A cage called freedom: Cultural diversity in contemporary literature
As a writer and reader, I am unequivocally conscious of the blatant lack of cultural representation evident in the art I consume.
Historical power dynamics, not limited to patriarchy and white supremacy, have catalysed a passive acceptance for this inequality by engraining prejudice into Western society and culture. This results in those who are otherwise supportive of diversity remaining acquiescent, and others believing that such discrimination is unproblematic. While this inequity is reflected in the literary world, storytelling has historically acted as a medium to expose injustice and advocate for marginalised communities. Yet power structures supporting mainstream groups ensures that many such texts remain difficult to obtain and lack recognition in contemporary society.
I am embarrassed to admit that the first book I read by a culturally diverse woman was this year, partly due to my own fault of not seeking out such an author sooner. But more significantly due to the fact that I was never exposed to such authors – their stories not often easily accessible. This seems to be the norm in Western societies, and the comfortable bubble created by and for cultural majorities makes it difficult for diversity to be considered in mainstream literature.
As writer Magdalene Abraha notes, authors who have fractured through this bubble encounter alternative obstacles, often feeling pressured to write on topics of race, discrimination, and gender, or ‘write what you know’. She goes on to identify how authors have been rejected on the merits that their books aren’t representative enough of these topics. However, it is not the responsibility of culturally diverse women to educate others on the reality of race, gender, and discrimination. This underlying expectation limits them by their identity rather than their creativity, contrasting with the artistic freedom that white male authors enjoy.
The alternative side to this concept is that stories that do explore discrimination, race, and the identities of culturally diverse women are often seen as being political texts. So much so that many stories, like The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas, have been banned due to ‘heavy content’, where this ‘heavy content’ is an accurate representation of reality for a cultural minority.
Cynthia Robinson Young, another woman and author of colour, states that “…pretty much everything I write is political. It isn’t intentional. I thought it was life”, for even in the mindset of contemporary society, cultural representation is viewed as a challenge against white supremacy. As a young writer this is an odd and somewhat unsettling concept to comprehend, that my own story should be considered inherently political.
The paradoxical nature of the literary world offers the illusion of cultural celebration, advocating that ethnically diverse authors are free to write their truths and pour their culture onto the page. Many bookstores now have a special category dedicated to culturally diverse authors, protagonists are more diversified, stories are more subjective, and social media trends offer recommendations to diversify one’s bookshelf, a collection of the same popular books recycled by different content creators. Although, I fear that this is just a trendy facade.
For how many culturally diverse women can create without their gender or ethnicity interfering with their writing, book sales, promotions, and overall ability to become published in the first place? It is a cage masked by the title ‘freedom’.
Editor Seema Mahaniam highlights how systematic oppression of culturally diverse women still exists in the literary world. They are not granted the same opportunities as white authors and should their debut novel fail to meet advancements, it is viewed as a reflection of all ethnic authors. As a culturally diverse woman, I can’t help but feel a sense of bitterness to this knowledge. Why is it that in contemporary society, in a world where equality and diversity is spoken about at nearly every corner, my identity should still be seen as a barrier?
“Literary agents say that publishers’ appetite for books that examine race and racism has dwindled… the literary landscape still skews heavily toward white writers.”
The movement for cultural inclusion has been ongoing for decades, and statical evidence indicates that little change has been made despite recent advertisements of cultural inclusion. The 2014 hashtag #WeNeedDiverseBooks and 2020’s #PublishingPaidMe revealed an alarming discrepancy between the book sales and advancements for white and culturally diverse authors. A 2018 study by The First Nations and People of Colour Writers Count indicated that of 1000 Australian books only 1% were by First Nation authors and 7% by culturally diverse authors. In 2023, Lee & Low released a report indicating that white employees overwhelmed their publishing workforce, totalling 72.5%. Such statistical evidence reveals the reality of cultural diversity in literature; that is to say, it’s fictitious.
Of course, ethnic representation in stories is significant to offer culturally diverse readers the opportunity to feel a sense of empowerment within self-identity and culture. However, I never found myself bothered by this as a child. I loved stories purely for what they offered a shy and somewhat lonely little girl. Magic, escapism from the racism battled in school, and a sense of wonder in a not-so-wonderful world.
It was normal that all authors were white, as were most characters, and therefore I didn’t question it. Rather, I sought connections with characters via their personalities, and it wasn’t until I read Zoya Patel’s Reflections on Representation that I realised how common this experience is for many culturally diverse readers. Through analysis of her personal experience and literary ethics, she explores how cultural representation in literature presents an opportunity for readers from cultural majorities to engage with diversity by understanding the perspectives, struggles, and morals of characters who depict ethnic minorities. Our shared experience indicates that culturally diverse women have fostered an ability to seek self-representation in literature regardless of cultural divergences. Empathising with human experience is not limited by ethnicity, culture, or gender identity and is something any reader can achieve. In reflection of this concept, I hope that the rationing of culturally diverse women is removed with the continuous challenging of white supremacy standards.
Storytelling holds the capability to offer avenues of understanding and compassion, promoting equality while exposing the realities of ethnic and gender diversity for many writers. Literature, like all art, is reflective of our world and thus should accurately communicate this diversity through both art and artist. As a writer and reader, I hope for the day when books by culturally diverse women may sit on a bookshelf, alongside other works, without the need for justification or the labelling of their divergence.
A Cage Called Freedom: Cultural Diversity in Contemporary Literature by Sheona Tattersall is one of the Highly Commended essays in our Young Writers’ 2025 Competition. Find out more about the competition here.
BY Sheona Tattersall
Sheona is currently a Master of Arts (Writing and Literature) student. She has a passion for creative writing and an interest in exploring the ethics of literature and diversity.
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The question AI can't answer for us
Introducing Ethical by Design: Good Technology Principles for AI
There’s a particular kind of vertigo that comes from watching a technology reshape the world faster than our frameworks can keep up. We’ve been here before with the internet, social media, and the smartphone. Each time, the ethical reckoning arrived late, if it ever came at all. Foreseeable and preventable harms accumulated while the builders moved fast, and the rest of us were left to sort through the wreckage.
