peterson warns that America’s global higher education leadership is at risk if such policies spread.

  “One reason for why American universities are so strong is that they attract people from around the world who can come and develop their ideas freely without interference, without censorship.”

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3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the absurdity of censoring Plato:

  “Everyone understands that in the philosophy department, professors must be allowed to teach Plato.” (02:15)

• On the logic of censorship:

  “It’s pretty rare that everything an author wrote is censored... It’s typically the most controversial parts, probably the parts we have to talk about, we ought to talk about, that are being censored.” (11:45)

• On “dissenting compliance”:

  “My strategy… dissenting compliance rather than anticipatory compliance. I very forcefully express my concerns. I say I think this is wrong, but at the end, comply with the policy… That is, I think, the most reasonable compromise.” (40:00–41:18)

• On being in the “gray area”:

  “I've actually been thinking actively about how to handle this. I do want to do the right thing… but I openly admit that doing what I’ve been doing this semester, criticizing the university for censoring Plato… I am in a gray area, and I'm not sure that I would have done everything in exactly the same way if I were to do it again.” (37:51–39:24)

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4. Insights from Peterson’s Research: Ethics in the Gray Area

[33:09] – [37:24]

• Peterson’s book, Ethics in the Gray Area, argues some judgments are not simply right or wrong but “a bit right and a bit wrong.”

• Challenges mainstream moral philosophy’s insistence on moral certainty.

• Suggests randomization is sometimes a legitimate response in ethical “gray zones.”

  “If you are in a genuine gray area, that’s the best response. It… mirrors the messiness, the mushiness of the situation you’re in.” (36:24)

• Applies this framework to his dilemma at A&M—acknowledging the uncertainty and moral ambiguity in resisting unjust policy while being loyal to one's institution (37:51).

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5. Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |---------------|-----------| | 02:04 | Peterson explains the ban on Symposium | | 04:02 | Why Symposium? Aristophanes’ speech | | 06:42 | Genesis and rationale behind the policy | | 08:46 | The impossibility of curriculum exemptions | | 10:01 | Broader curricular impacts | | 11:45 | On whether this was a "set up" or activism | | 15:33 | Why this story resonated so widely | | 17:01 | Peterson’s course adaptation after ban | | 21:55 | Student reactions and classroom dynamics | | 23:42 | Limits and responsibilities of academic freedom | | 25:00 | Public funding, political influence, expertise | | 26:43 | Peterson’s resignation and move to SMU | | 28:21 | Higher education in the US and global comparison | | 33:09 | Peterson’s book and “gray area” moral philosophy| | 36:24 | Randomization as ethical strategy | | 37:51 | Reflections on his A&M experience as “gray area”| | 40:00 | Advice for other professors; dissenting compliance |

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6. Conclusion

The episode offers a nuanced, real-time case study in the implications of ideological censorship at universities, academic freedom, and the preservation of intellectual rigor and diversity in higher education. Peterson’s story, and his broader philosophical work, frame these issues within the everyday ethical dilemmas—showing that, sometimes, the “gray area” is precisely where the most important fights for academic and intellectual integrity occur.

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Transcript

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

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foreign

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

welcome to the gray area. I'm Vox supervising producer Avishai Artsy, filling in for Sean Iling. My guest today is Martin Peterson. Martin is a philosophy professor at Texas A and M University. Earlier this year, the university asked him to stop teaching work by Plato because it violated a recently adopted policy limiting discussion of race and gender in the classroom. In April, he resigned from his tenured position. I asked Martin to come on the show to talk about what happened, who should decide what's taught in a university classroom and why he thinks we should all be reading Plato. Martin Peterson, welcome to the show.

[Martin Peterson]

Thanks for having me.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

You're a philosophy professor. You've been teaching for a couple of decades now. In January, you were asked to revise the syllabus for one of your classes. Can you tell me what happened?

[Martin Peterson]

I teach a course on contemporary moral issues, and I ask my students to read Plato, Plato's Symposium. And the university decided that we cannot assign that text because it's vogue. It brings up topics related to gender issues, and that's not permissible, according to the university. We have a new policy in place for certain topics that we aren't allowed to talk about at all, and that's one of those issues. So I was told not to teach Plato, and I'm in the philosophy department. And that's, of course absurd. Everyone understands that in the philosophy department, professors must Be allowed to teach Plato.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Can you tell me more about this specific text? Plato, Symposium. What does it cover and why did you teach it as part of this class? Contemporary moral issues.

