Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 118-120.

Ender's Game, at face value, is a story about a young yet mature and extraordinarily gifted boy manipulated into saving the world. At another level, though, Ender's story raises ethical questions about war, leadership, and character. Perhaps the most important thing about the story is what it says about the virtues that make for good leadership. This chapter looks at Ender's story through the eyes of Plato and Aristotle, two philosophers deeply concerned with the virtues of leadership. Plato's concept (...) of virtue rests on two ideas: his analogy between the three‐part human soul and the state, and his four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Aristotle's virtues fall into two broad categories: intellectual and moral. Intellectual virtues sharpen our capacity to reason, whereas moral virtues order the “passive” part of the soul that only acts rationally by following the lead of others. (shrink)

To date, the philosophy of Max Stirner (1806-1856) has not attracted much academic attention. An early critic of Karl Marx and precursor of existentialist thought, he is nevertheless remembered as a radical Young Hegelian engaged in an unsuccessful attempt to move 'beyond Hegel'. Arguing that this image of Stirner is based on a faulty interpretation of his relationship to Hegelian philosophy, this book proposes an entirely new reading of his philosophical magnum opus Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. In this (...) work, traditional philosophy, epitomized by Hegel, is reduced to the property of the unique or single individual. This move must not only be seen a refusal to keep traditional philosophy alive by criticising it, but also entails an 'existentialist' inversion of the traditional relation between thinker and idea. This exciting new interpretation, which is demonstrated here by a detailed analysis of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, clears the way for a philosophical rehabilitation of Stirner's ideas. (shrink)

Alex Broadbent’s Philosophy of Epidemiology is the latest volume in Palgrave Macmillan’s New Directions in the Philosophy of Science series. Other monographs in the series focus on mathematics, biology, astronomy, et al.—the usual topics of discourse when philosophers engage science. The present volume is a welcome addition not just to the series but also for the field of epidemiology. As Broadbent notes, “Although a few philosophers have studied epidemiology, there have been no philosophical studies of epidemiology” . There is one (...) now.As noted in the book’s foreword, the core theme of Philosophy of Epidemiology “has to do with the nature and role of explanation and prediction in epidemiological analyses” . These are practical matters which are familiar to epidemiologists, but being largely mechanical in nature, “this explains why philosophers of science have neglected epidemiology” .Broadbent is a young philosopher, trained at Cam .. (shrink)

This article explores Stanley Cavell’s ordinary aesthetics through a close reading of one passage inThe Claim of Reason. This close reading leads to the suggestion that educating our aesthetic sense and responsiveness has ethical implications, especially as these relate to the mental health crisis in schools. The article draws implications for individuals in caring relationships with young people, suggesting that Cavell’s thinking on ordinary aesthetics is a powerful tool in our time.

I had not read To Kill a Mockingbird since I was assigned it in middle school. However, recently I revisited the novel because many of my students—future teachers—mentioned that it was their favorite book. From what I remembered from middle school, the book was about the courage of Atticus Finch as he makes the unpopular, though just, choice to defend an innocent black man in court. As well, I remember the narrator, Scout, a very strong young woman who—like her (...) father—follows her convictions, even if these put her at odds with others. What I remembered made me feel as if I understood why my students might like the novel. I worked with future teachers at a Southern women’s college.1 The strength of the female.. (shrink)

Objective: To audit doctors’ knowledge of informed consent.Design: 10 consent scenarios with “true”, “false”, or “don’t know” answers were completed by doctors who care for children at a large district general hospital. These questions tested clinicians’ knowledge of who could give consent in different clinical situations.Setting: Royal United Hospital, Bath, UK.Results: 51 doctors participated . Paediatricians scored higher than other clinicians . Only 36% of paediatricians and 8% of other clinicians realised that the biological father of a child born before (...) 1 December 2003 needed a court order or a parental responsibility agreement to acquire parental responsibility, and thus be able to consent on behalf of his child, if he was not married to the child’s mother. Non-paediatric clinicians were unsure or incorrect when tested on situations where people with parental responsibility do not agree, or where young people , who are Fraser competent do not want to consult their parents. Most clinicians did not know that the parents of a 20-year-old man with severe learning difficulties are unable to consent to surgery on his behalf, and many non-paediatricians were unclear on who could give consent when a child lived with foster parents.Conclusion: Clinicians who obtain consent for the treatment of children need to increase their knowledge on who is able to give informed consent to ensure best practice. (shrink)