With the proliferation of artificial intelligence, we don’t have the luxury of retrospect. Systems are already making decisions about who gets a loan, who gets flagged at a border, whose résumé clears the first filter. The question of what AI should do, not just what it can do, is no longer theoretical. It’s operational and it’s urgent.
This is the moment that Ethical by Design: Good Technology Principles for AI is written for.
Building on what endures
The Ethics Centre has been asking hard questions about technology and human flourishing for a long time. When we published the original Ethical by Design principles in 2018, AI was largely a specialist concern: something debated in research labs and tech conferences, not yet woven into the fabric of daily life. Those principles – that technology must respect human dignity, anticipate harm, and serve a genuine purpose – were designed to be durable. And they are: the ethical foundations haven’t shifted.
But the landscape has.
Generative AI didn’t just accelerate existing trends; it introduced a qualitatively different kind of challenge. Systems that learn, adapt, and produce outputs their own designers do not intend and cannot fully explain don’t fit neatly into frameworks built for more legible technologies. When a model generates a deepfake, hallucinates a legal precedent, or encodes a historical bias into a hiring recommendation, the question of accountability doesn’t resolve cleanly. The complexity is real, and it demands a response equal to it.
This updated framework extends the original Ethical by Design principles. What’s new is the application. The framework intentionally grapples seriously with dimensions of AI ethics that are newer to mainstream conversation: the environmental cost of training and deploying models at scale; the hidden labour of the data annotators and content moderators whose work makes AI possible; the specific risks of synthetic content in an information environment already struggling with trust. These aren’t edge cases. They’re central to what it means to build AI responsibly.
For the people who build and lead
If you’re making decisions about whether and how to deploy AI in your organisation, this framework is for you. Not as a compliance checklist, but as a set of principles rigorous enough to stress-test your own reasoning. The central question of this framework is deceptively simple: ought before can.
Before we ask whether an AI system is technically feasible or commercially viable, we ask whether it should exist: whether its purpose is legitimate, its means are ethical, and its costs are fairly distributed.
That question doesn’t have a technical answer. No model can generate it for you. It requires the kind of careful, honest ethical reasoning that The Ethics Centre exists to support. This framework is designed to make that more accessible.
Commercial pressures and competitive dyanmics are real. The expectation that organisations will adopt AI quickly, confidently, and at scale is entirely real. None of that changes the ethical calculus. It just makes the discipline harder and more necessary.
What we’ve tried to do here is give you something useful for that harder work: eight principles with philosophical grounding and concrete practices, applied to the specific terrain of AI systems. Principles that don’t pretend the choices are easy, but insist that they are choices that can and should be made with explicit intention and accountability for impact.
The revolution is already here. The question is what we choose to build with it, and who we choose to protect in the process.
Download a copy of Ethical by Design: Good Technology Principles for AI here.
If you’d like to discuss implementing ethical AI in your organisation, contact consulting@ethics.org.au.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Welcome to Country comes from a place of deep, sincere respect
It was just a few days after my seventeenth birthday that I arrived on Groote Eylandt, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, for the first time.
I had left school without any savings and needed to earn enough income to support myself when eventually (I hoped) I would attend university. But for the time being, in early in 1976, I would be working as a ‘Service Attendant’ (a cleaner and ‘dog’s body’) in one of the most remote communities in Australia.
That was the beginning of an extraordinary set of experiences – some of the most memorable of my life – which included being adopted into the kinship structure of the Anindilyakwa people. My connection to the Lalara Clan remains active and has been preserved for five decades.
From time-to-time, I would be invited to travel to the south of the main island, to visit the community of Yenbakwa. This was located within the lands of the Amagula Clan and had been resettled by the community under the leadership of the formidable Nanjiwarra Amagula. A major cultural and political figure, Nanjiwarra had become disillusioned with life within the Anglican mission established as Angurugu. Instead, he thought his clan would flourish if it returned to its homelands to live a traditional life that had been refined over thousands of years. And, indeed, the Yenbakwa I visited was a kind of ‘paradise on earth’. It was highly organised and functional. Life was simple. But the environment was clean and scrupulously cared for by people well-fed from the remarkable bounty offered by what was at hand in land and sea.
Travelling to Yenbakwa always followed a protocol. It was not that one simply headed down to arrive unannounced. This protocol applied to Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike. A key moment was when you arrived at the boundary of the Amagula lands. All clan lands are clearly delineated. The boundaries are well known. You do not cross into another person’s Country without permission. So, we would always meet with a group of Amagula warriors at a pre-arranged time and place. There we would be welcomed before being escorted further into the Amagula lands and down to Yenbakwa. On arrival, we would be allocated a tree where we were to camp. Typically, some of the women would help set up the site while we would join the men and go hunting … or perform some other appropriate task. This sense of ‘respecting boundaries’ extended into the night. Families would typically gather around a fire near a tree that was their ‘base’ (my inadequate description not theirs). Again, protocol prescribed that you would approach no further than the edge of the firelight. There you would wait to be recognised and then, perhaps, invited into the gathering.
I mention all of this because when I first encountered a ‘Welcome to Country’ it was, for me, the most normal thing in the world. It was not a ‘made up’ convention. It was a simple expression of a traditional practice that I had personally experienced ‘for real’ back on Groote Eylandt in the 1970s. So, I am perplexed by the criticism of a custom that is intended to be a symbol of unity and our collective belonging to ‘Country’. Indeed, I think that the source of opposition arises out a significant misunderstanding of what lies at the heart of a ‘Welcome to’ or ‘Acknowledgement of’ Country.
An immediate clue lies in the words spoken at such times. Perhaps it slips by unnoticed; however, when addressing ‘Country’ the first thing to be mentioned is people. Not places, not geographic features … but people. So, people in the Sydney CBD will speak of the Gadigal people – one of the clans that make up the Eora nation. This is because at least in the areas I know best (Groote Eylandt) there is no distinction between ‘people’ and ‘Country’.