[Martin Peterson]

So it's a text about the nature of love. Plato discusses many different forms of love. He is pretty dismisses ordinary love between you men and women, physical sexual attraction, etc. The highest form of love is love of philosophy, more abstract feelings. But he also talks about same sex relationships as being something fully natural and not something that we have to be ashamed of. And that was a part that the university had problems with because according to this censorship policy, weren't allowed to talk about sexual identity.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

The Symposium is seven guys drinking and giving speeches about the nature of love. Socrates, Aristophanes, others. Can you give us an overview of Symposium? What is it that they get into that made you want to include it in your class?

[Martin Peterson]

Right, so I wanted to include in particular Aristophanes speech, which is the part in which Aristophanes presents a theory of different kinds of sexual identities. So he has this idea that at some point in the past there were three kinds of people, male. So the kind of were attached to each other, a man and a man, females, females and male females. And then they split and now they search for their counterparts. So the male female they search for the opposite sex and then the male males, they search for the same sex. And then Plato discusses relationships between older men and younger men. That was very common in Athens at the time. We find that problematic today. Just reading Aristophanes speech and discover how ancient thinkers thought about certain types of relationships being perfectly normal and even valuable is revealing. It's perhaps shocking to some people. I'm not defending Plato or saying that Plato was right, et cetera, but just discovering that those ideas and practices have been around for a very long time. It's interesting and worth having a discussion about. And we don't have to go into deep interpretations of Plato here. Some people are keen to point out that later in his life Plato probably became more conservative and seem to prefer heterosexual relationships, saying that they were somehow better. And we can kind of debate the details. But just reading the text, and that's what I encourage the listeners to do, go home and read Plato's Symposium yourself. You can find it online for free. It's just a pleasure to read the text.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Is the Symposium and this selection about gender and sexuality the kind of thing that students would expect to read in a class like that?

[Martin Peterson]

Absolutely. So every week we read one classic text or a couple of pages from classic text. We read Aristotle one week, John Stuart Mill another week. So Plato fits very well into that mix of classic texts.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

So in late 2025, the Texas A and M University System Regents adopted a policy that requires approval for courses that address race, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity. And after that, those changes were announced, you called them outright censorship. Who are the Texas A and M University System Regents? And as far as you know, why did they adopt this policy?

[Martin Peterson]

Yeah, let's try to explain this from the very beginning. So in September, the university fired a lecturer in the Department of English, Melissa McCool. She was teaching children's literature from a gender perspective. Why are all children's books stories about heterosexual couples? Why aren't there any children's books, books with homosexual parents, for example. And that seems to be a perfectly acceptable way of teaching children's literature. The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, tweeted that she should be fired, and then the President fired her. And in response to that, the Board of Regents decided to implement this new policy. And the regents, the board members, they are appointed by the Governor. They are typically successful businessmen, very conservative. It's a political process, of course, and they see it as their task to implement the governor's view about how the university should be run, which is problematic. The university is a public university. It's a public good. My view is that all students, regardless of their political orientation, should feel welcome.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

The policy does lay out a process in which a professor wanting to teach anything relating to to those subjects of race, gender, sexual orientation would need to have the materials reviewed show that they serve a necessary educational purpose. It's not clear how that's defined or who would determine it. But then you need to get approval in writing from the campus president to be able to include that in the course. Are those steps that you went through yourself?

[Martin Peterson]

No, I wasn't eligible for that. I teach a so called core class, and core classes cannot get exceptions from a precedent. So only non core classes can be submitted for that kind of review. And to be honest, most courses we teach in the philosophy department of that kind are core classes. So it wasn't. It's by design. They don't want us to teach the topic, so they design the process. So it sounds like we can teach them if we go through the process, but as a matter of fact, it's not the real option for us to do that. We are not allowed to submit the courses.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

You know, this policy is across the board. It affects other professors at Texas A and M. I was reading some of the Policies. And it says that undergrads have to fulfill a cultural discourse requirement. So I was looking at the list of classes that they offer that meet that requirement related to cultural discourse. And the classes are like Introduction to Race and Ethnicity, Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Human Sexuality. I don't see how any of those courses could be taught under this new policy.

[Ad Voice/Commercial Speaker]

Yes,

[Martin Peterson]

I agree with you. They cannot be taught anymore. And the cultural discourse requirement is being revised. Things aren't what they used to be anymore. Texas A and M, it used to be a university where students could take such courses, but no, not anymore. They're all being cancelled or heavily censored or modified.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

How are other professors at Texas A and M responding? I mean, they can't all be resigning. What are they doing?