Adolescence is a valuable phase of life, not just because it is the phase of learning in school and preparing for a working life. During the COVID-19 pandemic it became clear that the rights, experiences, and lifeworlds of adolescents are considered less important than the needs of school, work, and productivity. However, there is an ethical claim for people to have a good adolescence, and this means that the losses of social contact, experiences, time, and space demanded of adolescents, in (...) order to protect older and vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 pandemic, should be taken seriously. A distinctive quality of adolescence is that it cannot be repeated, nor can these experiences be replicated as adults. First experiences of independence, friendship, love, informality, recklessness, and youthful exuberance are intrinsically valuable and cannot be substituted for later in life. It is therefore not surprising that adolescents have sought and found their own spaces during the pandemic, some of them forbidden, because lock downs and closed social spaces have relegated them to the confines of their childhood bedrooms. In this paper, I explore an ethic of a good adolescence, which was impacted on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and consider what can be learned from this situation. Adolescents are to be taken seriously, their experiences are no less valuable than those of adults, and the losses they have suffered for the benefit of others should be honored. As far as possible, young people should be supported to have a voice in public discourse and in finding spaces to be adolescents. (shrink)

For more than a quarter of a century, Hubert L. Dreyfus has been the leading voice in American philosophy for the continuing relevance of phenomenology, particularly as developed by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Dreyfus has influenced a generation of students and a wide range of colleagues, and these volumes are an excellent representation of the extent and depth of that influence.In keeping with Dreyfus's openness to others' ideas, many of the essays in this volume take the form (...) of arguments with various of his positions. The essays focus on the dialogue with the continental philosophical tradition, in particular the work of Heidegger, that has played a foundational role in Dreyfus's thinking. The sections are Philosophy and Authenticity; Modernity, Self, and the World; and Heideggerian Encounters. The book concludes with Dreyfus's responses to the essays.Contributors : William D. Blattner, Taylor Carman, David R. Cerbone, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Charles Guignon, Michel Haar, Beatrice Han, Alastair Hannay, John Haugeland, Randall Havas, Jeff Malpas, Mark Okrent, Richard Rorty, Julian Young, Michael E. Zimmerman. (shrink)

Young children learn about the power of God's love and creation through simple text and illustrations.

The idea of philosophical topology, or topography as I call it outside of the Heideggerian context, has become increasingly central to my work over the last twenty years. While the idea is not indebted only to Heidegger’s thinking, it is probably Heidegger to whom I owe the most. Moreover, one of my claims, central to _Heidegger’s Topology_, is that Heidegger’s own work cannot adequately be understood except as topological in character, and so as centrally concerned with place – _topos, Ort, (...) Ortschaft_ (which, I should emphasize, is not the same as a concern with space nor with time taken apart from one another, but I shall say more on this below). I do not regard myself as the only person to make this claim, or something like it. In the 1980s, both Joseph Fell and Reiner Schürmann, from very different perspectives, advanced topological readings of Heidegger, or elements of such readings. My own work aims to provide a definitive case for the topological reading of Heidegger’s thinking in its entirety, as well as to articulate an account of topology or topography as itself central to philosophical inquiry. On my account, the attempt to think place, and to think in accord with place, is at the heart of philosophy as such. (shrink)

This paper begins with a discussion of Stanley Cavell’s philosophy of language learning. Young people learn more than the meaning of words when acquiring language: they learn about (the quality of) our form of life. If we—as early childhood educators—see language teaching as something like handing some inert thing to a child, then we unduly limit the possibilities of education for that child. Cavell argues that we must become poets if we are to be the type of representatives of (...) language that education calls for. In the final section of the paper I discuss the work of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, someone who developed an approach to language teaching that overlaps in interesting ways with Cavell’s approach in The Claim of Reason. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This narrative synthesis based on a literature review undertaken for the project ?Creating Citizenship Communities? (funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation) includes discussion, principally, about what research evidence tells us about young people?s definitions of community, of types of engagement by different groups of young people, actions by schools and what they might do in the future to promote engagement. Community is seen as a highly significant and contested area. Young people are viewed negatively by adults (...) but are in some contexts already positively engaged in communities. There seem to be gaps in the literature about what young people understand about community. There is, broadly, some consensus about how to promote engagement. (shrink)

