For decades, Alan Carr has been one of British TV’s most unfailingly friendly faces. He’s carved out his niche thanks to a persona modelled on your best friend after a few chardonnays; fun and occasionally rude, but always deeply, resolutely kind. Which is precisely why his maniacal turn on Celebrity Traitors was such a headline-grabbing event.  

The highly successful reality show is essentially a glorified game of heads down thumbs up: out of a group of contestants, a select few are secretly designated as “the traitors”, able to dispatch other contestants. The non-traitors must work together to identify the bad apples in their midst – if they do, then they walk home with prize money. If they don’t, then the traitors win. 

Almost as soon as he discovered he was a traitor, Carr went to work dispatching his other contestants with a single-minded intent. In an early shocking moment, he even booted off his real-life good mate Paloma Faith, the speed and severity with which he went about his work rivalled only by his masterful manipulation of those around him. Time and time again, he actively leveraged his kindly persona, playing up his inherent trustworthiness. And in the face of accusations, he pleaded his innocence.  

It worked. Carr ended up walking away with the biggest haul of the season – but not without breaking down in tears, a sudden flash of guilt overwhelming him. 

Which begs the question: does self-interested behaviour actually benefit the self? And moreover, is it really true that when given the slightest motivation for unethical action, most of us would sell out, and “murder” our best mate? 

The social contract and the state of nature

The question of what incentive people have to remain ethical is oft-debated in the annals of philosophy. One answer, provided by the theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is based on the perceived inherent nastiness at the heart of human beings. According to Rousseau, we organise ourselves into societies where we all agree not to harm or steal from one another, in order to avoid what he called “the state of nature.” 

According to Rousseau, the state of nature is a fundamentally lawless societal structure, where individuals do what they want, when they want: this, he says, is how it goes in the natural world, where birds steal each other’s eggs, and lions tear sick zebras limb from limb. There’s total freedom in the state of nature, sure, but it’s not particularly pleasant.  

The social contract is a means, therefore, of playing to people’s self-preservation drive, rather than their compassion for their fellow human beings. In the social contract, we all collectively agree not to harm or steal from the other, but only because we want to ensure a world where they don’t harm or steal from us. On this picture of human nature, we’re all chomping at the bit to go full Alan Carr, and betray those around us for our own good – but we don’t, simply in order to avoid getting Alan Carr’d by someone else. 

One second away from nastiness

This belief in our fundamentally selfish nature was reinforced throughout the post-war period, where a number of psychological studies aimed to prove that human beings will unleash unkindness with only the lightest of pressures. The most famous such study was the Stanford Prison Experiment, where a group of unassuming civilians were ordered to roleplay being either a jailor or an inmate. Quickly, the jailors went mad with power, escalating the roleplay to such a dangerous level that the whole experiment had to be aborted.  

The Stanford Prison Experiment was precisely so shocking because the jailors didn’t even have a pot of gold waiting for them at the end of the experiment: they appeared to wield their power for no other reason than they enjoyed it.  

A similar conclusion was reached with the Milgram experiment. In that trial, a group of random civilians were ever-so-gently pressured into delivering what they believed were fatal electric shocks to other civilians that were getting answers in a test wrong (the whole thing was actually a set-up; no-one was harmed). Almost all of them went along with the proceedings happily. 

Take these conclusions, and the likes of Alan Carr don’t seem as much like the exception to the rule, but the rule itself. 

The better angels of our nature

But should we accept these conclusions? For a start, it’s worth noting that participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment were explicitly instructed to behave badly: it wasn’t something that they came up with by themselves. And in the face of Rousseau’s fundamentally lonely and cruel picture of humanity, let’s consider our extraordinary capacity for empathy. 

Because here’s the thing: while we do have evidence that people can be led away from their fundamental values by either money or pressure from an authority figure, a la the Milgram experiment, we also have a great deal of evidence that most people feel an automatic, unthinking empathy towards their fellow human beings. Even Philip Zimbardo, one of the key architects of the Stanford Prison Experiment, advanced the theory of “the banality of heroism”. According to such a view, we all have unbelievable reserves of courage and fellow-feeling within us – heroic acts aren’t, actually, outside of the norm, but something that we’re all capable of. 