From this perspective, we do not live ‘on’ Country. We are ‘of’ Country – related to all that is … seen and unseen … in an unbroken chain of being.
Perhaps most important of all is that this belonging extends to everybody living within the boundaries of ‘Country’. A person equally belongs irrespective of gender, religion, culture, genetics … or any other marker of difference. That is, Indigenous people do not claim to belong any more or less than anyone else.
Where the difference lies is in who has authority to ‘speak for Country’. Again, I will only speak for what I know. On Groote, ‘authority’ is divided between those who speak for a clan’s Country as a whole and those (from a different clan) who are responsible for the sacred sites within another person’s country. It is a complex, balanced system that has been developed over millennia – and it works. The responsibility to ‘speak’ for Country and to ensure it is well-cared for extends to caring for any person who enters into that Country. New arrivals become part of it all – and need to be looked after. So, in some traditional rituals of welcoming, people would be smoked or touched with the sweat of local people so that they carry the local scent. At other times and places, the ancestors will be called out to; letting them know who is about (ancestors have an ongoing presence). Finally, the right to ‘speak for Country’ is not automatically conferred. One has to earn the right – no matter who you are. That is why for many Indigenous Australians education in culture is both compulsory and life-long.
Taken as a whole, I think that, wherever possible, one should look to local First Nations people, who have earned the right to ‘speak for Country’, to undertake the ‘Welcome’. It is also why we acknowledge Country by paying respect to those who have cared for Country over thousands of generations. We do so in the same way that we respect any group of people who have devoted themselves to the common good.
We should do so knowing that this is not to confer a distinction on people who are different to us – but to acknowledge the fundamental equality of our belonging.
Given the remarkable diversity of modern Australia – with people living here from every part of the world; with a swirling mixture of languages, cultures, and religions there is one indisputable thing that we all share in common. It is that we all live on Country that has been cared for, forever. I can think of nothing more unifying than being welcomed into, and in turn acknowledging Country – as was done when I first visited Yenbakwa half a century ago.
This article is an edited version that was originally published in The Australian.
Image: Aunty Rhonda Dixon presents Welcome to Country at Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2022, photo by Ken Leanfore
BY Simon Longstaff
Simon Longstaff began his working life on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory of Australia. He is proud of his kinship ties to the Anindilyakwa people. After a period studying law in Sydney and teaching in Tasmania, he pursued postgraduate studies as a Member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1991, Simon commenced his work as the first Executive Director of The Ethics Centre. In 2013, he was made an officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the community through the promotion of ethical standards in governance and business, to improving corporate responsibility, and to philosophy.” Simon is an Adjunct Professor of the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW, a Fellow of CPA Australia, the Royal Society of NSW and the Australian Risk Policy Institute.
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Known, documented and ignored: Confronting the international politics of inaction
As the world focuses on the immense civilian toll in the Middle East, other crises continue to unfold with far less attention.
They are often described as “forgotten crises”, but that label is misleading. Conflicts across Africa are well documented and analysed, and they affect countless lives. What they lack is sustained action to address them — and the strategic interest needed to drive that action.
Across the African continent, wars and humanitarian crises are killing civilians, displacing millions and eroding already fragile institutions. At Human Rights Watch, we work in more than two dozen African countries documenting abuses and pressing for accountability. Over time, a clear pattern emerges. Whether in active war zones, entrenched authoritarian systems or geopolitically sensitive states, the outcome is often the same: immobilisation.
In active conflict settings such as the Sahel, Ethiopia and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the barriers are rooted in security narratives and shifting alliances. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are gripped by violence involving Islamist armed groups, government forces, local militias and foreign mercenaries. They routinely target, displace and kill civilians. In Burkina Faso, all parties are committing abuses that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet authorities dismiss criticism as a threat to national security, while international partners often prioritise counterterrorism and resource-driven cooperation over the protection of civilians.
In Ethiopia, hostilities persist between federal forces and armed groups in Amhara and parts of Oromia. Meanwhile, in Tigray, tensions escalate again in communities that are still reeling from the devastating 2020–2022 conflict and a resulting humanitarian crisis. In eastern Congo, Rwanda’s significant logistical and military support to the M23 armed group and the Congolese army’s funding and material assistance to the abusive Wazalendo militias intersects with entrenched regional and ethnic tensions. This layered complexity is often invoked as a convenient justification for inaction.
Then there are more consolidated authoritarian contexts, such as Burundi. Since a 2015 political crisis, the government has dismantled civic space and restricted free expression, political opposition and independent media. Elections continue, but without genuine competition. A similar pattern is emerging in Ethiopia, which is bracing for national elections in June, and in Rwanda, where journalists and opponents face detention, enforced disappearance or death. The challenge here is not the fog of war, but the normalisation of repression.
International actors often default to quiet diplomacy or disengagement, particularly when these situations no longer dominate headlines or for fear of alienating governments that could turn elsewhere for support.
Other under-scrutinised countries, such as Chad, reflect a similar trajectory, where last year’s politically motivated arrest of the former prime minister sounded the death knell of a meaningful democratic transition and was largely ignored.
Meanwhile, in Sudan and South Sudan, the scale of human suffering is staggering. Along with Congo, these crises account for at least 20 million internally displaced people. Yet global attention remains intermittent, where “atrocity fatigue” fails to sustain the will to respond. Immobilisation does not preserve the status quo; it deepens suffering. It allows abuses to persist and escalate, while emboldening perpetrators to refine their methods — from blockades of humanitarian aid in South Sudan to ethnic cleansing in Burkina Faso, northern Ethiopia and Sudan’s Darfur.
Despite their differences, these contexts converge on a single outcome: paralysis among those with the power to act. Governments deflect, allies equivocate and international institutions struggle to sustain pressure. For organisations like Human Rights Watch, the challenge is not only to document abuses, but to disrupt this inertia. Part of that inaction is a calculated choice.