Meet the Sorbs. They are a Slavic people in Germany who number around sixty thousand. They are not mistreated or oppressed by the German government. They live in two German states, but they are interspersed with other Germans. Do the Sorbs deserve special, group rights to help maintain their culture? The recent arguments of many theorists suggest that they do. Iris Marion Young has recently argued that all marginalized groups should have group rights. Avishai Margalit and Moshe Halbertal maintain (...) that all cultural groups have certain rights. Will Kymlicka suggests that all ‘societal cultures’ have group rights, which might include the Sorbs. (shrink)

Young children judge that violations of ordinary, causal constraints are impossible. Yet children’s religious beliefs typically include the assumption that such violations can occur via divine agency in the form of miracles. We conducted two studies to examine this potential conflict. In Study 1, we invited 5- and 6-year-old Colombian children attending either a secular or a religious school to judge what is and is not possible. Children made their judgments either following a minimal prompt or following a reminder (...) of God’s extraordinary powers. Irrespective of their education, and whether or not they had been reminded of God’s extraordinary powers, children systematically judged violations of ordinary, causal constraints to be impossible. In Study 2, we asked if more extensive reminders of God’s special powers would prompt religious children to say that the impossible can happen. Five- and 6-year-old Colombian children attending either a secular or a religious school were presented with narratives in which the protagonist desired an ordinarily impossible outcome. In half the stories, the protagonist prayed to God for the desired outcome. Irrespective of education and of whether the protagonist prayed, children systematically concluded that the desired outcome would not occur and justified that conclusion by reference to ordinary causal constraints. Nevertheless, in a minority of their replies children did assert that violations of ordinary causality are possible. Overall, irrespective of their religious education, young children judge that events rarely deviate from their natural course; only occasionally do they acknowledge exceptions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Discover the Unknown Chekhov in Your ESL ClassroomNinah Beliavsky (bio)I was born in Moscow, ate aladushki, and listened to my mother read Chekhov in Russian. Kashtanka, a tale about a young, ginger-colored pup who gets lost, made me cry. And when I read about the death of Ivan Dmitrich Kreepikov, in The Death of a Civil Servant, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. The (...) poor civil servant was sitting and watching an opera in a theater when all of a sudden he sneezed and spattered an old gentlemen, General Shpitzalov, in front of him. Now, as Chekhov writes, sneezing is not prohibited to any one or in any place; peasants sneeze, and even the chiefs of police sneeze. But, you see, the poor civil servant, being very much rank-conscious, could no longer live with himself after committing such a misconduct. He apologized profusely and went home, and without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa, and... died.And what about Van'ka Zhukov, an orphan boy of nine apprenticed to a shoemaker who is being beaten and overworked. He writes a letter to his grandfather on Christmas Eve, begging him for the dear Lord's sake to take him away from his misery. After scratching his head and thinking for a moment, he dips his pen in ink and addresses his envelope: "The Village. To Grand Dad." He then dashes out into the street and pushes his precious letter through the opening of the postbox...The second part of my childhood I spent in Jerusalem; there I ate falafel with humus, was obsessed with perfecting the pronunciation of the Hebrew guttural "r," and read Miriam Yalan Shtekelis's children's poetry, which was filled with magical objects that laughed and cried. By the time I was in high school I was living in Milwaukee, eating fries and ice cream sundaes and reading O. Henry.The literature that one comes in contact with during childhood and young [End Page 101] adulthood is often deeply engraved on a person's psyche. It is similar to an adult craving sweets because of the psychological association with her childhood and a safe and protected environment. We tend to think back to the "good old days" because we find comfort in our past. Today, as an adult, a wife, and a mother, I often find refuge in my childhood memories. And, like most people, much of what I encounter and read today I tend to associate with my past. If I come across a story that I heard in my childhood, as I search for something new and amusing to give to my college English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students, I try to incorporate it into my curriculum. A few years ago I came across the story The Necklace by Guy de Mappassant and immediately recalled reading it in my adolescence. This story brought back the warm memories of home that I felt would be understood and identified with by my foreign students. Today, this story is one of my students' favorites. By using stories from my own past, I feel that I can bring to my class discussions a unique perspective—my own recollections and feelings and an interpretation not only academic in nature but also personal. Often, my international students will recall hearing or reading some of the same stories (that I bring to class) in their childhood, in their native tongues, and thus these stories will not seem out of context anymore because there will be a sense of connection.I teach ESL to college students—reading and writing at the intermediate and advanced levels. Aside from following the standard curriculum of using grammar and writing textbooks, I bring to my ESL classes music, opera, art, young adult novels by American writers, and short stories by both international and American writers. For instance, my students enjoy reading O. Henry's "The Christmas Present," "The Last Leaf," and "The Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen." These stories are about real people—just like my students—they are about everyday events, they are humorous and tragic in nature, and they have an unexpected twist... (shrink)