It is worth noting, after all, that people who are led to act in a self-interested way are exactly that: led astray. Without intervention, people have a fundamentally collective view of humanity. Sure, we can be manipulated. But we all have a natural, unthinking goodness.

Which might then explain Alan Carr’s tears at the end of the traitors. While it’s true he was incentivised to behave “badly”, he knew that it was bad. And in an era where individualism and egomania is being pushed down our throats more than ever, we should remember that within us lies a strong sense of right and wrong, and a deep reserve of concern for our fellow human beings – Rousseau be damned. 

What is the best response to the massacre of Jewish people at Bondi Beach? I ask that question knowing that the best response may not be the most popular.

For example, the debate about whether or not there should be a Federal Royal Commission has made it abundantly clear that people can reasonably and sincerely disagree about what should be done. The same debate has also revealed that some people have deliberately (and others inadvertently) politicised what should be a matter of broad national consensus – with the ideal response being of a kind that meets a number of core criteria. If ever there was a time to set politics aside in favour of a singular compassion for the Jewish Community and a high regard for the national (rather than partisan) interest, then this was it.

Although united in grief and anger, the Jewish Community is not of a single mind about what should now be done. Differences of opinion are to be expected. It is wrong to expect any group of people to hold a common position simply because they share aspects of identity. Furthermore, while the Jewish Community was the explicit target of the terrorists’ attack – and bore the brunt of the carnage – they are not the only Australians to have been wounded by the murderous rampage that took place on the first night of Hanukkah. The whole nation has been scarred … and now a host of other communities are left to ask, “What caused this to happen? What can be done to prevent this in the future? Who’s next?”.

Bearing all of this in mind, I have come to the conclusion that the best possible response cannot lie in a single measure. Instead, I think the whole nation will be best served by a multi-layered approach. Importantly, such an approach would see the Commonwealth Government go well beyond where it currently stands – but in a direction that, I propose, eclipses what has been called for so far.

Each element of our national response needs to be ‘fit-for-purpose’; tailored to meet a specific need. So, what are those needs? First, the Jewish Community needs answers about what caused the Bondi Massacre – and how it might have been prevented. Second, the nation needs to know if there is anything more that could have been done by our national intelligence and security services to identify and therefore prevent the terrorists from acting. Third, we all need to understand the genesis of hate-crimes (of which antisemitism is an especially virulent, but not the only, form) in Australia – and how this might be combatted in favour of resilient bonds of social cohesion that would enable us to maintain a vibrant, multicultural society in which every person can flourish, free from fear or prejudice.

The first need will be met by the proposed NSW Royal Commission that enjoys the unfettered support of the Commonwealth Government and its departments and agencies. That support needs to be offered with the whole-hearted endorsement of the Prime Minister and unwavering direction from his Cabinet. The Commonwealth should offer binding undertakings to hold to account any of its officers, including members of past and present Commonwealth governments, who are found by the Royal Commission to have contributed to the events in Bondi – either by act or omission. Under these conditions, the proposed NSW Royal Commission will be in a position to address all of the issues arising out of the specific terrorist attack of 14 December.

The second need will be met by the Richardson Review. It will be focused and completed within a relatively short period of time. Anyone who knows or who has worked with Dennis Richardson AC knows that the inquiry will be thorough and exacting. The general public may not see all that he finds and recommends – as national-security considerations will take priority for the sake of us all. However, we can trust that nothing will be overlooked.

The third need can be answered by a National Commission of Inquiry. Unlike a Royal Commission that has a defined legal form – and often seeks to find fault and punish wrongdoers – this Commission would be required to look at the deeper causes of which the Bondi Massacre is a treacherous and violent eruption. Those causes affect multiple communities – indeed, they are a cancer eating away at the soul of Australia. The Commission should have broad powers – but it should especially be enabled to convene individuals and groups from across the nation – to hear the stories of what is happening, the impact of hatred and what can be done to prevent this from metastasising into violence.

In my opinion, we should also put the lens on multiculturalism so that rather than merely celebrating the worthy characteristics of separate communities, we learn how to strengthen the bonds between them – and commit to doing so in practice.