Governments are often unwilling to incur political risk when it comes to Africa, aligning their strategic interests with those in power rather than human rights — leaving civilians to bear the cost. This requires adapting both research and advocacy strategies to the context. Evidence alone is rarely sufficient to spur action. Pairing documentation with the lived experiences of victims and witnesses helps cut through the indifference and reframe what is at stake.
Advocacy must also be tailored to political realities. In conflict settings, this may involve pressing international partners to condition military support on compliance with the laws of war. In authoritarian contexts, it may mean supporting targeted sanctions or amplifying the voices of local civil society. In geopolitically sensitive environments, change tends to be incremental — and persistence is essential.
Local organisations, journalists, regional bodies and international partners all play critical roles. Collaboration and humility are indispensable. Local individuals often bear the greatest risks and possess the deepest insights; their work should be supported and amplified.
Advocacy needs to evolve to counter shifting narratives. Claims of sovereignty or “Pan-Africanism” in order to dismiss criticism as external interference should not go unchallenged. Protecting human rights is not foreign to African priorities; it is central to them. Reclaiming that narrative is essential to counter efforts to delegitimise scrutiny.
These crises must also be understood within broader global dynamics. Rising authoritarianism, protracted conflicts and structural inequalities are interconnected and drive issues that command far greater international attention, from migration to regional instability. Drawing these connections can help re-engage policymakers who might otherwise look away. The forces that sustain inaction — strategic interests, political caution and fatigue — are deeply entrenched, but they are not immutable. Sustained, credible advocacy has shifted policies before, and it can do so again.
These are not “forgotten crises”. They are crises the world has repeatedly chosen not to act on. Changing that choice is the real challenge.
BY Carine Kaneza Nantulya
Carine Kaneza Nantulya is Africa deputy director and strategic planning adviser at Human Rights Watch.
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Behind the veil: When are we entitled to unmask the anonymous?
Anonymity can help people speak truth to power or remain safely out of the limelight. But it can also be used to avoid accountability. When should we have a right to know who someone really is?
Do you know the true identity of the elusive street artist, Banksy? What about the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto? Do you know the name of the person (or people) behind the notorious “Q” drops that drove the QAnon conspiracy movement?
If you are curious, the good news is that reporters have worked hard to unmask these hidden figures: a recent Reuters article claims to have definitively revealed the identity of Banksy; an exhaustive New York Times investigation purports to have pinpointed the man behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym; and a 2021 HBO documentary delves into the colourful characters that appear to have posted as Q.
But should we read these articles or watch this documentary? Are we entitled to know who they are? Or do the subjects deserve to remain anonymous?
There are some very good reasons why someone might want to remain anonymous. Anonymity can protect those who speak truth to power or express views that go against the dominant narrative. It’s a protective feature that allows journalists to uncover facts in the public interest without putting sources at risk. It enables people to voice opinions that can be judged on their merit without listeners being distracted by the messenger. It can also help people avoid the invasive limelight that inevitably surrounds anyone who draws the attention of the public eye.
However, the same shield of anonymity can also help people escape accountability for their actions.
Who says what
In a liberal society, each of us has a basic right to privacy. That means we have a right to restrict the distribution of personal information about us. That extends to a right to remain anonymous in spaces where our true identity isn’t required. But these are not inviolable rights; there will be circumstances where necessity or other factors override our right to remain anonymous.
One of those factors is that, sometimes, people need to know who is saying something in order to know whether it’s legitimate or not. There’s a big difference between some random person on the street declaring you “guilty” and a judge in a courtroom doing the same thing. Similarly, it’s important to know that the person giving you advice on drug dosage is a certified medical professional rather than someone’s unqualified uncle (a point that is often overlooked in online discourse).
This is why it was arguably justified to unmask Q, who purported to be an operative within the United States government. Their very name implied they had Q clearance, which gives access to highly classified information. If they were not who they said they were, people would likely have seen their posts in a very different light.
Had Q been making statements that were in the public interest, such as leaking evidence of serious wrongdoing by the government, then it might justify maintaining anonymity to protect their safety. However, many of Q’s posts gave demonstrably false information and fuelled destructive conspiracy theories, so there was good reason to override anonymity and seek to reveal their identity.
Public interest is a key test when deciding whether it’s justified to override someone’s wish to remain anonymous. However, public interest doesn’t just mean whatever the public is interested in, it means information that is of benefit to the public.
In the case of Satoshi Nakamoto, one of the journalists responsible for seeking his true identity stated that it was in the public interest to do so:
“One of the most significant inventors of the past century was unknown. That didn’t seem right to me. Eighteen months ago, I decided enough was enough. I needed to know who this person was, and I felt strongly that the public should too.”
But was it really necessary to know the name of the individual who invented Bitcoin? Unlike Q, it was the message that Nakamoto had that was important, not the messenger. The Bitcoin architecture could have been written by anyone and it would have still had the same impact. Just because people are intensely curious about who the inventor was doesn’t necessarily justify overriding their desire for anonymity.
Held to account
However, sometimes it’s important to know who someone is because they need to be held accountable for the influence they have. If Nakamoto were the CEO of a major technology company, we would want to have a way to question him about his intentions or to criticise bad decisions. However, once the Bitcoin paper was published, its operation is entirely out of Nakamoto’s hands. That doesn’t mean the individual behind the pseudonym might not be involved in Bitcoin businesses today. But in that case, we just hold them accountable for their actions in their current role.
There is one dimension that one could argue is in the public interest: some estimates say Nakamoto has over a million Bitcoin to his name, worth upwards of US$80 billion. Were he able to sell it all at the current market rate, that would make him one of the wealthiest people on the planet.
That power makes it more important to understand Nakamoto and his intentions when it comes to generating personal wealth and the future of Bitcoin. Although, to date, Nakamoto has not sold a single Bitcoin. Even if Nakamoto did start selling his stash of Bitcoins – which, in itself, might lead to revealing his identity – that doesn’t necessarily justify unmasking him. Any holder of great wealth is entitled to dispose of it as they please, within the bounds of the law.