[Martin Peterson]

I'm the chair of Academic Freedom Council. So for me it was natural to speak up and express our concerns. But of course, many, many professors agree with me. But we aren't so keen to speak up because it's risky. We've seen that people get fired. But I've talked to lots of colleagues and many, many people think this is really bad. It's bad for the university. It's bad for our reputation. The value of a degree from Texas A and M will no longer be what it used to be.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

I want to read something that the university said in a statement. Here's what they said. Texas A and M University will teach numerous dialogues by Plato in a variety of courses this semester and will continue to do so in the future. Recently, the head of the Department of Philosophy rejected one section of Philosophy 111, a core curriculum course, because the professor slated to teach the class had included modules on gender and race ideology. These were added following the new policy approved by the Board of Regents specifically prohibiting the teaching of such ideologies. My question is, did you specifically alter your syllabus to include the symposium after this policy was put in place? And if so, was it because of this policy?

[Martin Peterson]

So as I mentioned earlier, I used to include the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same sex marriage from 2015. But that's a legal text. So I decided to use the Symposium because from a philosophical point of view, Plato makes more or less the same point. Same sex relationships are okay. They are fully normal. There's nothing to worry about. So it's true that I modified the syllabus, right? But I think I did it in an appropriate way. And it's also true that other professors teach other texts by Plato. No one has claimed that everything Plato ever wrote has been banned. A text as a. But one of the most important texts, Symposium, has been banned. I'm not allowed to teach that text. And that's how censorship works, right? It's pretty rare that everything an author wrote is censored. It's typically the most controversial parts, probably the parts we have to talk about, we ought to talk about that are being censored. So of course it is censorship. There is no doubt about that. And I have to say I was surprised that they decided to censor Plato. That's not what I expected. I was, of course, aware that I could no longer teach the course. I've taught it in the past, because in the textbook I use, the textbook doesn't advocate for any particular ideology, but it discusses those ideologies that the university considers to be problematic that you aren't allowed to talk about. And I knew that I wouldn't be allowed to do that. So what I expected to happen was that the department head would tell me to not use that textbook, but perhaps allow me to teach Plato.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Well, I hear what you're saying about censorship. Totally understood, but to the point of choosing to put this in the syllabus. You have been attacked by some conservative critics. They've accused you of creating a hoax or academic theater in order to make a point by teaching this in your class, purposefully cultivating conflict. Do you buy that or do you think it even matters?

[Martin Peterson]

No, I don't buy it, and I don't think it matters. How can it be inappropriate to teach Plato in a philosophy class? I teach John Stuart Mill, I teach Aristotle. How could it be a hoax to ask students to read Plato? It's something that hundreds of professors around the nation do every single semester. It is true that I used a Supreme Court ruling in the past, but that text was arguably more controversial and more ideological than Plato. I think it's more appropriate to teach Plato than to teach a Supreme Court ruling. And it was not a setup in the sense that I did this to provoke a reaction, to get the university to respond. I planned to contact the press. I didn't reach out to the press myself. I forwarded the email I got from the department head saying that I'm not allowed to teach Plato to a colleague at the University of Chicago who published it on his blog. And then journalists from around the world started to call me. So it's not just here in the US but also Germany, France, England, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Greece, et cetera.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

You got so much attention for this story, and probably philosophy professors don't get that much media attention typically. Why do you think this got so many people upset or frustrated? Is it just about academic censorship? Is there something bigger going on? Does this fit into a larger narrative about what's happening in America that you think this kind of touched off a bigger discussion?

[Martin Peterson]

Some people probably think that there is something problematic about how some universities teach some subjects. And perhaps that's true. I'm open to that possibility. But everyone understands that Plato is not dangerous. Plato is not part of a problem. Teaching Plato in the philosophy department can't be something that we should be concerned about. If we end up censoring the classic, someone has been dead for more than 2,300 years. That just makes no sense. So people just laughed at it. And I guess it confirmed the suspicion that the far right ideological push has gone too far. And that's my explanation here. I should also say that if this had been a setup or a hoax, et cetera, I think the point would still be valid. I think it wouldn't really matter much for how people perceive it if I had told you, which is not the case, that I deliberately did this. I wanted to provoke a reaction and I deliberately picked plate to focus on. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it will still be bad, right? Of course, I should still be allowed to teach Plato in the philosophy department.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

So tell me about what happens next. So Texas A and M system implements a policy. You hear from the philosophy department head telling you that you have to remove this from the syllabus. What do you replace it with?

