52. Should we all be activists? With Josh Hobbs Artwork

Ethics Untangled

Ethics Untangled is a series of conversations about the ethical issues that affect all of us, with academics who have spent some time thinking about them. It is brought to you by the IDEA Centre, a specialist unit for teaching, research, training and consultancy in Applied Ethics at the University of Leeds.

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Ethics Untangled

52. Should we all be activists? With Josh Hobbs

January 05, 2026 • Jim Baxter

Josh Hobbs is back in this episode for his second appearance. Again the subject is political. This time we're discussing whether we should all be activists. More specifically, does the existence of global structural injustice give us a responsibility to respond to those injustices, and should that response take the form of activism? Josh thinks there are reasons to think not everyone could or should be an activist, and introduces some other ways in which people can contribute, including something he calls 'scaffolding activism'.

Here's Josh's article on the topic:

Between activism and apathy: global structural injustice and ordinary citizens