To give priority to the young over the elderly has been labelled ‘ageism’. People who express ‘ageist’ preferences may feel that, all else equal, an individual has greater right to enjoy additional life years the fewer life years he or she has already had. We shall refer to this as egalitarian ageism. They may also emphasise the greater expected duration of health benefits in young people that derives from their greater life expectancy. We may call this utilitarian ageism. (...) Both these forms of ageism were observed in an empirical study of social preferences in Australia. The study lends some support to the assumptions in the QALY approach that duration of benefits, and hence old age, should count in prioritising at the budget level in health care. (shrink)

To give priority to the young over the elderly has been labelled ‘ageism’. People who express ‘ageist’ preferences may feel that, all else equal, an individual has greater right to enjoy additional life years the fewer life years he or she has already had. We shall refer to this asegalitarian ageism. They may also emphasise the greater expected duration of health benefits in young people that derives from their greater life expectancy. We may call thisutilitarian ageism. Both these (...) forms of ageism were observed in an empirical study of social preferences in Australia. The study lends some support to the assumptions in the QALY approach that duration of benefits, and hence old age, should count in prioritising at the budget level in health care. (shrink)

In 2020, COVID-19, the Australia bushfires, and other global threats served as vivid reminders that human and nonhuman fates are increasingly linked. Human use of nonhuman animals contributes to pandemics, climate change, and other global threats which, in turn, contribute to biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and nonhuman suffering. Jeff Sebo argues that humans have a moral responsibility to include animals in global health and environmental policy. In particular, we should reduce our use of animals as part of our pandemic (...) and climate change mitigation efforts and increase our support for animals as part of our adaptation efforts. Applying and extending frameworks such as One Health and the Green New Deal, Sebo calls for reducing support for factory farming, deforestation, and the wildlife trade; increasing support for humane, healthful, and sustainable alternatives; and considering human and nonhuman needs holistically. Sebo also considers connections with practical issues such as education, employment, social services, and infrastructure, as well as with theoretical issues such as well-being, moral status, political status, and population ethics. In all cases, he shows that these issues are both important and complex, and that we should neither underestimate our responsibilities because of our limitations, nor underestimate our limitations because of our responsibilities. Both an urgent call to action and a survey of what ethical and effective action requires, Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves is an invaluable resource for scholars, advocates, policy-makers, and anyone interested in what kind of world we should attempt to build and how. (shrink)

A Russian in Paris -- Russian contexts -- Madmen -- The possessed -- Godmen -- The Hegel lectures -- The last revolution -- Time no more -- The book of the dead -- The later writings -- Nobodies -- Roads or ruins? -- Why finality? -- The grand inquisitor.

This chapter is devoted to criticisms of the views of propositions defended by my co-authors, Jeff King and Scott Soames. The focus is on criticism of their attempts to explain the representational properties of propositions. The criticisms are varied, but one theme is a tension between their view that our actions can explain the representational properties of propositions and their commitment to the idea that propositions have their representational properties essentially.

This paper considers questions that small animals and AI systems raise for utilitarianism. Specifically, if these beings have more welfare than humans and other large animals, then utilitarianism implies that we should prioritize them, all else equal. This could lead to a ‘rebugnant conclusion’, according to which we should, say, create large populations of small animals rather than small populations of large animals. It could also lead to a ‘Pascal’s bugging’, according to which we should, say, prioritize large populations of (...) small animals even if they have a low chance of being sentient. I suggest that utilitarians should accept these implications in theory but might be able to avoid some of them in practice. (shrink)

Within the overarching framework of considering the purpose of education, this book addresses issues such as the standards movement, high-stakes testing and accountability, and corporate education reform. It raises ethical questions related to school practices and considers the question of who should decide the purpose of education.