[Martin Peterson]

I replaced Plato with a lecture on free speech and academic freedom. The assigned reading was the article from the New York Times about this incident. Then I invited a law professor from Utah, Austin, who came and gave a guest lecture on the legal aspects of academic freedom. And he basically asked the class, where is the lawsuit? And then I gave a lecture myself on John Stuart Mill on Liberty, his defense of free speech. So in a sense, you could say that the university helped me to create some good content for a class on contemporary moral issues. But that was not intentional. It was not a setup. It was not something that I had planned in advance. It was something that just struck me as the best response when I found out that Plato had been censored.

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[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

How are the students in your class responding to all this? Are they amused? Are they outraged? Are they as focused on this or concerned about this as you are or other professors might be?

[Martin Peterson]

Because I truly believe in academic freedom and free speech, I've really tried to encourage them to defend the university. Kind of present the strongest possible argument for the view that it is appropriate to censor Plato in the philosophy class. In a class with about 250 students, I typically have 100 conservative students or students that tend to say things that can be interpreted as supportive, conservative viewpoints and roughly 100 liberals and 50 people somewhere in between.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Yeah, you mentioned that you do you have conservative students in your classes? I mean, were you hearing any of these frustrations among your students?

[Martin Peterson]

No, I have not received any negative comments. I've received lots of positive comments. I've received emails and thank you notes and even from very conservative students who thanked me for encouraging them to articulate their views. And what I tell my students is that my job is not to tell them what to think. My job is to help them articulate their review fairviews. And I honestly don't really care what their views might be as long as we're able to articulate it well. Why do you think that something is right or wrong or problematic or not problematic? Give me an argument. And I almost always disagree with whatever they say. My job, I sometimes say, is to disagree with students and thereby help them articulate and improve their arguments.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Is there any world in which you think it's, you know, a good idea to place any kind of restrictions or limitations or are prohibitions okay ever? Do you feel like professors should have pretty much complete control of their courses as long as it's within, you know, their expertise? Within reason.

[Martin Peterson]

As chair of Academic Freedom Council, I do not think that professors are allowed to say whatever they want in the classroom. Of course, it must be relevant to the approved course description. If you teach biology, you can't really talk about Plato all the time because Plato isn't relevant in your biology course. You must also be competent. What you say must be based on your scientific expertise. If you teach geography, you cannot claim that the earth is flat unless you have very good reasons for making that claim. So no, of course we should be held accountable for what we say in the classroom. But I do believe that we shouldn't censor professors before they've said something controversial. It's better to wait until they have actually said something they shouldn't have said and at that point intervene and sanction them if appropriate.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Do you think it matters that Texas A and M is a public university, a taxpayer funded university? I'm wondering if the regents maybe feel that in some way they're implementing the will of the voters of, you know, of the people of Texas by making these decisions of what's permissible, what's appropriate in a classroom.

[Martin Peterson]

I think that's a very good question. And I do think that the board has a point that they are accountable to the people of Texas who actually fund the university. That is appropriate. But it's not appropriate for the board to micromanage the course content. What's the point of having an expert in the classroom if expert doesn't get to decide what is said in the classroom? I also don't think that it's appropriate to make big politically motivated changes from one year to another that if a non Republican, if a Democrat ever wins a statewide election in Texas again, that we suddenly should shift the curriculum dramatically to reflect the priorities of that Democratic governor. A university needs to be shielded a little bit from political influence at a high level. Should we invest in a new law school or should we invest in a new building of some sort? Sure, that is a political decision. It's up to the board to make that decision. But it's not up to the board to control what individual professors say in the classroom. They have to trust your professors. We are the experts. I know what it is appropriate to say in my class. And no student has complained about the content. Right. I do not advocate for any ideologies. I present arguments for and against all the views that I discuss.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

You've resigned from Texas A and M University. You're leaving at the end of July. Can you talk about that decision? Why choose to leave as opposed to just change your syllabus or, you know, adapt?

[Martin Peterson]

I believe that I have made my point. I have been interviewed between 45 and 50 times now. Everyone knows what I think. I have offered public testimony in front of the board on two occasions I have written memos, et cetera, et cetera. But that's not really helping. The Dean has made it pretty clear that his plan is to continue to censor Plato and other texts in the philosophy department and in other departments. So the board is not revising or rescinding the policy. In a sense, you could say that they have won. I have received a lot of attention for my views, but it hasn't changed anything. So I think I've done what I can. So at some point SMU in Dallas reached out and asked if I would be interested in position there. And yes, sure. I'm really very much looking forward to joining SMU this fall. It's a private institution, so the censorship policies and state laws of Texas do not directly impact what I can say in the classroom. And of course I'm not going to say anything really controversial. I never did. I never got to the point where I could offer an interpretation of Plato in my class. And even if I had gotten to that point right, I wouldn't have advocated for any ideology anyway.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Smu, Southern Methodist University, as you say, this is a private college still in Texas. Do you expect to see any of this kind of. Any of these kind of issues there?