I know that there will be some people in the community, especially the Jewish Community, who would prefer to see the Prime Minister establish a Royal Commission to investigate the scourge of antisemitism. There is something distinctive about the hatred directed at Jews – almost unfathomable given its dark persistence over millennia. However, what I have in mind would allow the Jewish experience to be given full voice – but in conditions where we see how it relates to the experience of others in the community. In itself, that will help forge common bonds – as always happens when we see ourselves reflected in the lives of others. Given the searing nature of events, a proposed Commission should prioritise its examination of antisemitism, before all else, reporting on this within twelve months of being established.

In putting forward this proposal, I sincerely believe that nothing will be lost – and much will be gained. I hope that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese might establish a Commission that embraces the whole nation – in all of its marvellous diversity – in order to find light at this terrible moment of darkness.

The emotions we feel in the wake of a tragedy, like the Bondi Beach shooting, are as intense as they are natural. What matters is how we act on them.

It was a typical relaxed summer Sunday evening. We had just finished dinner and I was on the couch watching TV while my wife was in the other room catching up with family over a video call. Then a wayward notification caused me to idly glance at my phone. A headline popped up on the screen, I caught my breath and switched on the news.  

And in a matter of moments, the peace was shattered as the news came in that two men had opened fire on a group of people enjoying their own relaxed summer Sunday evening celebrating Hanukkah on Bondi Beach. A wave of emotions followed: horror, grief and outrage, followed by a gnawing sense of uncertainty. Were any of my friends or family there? What could drive someone to commit such an atrocity? Is anywhere safe? 

These are typical emotions when confronted by sights such as these. The feelings well up from our bellies, fill our chest, overwhelm our minds. They are as primitive as they are potent. And they demand closure. 

Yet emotions like these can be channelled in many different ways. Some forms of emotional closure are healthy. But other courses can end up causing more harm, either to ourselves or to others. And while it is easy to let these types of emotions consume us, it is crucial that we act on them ethically. 

Horror and hope

Many creatures experience fear. It is a natural response to threat, and a potent motivator to remove ourselves from its presence. But our species is unique – as far as we know – in our ability to experience horror. Horror is also bound up with shock, disgust and dread. It is a response to the most acute violations of our humanity. The thing is, we don’t only experience horror when we are under threat, but when someone else is threatened. Underneath horror is a recognition of our shared sacred humanity and a revulsion at its desecration. 

The problem is that the sense of horror triggered by an attack such as that at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025 can change the way we see the world. In our aroused state, we become hyper vigilant to cues that might indicate future threats. And those cues will be associated with the location of the shooting, perhaps making us reluctant to go to Bondi Beach, or even causing us to fear going out in public at all.

If we allow emotion to take over, it can make the world feel less safe and other people seem more threatening.

But that response overlooks the fact that, despite the magnitude of the atrocity, this is an incredibly rare event perpetrated by only a few people. The fact that our feeling of horror is shared by millions of others around Australia and the world should serve as a reminder that the vast majority of us care deeply about our shared humanity, and it is those people that make the world safe. Should we retreat from the world out of fear, we do ourselves, and every decent horrified person around us, a disservice. 

Following horror might be an overwhelming grief at the pain and suffering inflicted upon innocent people. This grief can lead to a feeling of powerlessness and despondency, one that again nudges us to retreat from the world. But, as painful as it is, our grief is proportional to our love. If we didn’t care for the lives of others – even people we have never met and will never know – then we wouldn’t feel grief. So we needn’t let grief strip us of our agency. Instead, we can let it remind us to lean into love and motivate us to reach out to others with greater patience and understanding. 

A fire for justice

Possibly the most dangerous emotion in this list is outrage. This is another primitive emotion that motivates us to correct wrongdoing and punish wrongdoers. Outrage demands satisfaction, but it’s often not fussy about how that satisfaction is achieved. Great evils have been committed at the hand of outrage, and great injustices perpetrated to satisfy its call.  

We must acknowledge when we feel outrage but be wary of its call to immediately find someone to blame and punish. Within an hour of the shooting, the media was already mentioning a name of one of the attackers, feeding the audience’s hunger for justice. But in its haste, it caught up an innocent man who then experienced unwarranted threats. Others rushed to blame the authorities for failing to prevent the attack or refusing to combat antisemitism. 