On the other hand, Nakamoto’s tremendous potential wealth places a target on his back should his identity be revealed. Malicious actors could seek to extort or intimidate them into handing over some of their wealth. That gives us a good reason to be very cautious when deciding whether to reveal his true identity.
Outside the law
Public interest was also cited as a reason to unmask the street artist, Banksy. The Reuters journalists claim that “the public has a deep interest in understanding the identity and career of a figure with his profound and enduring influence on culture, the art industry and international political discourse”. However, as stated above, just because the public wants to know something doesn’t mean it has a right to know.
But Reuters also appealed to accountability.
“The people and institutions who seek to shape social and political discourse are subject to scrutiny, accountability, and, sometimes, unmasking. Banksy’s anonymity – a deliberate, public-facing, and profitable feature of his work – has enabled him to operate without such transparency.”
One of the central tenets of ethics is that individuals ought to be held accountable for their actions (with qualifiers, of course). And one of the reasons some people might seek anonymity is to avoid accountability.
But would the power of Banksy’s art to “shape social and political discourse” change if his name was known (we already know he’s an English man of middle age from previous works)? Perhaps one could level claims of cynicism or hypocrisy if his message was at odds with his lifestyle. But that might be one reason Banksy wishes to remain anonymous: so that the message isn’t distracted by the messenger.
Another factor is that Banksy’s art is – in most jurisdictions – illegal. That appears to be one of the justifications that Banksy had for concealing his identity early in his career.
Although, these days, it seems most authorities are inclined to welcome a Banksy work in a public space, due to the attention it draws and value it creates, rather than wanting to lock him up. So, it appears that even those who could hold Banksy legally accountable are already choosing not to do so, making his unmasking less justified in this regard.
Banksy has also made it clear that he is mistrustful of authority and many mainstream institutions, and anonymity is necessary for him to be able to speak truth to power. Indeed, should his identity be confirmed, then it would be significantly more difficult for him to travel and do his work in public spaces, or to avoid being arrested.
What these cases all show is that we need to carefully weigh an individual’s right to privacy and desire for anonymity against other concerns to ensure we have good reason to unmask them. If anonymity enables deception or prevents people being held to account for harming others, then there might be good reason to reveal their true identity.
But we must remember that, in the absence of good reasons to unmask someone, we ought to respect their desire for anonymity. Sometimes revealing someone’s true identity might put them at serious risk. So, just because we’re intensely curious about someone is, that doesn’t necessarily justify revealing their true identity.
Image: Dominic Robinson, Flickr
BY Tim Dean
Tim is the Resident Philosopher at The Ethics Centre, where he holds the Manos Chair of Ethics, and is an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney. He has a Doctorate in philosophy from the University of New South Wales on the evolution of morality and specialises in ethics, public philosophy and critical thinking. He is the author of How We Became Human and has worked as an editor and writer for media outlets including The Conversation, Cosmos and Australian Life Scientist. He is the recipient of the Australasian Association of Philosophy Media Professionals’ Award for his work on philosophy in the public sphere. He has delivered workshops for businesses, NFPs and governments across Australia and Asia, including Facebook, Commonwealth Bank, KPMG, Sydney Opera House, Art Gallery of NSW, Clayton Utz, RSPCA, state and local governments, and many others.
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Illegal animal ownership and the coming ethical shift
In 2020, the world became briefly obsessed with Tiger King, a lurid portrait of exotic animal owners in the United States. Viewers were entertained by the spectacle, but beneath the chaos lay a far deeper question: why do we tolerate the private ownership of wild creatures at all?
For decades, the keeping of exotic pets, tigers, monkeys, snakes, and even endangered species has been accepted, sometimes celebrated, and often trivialised.
Today, exotic animal ownership is framed through the language of fascination and freedom. An individual posting a photo with a capuchin monkey or a tiger cub is seen as eccentric, perhaps indulgent, but rarely immoral. Social media has reinforced this perception: animals become props in displays of uniqueness, wealth, or adventure. Beneath this lies a familiar assumption, that humans may own and confine animals so long as “care” is provided. After all, dogs, cats, and horses are kept under this same logic; exotic pets are simply imagined as an extension of that tradition.
This is the widely held ethical stance of our time: ownership is permissible, provided the owner is attentive, and the animal survives. It is sometimes argued that exotic pets can be kept ethically if an owner is conscientious. Yet responsibility cannot undo captivity’s intrinsic harms. To confine a leopard to a cage, however large, is to deny it the roaming it evolved to do. The deprivation is structural, not accidental.
Still, harm is thought to arise only when neglect or cruelty is obvious.
This collapses under scrutiny. To provide food, shelter, and medical care is not to provide a life worth living. A monkey raised in isolation, or a tiger confined to a cage, cannot express the instincts and social behaviours that define their species – a phenomenon well-documented in studies of animal deprivation, such as Harry Harlow’s experiments on social isolation in rhesus monkeys.
What is portrayed as “care” often amounts to prolonged deprivation.
Beyond individual suffering, the practice generates wider consequences. The demand for exotic pets drives illegal trafficking, stripping wild populations of already vulnerable species. Animals smuggled in appalling conditions frequently die before reaching their buyers; a hidden toll rarely acknowledged. Where they survive, ecological disruption follows: Florida’s Everglades, overrun by invasive pythons once kept as pets, as reported by the National Geographic, is a cautionary tale. Tens of thousands of Burmese pythons now threaten native wildlife after being released into the wild. The exotic pet trade has also been implicated in the spread of zoonotic diseases, some with pandemic potential.
Taken together, these realities show that ownership is not an isolated act of personal freedom but an ethical entanglement with ecosystems, species survival, and human wellbeing.