[Martin Peterson]

My aunt impression is that SMU is a proper university who still believes in the core values of a successful academic institution. Academic freedom is essential for academic success. So that's the biggest difference, right? It's the aptitude to higher education that is the significant difference between SMU and A and M. But I do believe that all universities in the US today face severe challenges. Anything can happen. The US is not doing so well in international comparisons anymore. There is a reason for why American universities have been so strong. I was born in Sweden. I came to the US to work because I discovered that American universities are actually much better than European universities. But if it continues like this, that may not be true in the future. One reason for why American universities are so strong is that they attract people from around the world who can come and develop their ideas freely without interference, without censorship.

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[Martin Peterson]

Car.

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[Martin Peterson]

It feels good to.

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[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

You wrote a book recently that actually shares a name with this show. It's called Ethics in the Gray Area, A Gradualist Theory of right and wrong. And in it you're exploring the challenge of making ethical decisions when faced with options that aren't entirely right or wrong. Options. Do I have that right? Is that kind of.

[Martin Peterson]

And thank you for asking me about my research. So after more than 45 interviews, someone is actually asking me about my philosophical, not just my opinions about academic freedom and Plato. So, first of all, I think most ordinary people, my mother, people on the street, et cetera, find it pretty uncontroversial to say that some things we do are a bit right and a bit wrong. Right to some degree and wrong to some degree. If you tell a white lie in order to achieve a really good outcome, that is perhaps a bit problematic, a bit wrong, because it was a lie. But on the other hand, you did help someone do something, so therefore it was a bit right. The problem is that most or almost all mainstream ethical theories cannot articulate that common sense intuition that there is a gray area. In ethics, there is no gray area. Every action is either right or wrong. So it's a big puzzle for philosophers. How can we possibly articulate this idea that there is a gray area in ethics? So that's what my book is about. That's my project, to try to make sense a very commonsensical idea that my mother and most people I've met think is trivial at true, but philosophers think must be false.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. As you're describing it, it does sound uncontroversial. It does sound common sense. Is it controversial among ethicists to say that there's a gray area in moral decision making?

[Martin Peterson]

Ethicists, they want to explain their way about intuition and say that, well, you think there is a gray area because you don't really know all of the facts. If you were to find out what the consequences of your decision would be, then you would see more clearly that one option is right and another option is wrong. So imagine, for example, that this is a true story. This happened this morning. My dog was sick. She was in pain. I had to take her to the vet. Of course I want to take her to the vet as fast as possible. So should I exceed the speed limit or not? Well, I do care about rules. I shouldn't violate the speed limit. On the other hand, the dog was really in pain and needed to get to bed as soon as possible. That supports the conclusion that I should drive as fast as I can. Is that really a matter of kind of getting more information? As far as I can see, no. Even if I knew everything about exactly how much pain my dog was in and exactly about what the speed limit is, et cetera, that wouldn't really change the situation. It could still be a gray area. It's a bit right and a bit wrong to exceed the speed limit on the highway.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

So the book Ethics in the Gray Area sets up this problem of having to make decisions when your options aren't entirely right or wrong. But then it also lays out a way that somebody, you know, like me, like you, who does have to make these decisions in life all the time, chooses among options that are somewhat right and somewhat wrong. How do you pick those options?

[Martin Peterson]

I defend the controversial view that we should pick randomly. It is okay to sometimes do different things if you're in exactly the same situation twice. Because we are in a gray area. We shouldn't always maximize degrees of righteousness. We shouldn't always do what is what we believe to be right to the highest degree. Because if you do that, I can construct tricky situations in which I have to forego some amount of moral rightness for. For a great good. Later on, it gets a bit technical, it gets a bit complicated. But. But randomization isn't such a bad thing, in my opinion. If you are in a genuine gray area, that's the best response. It. It kind of mirrors the messiness, the mushiness of the situation you're in.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

I wonder if you had this idea of the moral gray area when dealing with Texas A and M and the Plato Symposium dilemma. Were you kind of grappling with different possible outcomes? And do you think that the path you chose was not just the morally right one, but the one that you would choose every time?