In this insightful set of essays, the concept of the psychological humanities is defined and explored. A clear rationale is provided for its necessity in the study and understanding of the individual and identity in a discipline that is largely occupied by empirical studies that report aggregated data and its analysis. Contributors to this volume are leading scholars in theoretical psychology who believe that psychology must be about persons and their lives. In these essays, they draw from a variety of (...) disciplines that include art, literature, life writing, and history to make a case for the psychological humanities. A final chapter provides a critical commentary on the value of the psychological humanities. It is argued that psychology must draw on the knowledge and practices of the humanities, as well as the sciences and social sciences, in order to attain a greater understanding of personhood. This book is aimed at upper level undergraduate and postgraduate students and scholars of psychology, particularly theoretical psychology, philosophy of the mind, and those from a humanities background interested in exploring the concept of the psychological humanities. (shrink)

Discussions surrounding music and ethical responsibility bring to mind arguments about legal ownership and purchase. Yet the many ways in which we experience music with others are usually overlooked. Musical experience and practice always involve relationships with other people, which can place limitations on how we listen to and act upon music. In Music and Ethical Responsibility, Jeff Warren challenges current approaches to music and ethics, drawing upon philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's theory that ethics is the responsibilities that arise from (...) our encounters with other people. Warren examines ethical responsibilities in musical experiences including performing other people's music, noise, negotiating musical meaning, and improvisation. Revealing the diverse roles that music plays in the experience of encountering others, Warren argues that musicians, researchers, and listeners should place ethical responsibility at the heart of musical practices. (shrink)

John Dewey's Experience and Education is an important book, but first-time readers of Dewey's philosophy can find it challenging and not meaningfully related to the contemporary landscape of education. Jeff Frank's Teaching in the Now aims to reanimate Dewey's text--for first-time readers and anyone who teaches the text or is interested in appreciating Dewey's continuing significance--by focusing on Dewey's thinking on preparation. Frank, through close readings of Dewey, asks readers to wonder: How much of what we justify as preparation (...) in education is actually necessary? That is, every time we catch ourselves telling a student--you need to learn this in order to do something else--we need to stop and reflect. We need to reflect, because when we always justify the present moment of a student's education in terms of what will happen in the future, we may lose out on the ability to engage students' attention and interest now, when it matters. Dewey asks his readers to trust that the best way to prepare students for an engaging and productive future is to create the most engaging and productive present experience for students. We learn to live fully in the future, only by practicing living fully in the present. Although it can feel scary to stop thinking of the work of education in terms of preparation, when educators reclaim the present for students, new opportunities--for teachers, students, schools, democracy, and education--emerge. Teaching in the Now explores these opportunities in impassioned and engaging prose that makes Experience and Education come alive for readers new to Dewey or who have taught and read him for many years. (shrink)

Davidson aimed to explain predication in terms of truth. I explain what is distinctive about his approach by contrasting it with the widely held view that predication and truth must both be explained in terms of the properties of propositions. I consider Davidson's arguments against this propositionalist alternative, and conclude by exploring some commonalities between Davidson's approach and the more recent propositionalist views of King and Soames.

Drawing on a range of sources in philosophy and literature, but with particular reference to the work of Heidegger, makes a compelling case for the importance of place in philosophical discourse.

The Federation's abandonment of a profit‐and‐growth‐based economic system and money in favor of an economic system designed to facilitate personal development is a product of future successes in overcoming scarcity. Federation trekonomics can be well described in terms of Karl Marx's own vision of the first stage of a postscarcity, money‐free, classless society. The difficulties of interpretation that have provoked debate, the existence of Federation credits, the visible hierarchy in Starfleet, and the family ownership of some specialized means of production, (...) such as restaurants and vineyards, can be resolved if one acknowledges that Marx consistently described a first, complex transitional stage to full communism. For Marx, one of the primary social causes of stifled self‐creation is the rigid division of labor, both detailed and social. The social division of labor, involving a clear demarcation of different positions within a total economy, occurs in economic systems before capitalism (like feudalism). (shrink)