A history of widening ethical concern
The idea that today’s tolerance of exotic pets will endure is contradicted by history. Societal ethics evolve, and practices once normalised are later judged harshly. Only a generation ago, elephants performing tricks in circuses were symbols of joy; today, such displays are condemned as cruelty. Dolphins in marine parks, once crowd-pleasers, are increasingly seen as victims of confinement. Whaling was defended as tradition until it was widely recognised as barbaric.
In each case, the ethical lens widened: human enjoyment and cultural prestige could no longer justify animal suffering. Exotic pet ownership is on the same trajectory. What seems acceptable today will soon be viewed as exploitative and anachronistic.
As scientific knowledge of animal sentience deepens, the ethical case against exotic pet ownership will sharpen. It is not merely a matter of legality but legitimacy. Future generations are unlikely to accept the claim that affection can justify possession. The very idea of “owning” a wild creature will be seen as incompatible with respect for its autonomy and wellbeing.
Instead, we are moving toward an ethic of stewardship. Rather than treating animals as curiosities to be acquired, there will be growing recognition of the responsibility to preserve habitats, support sanctuaries, and protect species in the wild. A monkey belongs not in a suburban home but to the forests that shape its instincts. A tiger does not need a private enclosure but a functioning ecosystem. Within this ethical framework, claim ownership of such beings will appear arrogant, an outdated relic of human entitlement.
The appeal to personal freedom carries weight, but freedoms that cause serious harm are never absolute. We regulate weapons, smoking, and pollution because individual liberty cannot override collective well-being. The same reasoning applies here: the harm to animals, ecosystems, and public health outweighs personal preference.
This ethical shift is not only about animals; it reflects how humanity conceives its place in the natural world.
The ownership of exotic animals continues with a pattern of domination: we collect, confine, and display living beings as extensions of ourselves. To reject this is to embrace humility, acknowledging that not everything can be possessed; that respect sometimes requires distance.
There is also a broader trend in the gradual expansion of who and what is deemed worthy of ethical concern. Once, children, women, and marginalised groups were excluded from full recognition. Over time, the circle widened. Now, it extends beyond humanity itself. Exotic animal ownership will be one of the practices left behind as this circle continues to grow.
In the next twenty years, the widespread view will collapse under evidence of animal suffering, ecological damage, and disease risk. More importantly, it will fall because it no longer fits with the kind of ethical society we aspire to be. Future generations will look back at our era with disbelief, asking how we ever imagined that affection could excuse possession. The shift will mark not only a victory for animals but a step towards a more responsible, less arrogant humanity, one that values stewardship above ownership, and respect above curiosity.
Illegal animal ownership and the coming ethical shift by Rhiannon Gee is one of the Highly Commended essays in our Young Writers’ 2025 Competition. Find out more about the competition here.
BY Rhiannon Gee
Rhiannon Gee is a passionate animal lover and advocate for the ethical treatment of wildlife. She writes about the evolving relationship between humans and animals, exploring how compassion and responsibility can shape a more humane future.
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Ethics Explainer: Critical thinking
In a world awash with spin, misinformation and AI slop, critical thinking has become an indispensable survival skill.
While scrolling through social media, you spot a post shared by a good friend. It’s from a popular (and attractive) influencer, who is claiming that sunscreen is toxic. The post resonates with you, especially since the last time you bought a new sunscreen, you broke out in a rash.
But how do you know if what they say is true? On the surface, their argument seems persuasive, but does it stack up? And what are the stakes if you get it wrong? If it turns out sunscreen isn’t toxic, then you could end up with nasty burns, or worse.
The modern world is an informational minefield. Every day we slog through hundreds of claims that purport to be true, but any one of them could end up being false or misleading. Influencers have been known to peddle misinformation. Activists, advertisers and politicians all put their spin on the facts to promote their interests. Artificial intelligence is further muddying the waters with hallucinations, deepfakes and so-called “AI slop”.
The cost of falling for falsehoods can be profound, both to us and to society as a whole. We need to be equipped to handle this epistemically hostile environment. This is where critical thinking becomes a key survival skill for the 21st century.
Not uncritical
One way to define critical thinking is to consider its opposite. An uncritical thinker will accept everything on face value. They will be prone to biases, like stereotyping or being swayed by someone’s appearance rather than the strength of their argument.
They will mistake subjective statements, such as “I don’t like pineapple on pizza” for objective statements, like “pineapple on pizza is bad”. They will overgeneralise from a few anecdotes or examples, like viewing a minority with suspicion because of one unpleasant encounter.
They will employ motivated reasoning, such as seeking out information that makes them feel (or look) good, rather than what is true. And they will latch on to the first explanation for some phenomenon, whether it’s the correct one or not.
A critical thinker, on the other hand, will be mindful of how biases and other irrational forces can sway their views, and will endeavour to avoid those and settle on beliefs rationally by drawing on good reasons and evidence.
They won’t just accept things at face value, but will ask questions, like: is the source reliable? Is the argument sound? Is the supporting evidence strong? After weighing up all these factors, they will hold their beliefs with a strength proportional to the reasons and evidence they can muster in their favour.
Misconceptions
Critical thinking is more than just being critical. The latter is about finding fault in someone or something. Critical thinking, on the other hand, is more about thinking carefully about what we hear.
It’s also not the same things as philosophical scepticism, which is the thesis that we cannot know what is and is not true. This kind of scepticism sets an impossibly high bar for knowledge. But critical thinking doesn’t go as far. Instead, it sets the bar at what we can demonstrate to be true by appealing to reason and evidence.
Critical thinking is also different from cynicism, which is just assuming the worst about what we see and hear. If you immediately assume that a politician is lying, or that a corporation’s environmental efforts are greenwashing, without looking at the evidence, then you’re being cynical. If you decide they are lying or greenwashing after you’ve carefully looked at the reasons and evidence supporting those beliefs, then you’re exercising critical thinking.
Finally, critical thinking is not the same as critical theory. The latter is a philosophical and social science project that seeks to improve society by revealing sources of oppression, and is associated with thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas.