[Martin Peterson]

That's the best question I've received for several months.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Thank you.

[Martin Peterson]

I've actually been thinking actively about how to handle this. I do want to do the right thing if there is a right option available to me. So I've been careful to not criticize any individuals. For example, I've tried to not criticize my department head, who was the one who sent me the email censoring Plato. I understand that she is taking orders from the dean, and in fact she said so in the email. But still, of course, I might be in a gray area. Because as long as I work at A and M, I'm. I'm expected to be loyal to the institution. I was invited to meet the president and the provost, and they were of course upset because this episode led to a lot of negative publicity. I said in that meeting that I think I am being loyal to the university by criticizing the university. In the long run, this will actually help the university to become a great academic institution. And I still have positive feelings for A and M. But I openly admit that doing what I've been doing this semester, criticizing the university for censoring Plato and basically claiming that A and M isn't a real university, at least not at this point in time. Time, because we don't have academic freedom. I am in a gray area, and I'm not sure that I would have done everything in exactly the same way if I were to do it again.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

If you were to apply your moral theory here and give advice to other professors who are struggling with issues of censorship and academic freedom, would you tell them to do what you did? Would you tell them to do something different?

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[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

What would you say?

[Martin Peterson]

I think it depends on the situation you are in. I think the fundamental question, is it okay to censor plate on a philosophy course? Right. That's not a gray area. That's a black or white question. It's definitely wrong to do that. Universities shouldn't be doing that. But if you are a professor and you are censored, should you speak up? It can be very risky. You have some obligations to your family and to other people. So if you do it and get fired, you probably did the wrong thing. Is civil disobedience a way forward? It's been a successful strategy in the past. Like Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela and others have practiced civil disobedience. I do not support civil disobedience within the university because I think the stakes are too high. It's too easy for the university to say, you violated the policy of anything. We can find you. And then nothing has been achieved because you typically don't convince the university to change its policy by getting fired by them. So my strategy. What do I call it? Dissenting compliance rather than anticipatory compliance. I very forcefully express my concerns. I say I think this is wrong, but at the end, comply with the policy. So they can't fire me, so they can't punish me. That is, I think, the most reasonable compromise. But I also understand if some people decide to just deliberately ignore the censorship policy and practice civil disobedience.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

I like that phrase, dissenting compliance. So you're going to Southern Methodist University starting in the fall. You'll be teaching there. You'll be the Scurlock Chair in AI ethics. So you're going to be teaching about artificial intelligence and ethics. That seems like a very rich area for philosophy right now.

[Martin Peterson]

Absolutely. It's one of the hottest topics in philosophy right now. And I have done some research on AI ethics and that's why they hired me. Right? SMU didn't hire me because I spoke up against Plato. They needed someone to teach AI ethics and I happened to do that as part of my research. And they probably figured out that I might be somewhat open to the idea of leaving A and M given everything that's happening. And I think we are probably recruiting people from other state universities as well because everyone understands that right now it's not so attractive to work at the state university in the state of Texas.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

Well, Martin Peterson, thank you so much for your time and for being a guest on the Gray Area.

[Martin Peterson]

Thank you for having me.

[Vox Supervising Producer Avishai Artsy]

We reached out to Texas A and M and they shared a pre written statement making the point that their course review was to make sure that classes there do not, quote, advocate race or gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity. For spring 2026, they canceled six classes and modified hundreds of course syllabi. Texas A and M also made the point that students will be able to study the works of Plato in at least a dozen class, their words. But they didn't say that Plato's Symposium would ever be taught again at Texas A and M. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know I liked hearing Martin Peterson think through ideas of academic freedom and censorship in our current political climate and where his experience fits into the gray area of moral display decision making. But as always, we want to know what you think. So drop us a line atthegray areaox.com or leave us a message on our new voicemail line at 1-800-214-5749. And once you're finished with that, go ahead and rate and review and subscribe to the podcast. This episode was produced by Thor new writer and Beth Morrissey who also runs the show engineered by Shannon Mahoney and Christian Ayala. Fact Checked by Melissa Hirsch and Emma Munger wrote our theme music. Our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy. The Gray Area comes out on Mondays and Fridays. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. If you watch podcasts while you listen, you can do that too. Go to YouTube.com Vox for video versions of the gray area. The show is part of Vox. Support Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today. Go to Vox.commembers to sign up and if you decide to sign up because of this show, let us know.

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[Martin Peterson]

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