When assessing North American students' oral participation in classes, should all students be subject to the same evaluation criteria or should teachers make reasonable allowances for Asian students practicing humility? How do we weigh the promotion of 'courage' through character education initiatives with traditional Asian dispositions? Viewing Asian humility in Western classrooms and as it rubs up against liberal principles of equality or justice, and a virtue ethic raises a number of philosophical questions around authenticity, polyvalence, and relativity. I approach (...) first through the lens of liberal philosophy as the 'dilemma of diversity' meets a boundary with communitarianism, and then through the contextualist lenses of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Foucault. Drawing on Tully's political philosophy, I inspect humility as embedded in language-games and then open it to revision through comparative history, inviting participants in the teacher's game of assessment to renegotiate the rules: a process complicated by their reticence to speak up. I also use Medina and Scheman's political reading of Wittgenstein to discuss how teachers can discern humility as performative silence within the classroom, distinguishing between genealogical accounts that show how comportments could be otherwise from perspicuous inspection of interconnected language-games in current educational settings. (shrink)

This book engages the perspective of public reason and the position of religious believers through a mutual confrontation of Rawlsian political liberalism and Gandhian ideas. By teasing out concords and discords between Rawls and Gandhi, Jeff Shawn Jose innovatively advances the debate about the role of religion in the public sphere.

I argue that Husserlian phenomenology is metaphysically neutral, in the sense of being compatible with multiple metaphysical frameworks. For example, though Husserl dismisses the concept of an unknowable thing in itself as “material nonsense”, I argue that the concept is coherent and that the existence of such things is compatible with Husserl’s phenomenology. I defend this metaphysical neutrality approach against a number of objections and consider some of its implications for Husserl interpretation.

According to our traditional conception of agency, most human beings are agents and most, if not all, nonhuman animals are not. However, recent developments in philosophy and psychology have made it clear that we need more than one conception of agency, since human and nonhuman animals are capable of thinking and acting in more than one kind of way. In this paper, I make a distinction between perceptual and propositional agency, and I argue that many nonhuman animals are perceptual agents (...) and that many human beings are both kinds of agent. I then argue that, insofar as human and nonhuman animals exercise the same kind of agency, they have the same kind of moral status, and I explore some of the moral implications of this idea. (shrink)

This paper proposes that the relation between property instances and token causal powers is akin to the relation between primary substances and property instances on the Aristotelian account of property instantiation. This view permits an individual to have two tokens of the same type of causal power. Paul Audi has argued that this cannot be: two tokens of the same power type are discernible, he claims, only if they are borne by discernible individuals. In the context of this criticism, he (...) proposes that power tokens are individuated in part by the individuals bearing them. This paper responds to Audi’s criticism and argues against his preferred view. This paper thus establishes a theory of token causal powers where previously the literature contained only a presumed view and Audi’s objections. (shrink)

This article argues that the testimony of mystics provides an interesting potential source of evidence fortheism. The model of inference to the best explanation is utilized to analyze and assess mystics’ testimony.It is argued that the evidential value of the reports from mystics, both within the theistic tradition and fromwithout, ultimately proves weak.

"Nietzche and Dostoevsky"are collectedessays on Nietzsche Dostoevsky andtwentieth-century intellectual history.".

The first interdisciplinary study of place, bringing together many of the key thinkers writing on the concept in the twenty-first century.

Jeff Benedict has seen both good and bad in his career as a journalist. Some of the best are the extraordinary people he has met who have made deliberate choices to live happier lives despite the extreme hardship that each of them have faced. Although life will knock us down from time to time, this book is an important reminder that we all can make a choice to get back up, brush ourselves off, and keep pressing forward. Replace anger (...) with forgiveness through studying the real-life examples of seven inspiring mentors. Avoid discouragement by purposefully recognizing God's hand in your life. Diminish the heartache from tragedy through the concentrated act of serving others. Gain insights from parents who were deliberate in safeguarding their children against harmful influences. Stand strong through life's adversity through the examples of powerful prayer. (shrink)

In this paper I ask how we should treat other beings in cases of uncertainty about sentience. I evaluate three options: an incautionary principle that permits us to treat other beings as non-sentient, a precautionary principle that requires us to treat other beings as sentient, and an expected value principle that requires us to multiply our subjective probability that other beings are sentient by the amount of moral value they would have if they were. I then draw three conclusions. First, (...) the precautionary and expected value principles are more plausible than the incautionary principle. Second, if we accept a precautionary or expected value principle, then we morally ought to treat many beings as having at least partial moral status. Third, if we morally ought to treat many beings as having at least partial moral status, then morality involves more cluelessness and demandingness than we might have thought. (shrink)