Even when things look clear at first glance, we must remind ourselves that it’s all too easy to blame the wrong person or seek punishment just for the sake of satisfaction. And sometimes there is no one person to blame. Sometimes the causes of an atrocity are complex and interlaced. Sometimes there were multiple causes and nothing anyone could have done to prevent it. So we must temper outrage with a deeper commitment to genuine justice, lowering the temperature and working to understand the whole picture before calling for punishment. 

I acknowledge that it can be difficult to pause in the heat of the moment, especially when we only have a fragmentary grasp of what’s going on and what caused it.

In times of uncertainty or ambiguity, we crave clarity and certainty. We seek out and latch on to the first available narrative that seems to make sense of a great tragedy. We like the feeling of being certain more than we like doing the work to interrogate our beliefs to ensure they warrant certainty.

We thus have a tendency to be drawn to narratives that align with our pre-existing beliefs or biases. Uncertainty and ambiguity can be like a Rorschach test. The patterns we see tell us more about ourselves than reality. If we don’t want to exacerbate injustice by generating or sharing false narratives that can cause real harm, we need to learn to sit with the uncertainty and dwell in the ambiguity. We are not naturally inclined to do so, but that only means we need to practice getting better at it. 

The very fact we typically experience emotions like horror, grief, outrage and uncertainty speak to our deeper humanity. They speak to how much we care about others and living in a world where everyone deserves to be safe and thrive. If we allow the better angels of our nature to rise to the surface, and resist the temptation to satisfy our emotions in ways that cause more harm, we can respond in a genuinely ethical way. 

Image by ZUMA Press, Inc / Alamy

On behalf of everyone who works at The Ethics Centre – our board, staff and volunteers – I am writing to all of our members and supporters to offer our heartfelt sympathy to those affected by the terrorist attack that took place, in Bondi, last night.

Some might observe that this is not the biggest atrocity to have taken place in the world this year. However, I do not believe that atrocities should be ranked according to the numbers of people killed and maimed. What defines such events, as evil, lies in the perpetrator’s intent to harm people; not because of what they have done, or what they believe – but simply because of who they are. 

Last night was not an indiscriminate act of terror. People were targeted merely for being Jewish – men, women, children … people of every type and description. Whether you lived or died had nothing to do with one’s politics or opinions about the world. Simply being Jewish – indeed, simply being in the midst of the Jewish community – was enough for you to be targeted. This was antisemitism in its most violent form. 

As I write this note, we still do not know what motivated the terrorists. However, nothing can make good what they did – cold-blooded murder can never be justified … no matter who does the killing, no matter who is the victim, no matter how many reasons are advanced. 

Now, I fear that the cycle will take another turn for the worse. Members of other communities will fear that they will be tarred with the same brush as the terrorists – no matter what they have done, no matter what they believe – but simply because of who they are. 

Surely, surely it is time to stop this vicious wheel from turning. 

At The Ethics Centre, we believe in the intrinsic dignity of all persons – without exception. This recognition has no boundaries and, difficult as it may be, must extend even to those who visit terror upon us. At times like this, we should embrace our common humanity – and not give way to those who would stoke and exploit divisions for their own ends. 

Many people will be hurting today – even if far removed from the carnage. Many will be angry or confused, or feeling helpless or just numb. I think I have felt all of those emotions since the tragic events of last evening began to unfold. However, in the midst of all of this, we can hold onto the fact that what happens next is not inevitable.

Our governments will take the lead in providing security – but only we, the people, can create the conditions of ‘belonging’ in which every person can feel safe in the warm embrace of a society that recognises the intrinsic dignity of all. In this, let’s not forget the bravery of those who confronted the gunmen, who rendered first aid, who comforted the dying or offered sanctuary within their homes. These people show what is possible when the good in us comes forth.

Making and sustaining just such a society – even in the face of terror – is what each of us can do. I hold onto that – and in the midst of pain and confusion hope you might do the same. 

Image: Paul Lovelace / Alamy

Partway through Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the author neatly summarises one of the more troubling questions that undercuts civilisation: is it ethical for widespread happiness to come at the expense of the discontent of select individuals? Or, to put it simply: do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

“Let’s assume that you were called upon to build the edifice of human destiny so that men would finally be happy”, the troubled Ivan Karamazov says. “If you knew that, in order to attain this, you would have to torture just one single creature, would you agree to do it?” 

