Night Waves - Baroness Warnock

Baroness Warnock is most famous as the author of the Warnock Report on human fertility, the first, and many would say best, attempt to legislate for the burgeoning area of reproductive ethics. As well as navigating the moral complexities of IVF, stem cells and human embryo destruction, Mary Warnock has raised five children, run an Oxford college and written numerous books for both the professional and the lay philosopher. Now she is embroiled in a long-running debate about the status of religious ideas in British society. Warnock believes that religious thinkers are given a special authority in moral discussions and that they should not be; a fact she is robustly happy to discuss with any religious minded thinker, be they a bishop in the House of Lords or a columnist for the Daily Mail. In an interview first broadcast in October 2010, Anne McElvoy talks to Baroness Warnock about her long life, her philosophical influences and the tragedies that she has suffered. Anne also challenges her on the role of the public intellectual to legislate for the rest of society and whether her reputation for being a moral pragmatist underplays the strong sense of principled rationalism she brings to her work.