Critical mass
So what about that social media post about sunscreen that seemed so appealing? A critical thinker would start by reflecting on any biases they might have when watching it. It was shared by a friend, and they know that they’re prone to weigh things more heavily when their friends endorse them. That’s a good reason to pause and ensure they’re not being overly credulous.
They would also know that they are more likely to assume an attractive or high-status speaker will be trustworthy – which is why coffee companies like to have handsome actors in their ads. So a critical thinker w0uld try to detach the message from the messenger, and scrutinise the former on its merits.
A critical thinker would also be mindful of the sources that the influencer cites. Are they reliable experts? Do they have any vested interests, like working for a company that sells a sunscreen alternative? Is their evidence high quality, such as the product of a double-blind clinical trial?
They would also be wary of allowing their subjective experience to flavour how they interpret the post. Just because they got a rash from the last sunscreen they bought doesn’t mean that all sunscreen is toxic. It’s possible that they just had an allergy, or something unrelated caused the rash, and it happened to coincide with them applying the sunscreen.
And they would be on the lookout for logical and argumentative fallacies, like an appeal to authority or popularity, or begging the question, which might undermine the soundness of the argument.
A critical thinker would weigh all these things, and come to a conclusion about the claims about sunscreen, acknowledging that they could always be wrong – so not allowing themselves to arrive at a point of unwarranted certainty.
Employing critical thinking takes some time and effort. However, if you care about not being duped by misinformation or falling for spin, then it’s an indispensable skill to cultivate.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Ethics Explainer: Ethical non-monogamy
Ethical non-monogamy (ENM), also known as consensual non-monogamy, describes practices that involve multiple concurrent romantic and/or sexual relationships.
What it’s not
First up, it’s important to distinguish the two types of non-monogamy that are often conflated with ENM:
Polygamy, the most prominent kind of culturally institutionalised non-monogamy, is the practice of having multiple marriages. It is a historically significant practice, with hundreds of societies around the world having practiced it at some point, while many still do.
Infidelity, or non-consensual non-monogamy, is something we colloquially refer to as cheating. That is, when one or both partners in a monogamous relationship engage in various forms of intimacy outside of the relationship without the knowledge or consent of the other.
All-party consent
So, what makes ethical non-monogamy, then?
One of the defining features of ethical non-monogamy is its focus on consent.
Polygamy, while it can be consensual in theory, more often occurs alongside arranged marriages, child marriages, dowries and other practices that revoke the autonomy of women and girls. Infidelity is of course inherently non-consensual, but the reasons and ways that it happens inversely influence ENM practices.
Consent needs to be informed, voluntary and active. This means that all people involved in ENM relationships need to understand the dynamics they’re involved in, are not being emotionally or physically coerced into agreement, and are explicitly assenting to the arrangement.
Open communication
There are a multitude of ways that ENM relationships can operate, but each of them relies on a foundation of honesty and effective communication (the basis of informed consent). This often means communicating openly about things that are seen as taboo or unusual in monogamous relationships – attraction to others, romantic or sexual plans with others, feelings of jealousy, vulnerability, or inadequacy.
While all ENM relationships require this commitment to open communication and consent, there can be variation in how that looks based on the kind of relationship dynamic. They’re often broken up into broad categories of polyamory, open relationships, and relationship anarchy.
Polyamory refers to having multiple romantic relationships concurrently. Maintaining ethical polyamorous relationships involves ongoing communication with all partners to ensure that everyone understands the boundaries and expectations of each relationship. Polyamory can look like a throuple, or five people all in a relationship with each other, or one person in a relationship with three separate people, or any other number of configurations that work for the people involved.
Open relationships are focused more on the sexual aspects, where usually one primary couple will maintain the sole romantic relationship but agree to having sexual experiences outside of the relationship. While many still rely on continued communication, there is a subset of open relationships that operate on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. This usually involves consenting to seeking sexual partners outside of the relationship but agreeing to keep the details private. Swinging is also a popular form of open relationship, where monoamorous (romantically exclusive) couples have sexual relations with other couples.
Relationship anarchy rejects most conventional labels and structures, including some of the ones that polyamorous relationships sometimes rely on, like hierarchy. Instead, these relationships are based on personal agreements between each individual partner.
What all of these have in common is a firm commitment to communicating needs, expectations, boundaries and emotions in a respectful way.
These are also the hallmarks of a good monogamous relationship, but the need for them in ethical non-monogamy is compounded by the extra variables that come with multiple relationship dynamics simultaneously.
There are many other aspects of ethical relationship development that are emphasised in ethical non-monogamy but equally important and applicable to monogamous ones. These includes things like understanding and managing emotions, especially jealousy, and practicing safe sex.
Outside the relationships
Unconventional relationships are unrecognised in the law in most countries. This poses ethical challenges to current laws, including things like marriage, inheritance, hospital visitation, and adoption.
If consenting adults are in a relationship that looks different to the monogamous ones most laws are set around, is it ethical to exclude them from the benefits that they would otherwise have? Given the difficultly that monogamous queer relationships have faced and continue to face under the law in many countries, non-monogamy seems to be a long way from legal recognition. But it’s worth asking, why?
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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Ethics Explainer: Moral Courage
Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Greta Thunberg, Vincent Lingiari, Malala Yousafzai.
For most, these names, and many more, evoke a sense of inspiration. They represent decades and centuries of steadfast moral conviction in the face of overwhelming national and global pressure.
Rosa Parks, risking the limited freedom she was afforded in 1955 America, refused to acquiesce to the transit segregation of the time and sparked an unprecedented boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr.
Frederick Douglass, risking his uncommon position of freedom and power as a Black man in pre-civil rights America, used his standing and skills to advocate for women’s suffrage.
There have always been people who have acted for what they think is right regardless of the risk to themselves.
This is moral courage. The ability to stand by our values and principles, even when it’s uncomfortable or risky.
Examples of this often seem to come in the form of very public declarations of moral conviction, potentially convincing us that this is the sort of platform we need to be truly morally courageous.