That one question has been probed and explored time and time again in the years since Karamazov was published, most notably in Ursula LeGuin’s sci-fi story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, in which the happiness of a flourishing city depends totally on the torture of a young girl. But it has perhaps never been as thoroughly – not to mention amusingly – explored to the extent that it is in Pluribus, the new sci-fi show from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan.  

In Gilligan’s re-telling, near-global happiness is an external force: a virus of sorts, which turns the world’s population into a hive mind of mutually contented drones. The one miserable, unlucky individual whose perpetual unhappiness sets her apart from the mainstream: Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), who appears to be immune to the virus. Or rather, temporarily immune, given much of the early episodes of the show follows the rising, blackly comic threat of the hive mind searching for ways to make Carol one of them.  

“Once you see how wonderful it is….” a member of the hive mind tells Carol early on, speaking to her directly from her television set. The hive promises happiness, peace and the end of all human conflict. What they also represent: the tyranny of mainstream thought, an enforced and established consensus where majority rules, no matter how discontented outliers might be. And where happiness itself is dangerously considered the main goal of all human existence. 

The problem with happiness

One of Gilligan’s masterstrokes is to set Carol out of the mainstream even before the virus spreads. When we meet her, she’s a beloved romantasy author who can’t stand either the mindless content that she churns out, or the horde of rabid fans who adore her. In the first episode, her business/life partner Helen (Miriam Shor) mocks Carol’s dislike of adulation, teasing that she’s a perpetual miser, illogically rejecting the good time that’s being offered to her.  

But when the mainstream offers mere happiness, we should reject it, as both Gilligan and Dostoyevsky seem to suggest. A life of contentment and fitting in with the crowd isn’t an ethical good in and of itself. As the rise of increasingly deranged social media slop proves – the kind of quick dopamine fix provided by TikTok – there’s so much more to life than merely being entertained.  

The person who sits in their room all day watching Instagram reels could conceivably be very happy, but wouldn’t we all suggest that they might want more? Should they in fact pursue something greater and more important than simply having a good time? 

This is the threat posed by Pluribus’ hive. In an ideal world, happiness should be a kind of side effect of good, not something to be pursued blindly for its own sake. As in, happiness should be what happens when we achieve virtuous behaviours – when we care for others, or pursue a flourishing life. And it certainly should not be enforced by the mainstream at the expense of individual freedoms and wants.  

Even as Pluribus’ plot progresses, and it is revealed that Carol’s unhappiness is a very literal threat to the hive – when she lashes out at them, members of the hive abruptly die – the needs of those who sit in the mainstream should never be held above the deep unhappiness of those who also must operate within the world. Not only because enforcing the desires of the collective onto the individual is a harm in itself, but because sometimes – maybe even often – the desires of the collective aren’t particularly desirable. 

In praise of conflict

Pluribus slowly encourages us to be suspicious of the idea that the hive are actually as happy as they claim to be. Do we really think that happiness is only a flood of dopamine throughout our body? If so, then as the philosopher Robert Nozick once asked, wouldn’t we therefore choose to step into a machine that did nothing but probe our dopamine receptors for all eternity, living an artificial life where we submit to being little more than switches that can be flipped in order to produce joy? 

It doesn’t seem like many of us consider happiness only that. Happiness is what happens when we go to the other side of hardship; when we set ourselves goals and then achieve them. Ultimately, it’s a response to conflict and unhappiness, not the absence of conflict and unhappiness altogether.

Enforced mainstream happiness isn’t just ethically harmful for those who have it enforced upon them; it might be harmful to those who actively want it.

In the age of AI, these issues have never been more timely. In fact, Gilligan himself seems aware of this: each episode of Pluribus ends with a message, hidden in the credits, that reads, “this show was made by humans”.

We live in an era where tech companies constantly promise us that AI will bring ease, contentment, and the ability to fit in with our co-workers, friends and family – with the collective. Even if AI can do our jobs for us, or write tricky text messages to our loved ones, decreasing our discomfort, why would we even want that?  

Now more than ever, we should follow Carol’s lead and become perpetual sourpusses. As it turns out, being a grump might be one of the most ethical things of all.