But we would be mistaken.
Speaking up doesn’t always mean speaking out
Having the courage to stand by our moral convictions does sometimes mean speaking out in public ways like protesting the government, but for most people, opportunities to speak up manifest in much smaller and more common ways almost every day.
This could look like speaking up for someone in front of your boss, questioning a bully at school, challenging a teacher you think has been unfair, preventing someone on the street from being harassed or even asking someone to pick up their litter.
In each case, an everyday occurrence forces us to confront discomfort, and potentially danger or loss, to live out our values and ideals. Do we have the courage to choose loyalty over comfort? Honesty over security? Justice over personal gain?
The truth is that sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we fail to take responsibility for our own inaction. Nothing shows this better than the bystander effect: functionally the direct opposite to moral courage, the bystander effect is a social phenomenon where individuals in group or public settings fail to act because of the presence of others. Being surrounded by people causes many of us to offload responsibility to those around us, thinking: “Someone else will handle it.”
This is where another kind of moral courage comes into play: the ability to reflect on ourselves. While it’s important to learn how and when to speak up, some internal work is often needed to get there.
Self-reflection is often underestimated. But it’s one of the hardest aspects of moral courage: the willingness to confront and interrogate our own thoughts, habits, and actions.
If someone says something that makes you uncomfortable, the first step of moral courage is acknowledging your discomfort. All too often, discomfort causes us to disengage, even when no one else is around to pass responsibility onto. Rather than reckon with a situation or person who is challenging our values or principles, we curl up into our shells and hope the moment passes.
This is because moral courage can be – it takes time and practice to build the habits and confidence to tolerate uncomfortable situations. And it takes even more time and practice to prioritise what we think is right with friends, family and colleagues instead of avoiding confrontation in relationships that are already often complicated.
It can get even more complicated once we consider all of our options because sometimes the right ways to act aren’t obvious. Sometimes, the morally courageous thing to do is actually to be silent, or to walk away, or to wait for a better opportunity to address the issue. These options can feel, in the moment, akin to giving up or letting someone else ‘win’ the interaction. But that is the true test of moral courage – being able to see the moral end goal and push through discomfort or challenge to get there.
The courage to be wrong
The flipside to self-reflection is the ability to recognise, acknowledge and reflect with grace when someone speaks up against us.
It’s hard to be told that we’re wrong. It’s even harder to avoid immediately placing walls in our own defence. Overcoming that is the stuff of moral courage too – not just being able to confront others, but being able to confront ourselves, to question our understanding of something, our actions or our beliefs when we are challenged by others.
Whether these changes are worldview-altering, or simply a swapping of word choice to reflect your respect for others, the important thing is that we learn to sit with discomfort and listen. Listen to criticism but also listen to our own thoughts and figure out why our defences are up.
Because in the end, moral courage isn’t just about bold public stands. It’s about showing up—in big moments and more mundane ones—for what’s right. And that begins with the courage to face ourselves.
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BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Thought experiment: The original position
If you were tasked with remaking society from scratch, how would you decide on the rules that should govern it?
This is the starting point of an influential thought experiment posed by the American 20th century political philosopher, John Rawls, that was intended to help us think about what a just society would look like.
Imagine you are at the very first gathering of people looking to create a society together. Rawls called this hypothetical gathering the “original position”. However, you also sit behind what Rawls called a “veil of ignorance”, so you have no idea who you will be in your society. This means you don’t know whether you will be rich, poor, male, female, able, disabled, religious, atheist, or even what your own idea of a good life looks like.
Rawls argued that these people in the original position, sitting behind a veil of ignorance, would be able to come up with a fair set of rules to run society because they would be truly impartial. And even though it’s impossible for anyone to actually “forget” who they are, the thought experiment has proven to be a highly influential tool for thinking about what a truly fair society might entail.
Social contract
Rawls’ thought experiment harkens back to a long philosophical tradition of thinking about how society – and the rules that govern it – emerged, and how they might be ethically justified. Centuries ago, thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Lock speculated that in the deep past, there were no societies as we understand them today. Instead, people lived in an anarchic “state of nature,” where each individual was governed only by their self-interest.
However, as people came together to cooperate for mutual benefit, they also got into destructive conflicts as their interests inevitably clashed. Hobbes painted a bleak picture of the state of nature as a “war of all against all” that persisted until people agreed to enter into a kind of “social contract,” where each person gives up some of their freedoms – such as the freedom to harm others – as long as everyone else in the contract does the same.
Hobbes argued that this would involve everyone outsourcing the rules of society to a monarch with absolute power – an idea that many more modern thinkers found to be unacceptably authoritarian. Locke, on the other hand, saw the social contract as a way to decide if a government had legitimacy. He argued that a government only has legitimacy if the people it governs could hypothetically come together to agree on how it’s run. This helped establish the basis of modern liberal democracy.
Rawls wanted to take the idea of a social contract further. He asked what kinds of rules people might come up with if they sat down in the original position with their peers and decided on them together.
Two principles
Rawls argued that two principles would emerge from the original position. The first principle is that each person in the society would have an equal right to the most expansive system of basic freedoms that are compatible with similar freedoms for everyone else. He believed these included things like political freedom, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of thought, the right to own property and freedom from arbitrary arrest.
The second principle, which he called the “difference principle”, referred to how power and wealth should be distributed in the society. He argued that everyone should have equal opportunity to hold positions of authority and power, and that wealth should be distributed in a way that benefits the least advantaged members of society.
This means there can be inequality, and some people can be vastly more wealthy than others, but only if that inequality benefits those with the least wealth and power. So a world where everyone has $100 is not as just as a world where some people have $10,000, but the poorest have at least $101.
Since Rawls published his idea of the original position in A Theory of Justice in 1972, it has sparked tremendous discussion and debate among philosophers and political theorists, and helped inform how we think about liberal society. To this day, Rawls’ idea of the original position is a useful tool to think about what kinds of rules ought to govern society.
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