Purpose: Tolerance for ambiguity (TFA) is a character trait that is associated with a multitude of benefits for physicians, including increased empathy, greater desire to work in underserved areas, fewer medical errors, enhanced psychological well-being, and lower rates of burnout. Furthermore, it has been shown that TFA is a malleable trait that can be enhanced with interventions such as art courses and group reflection. This study describes the utility of a six-week medical ethics elective course in increasing TFA in first- (...) and second-year medical students.Methods: First- and second-year medical students were enrolled in an elective medical ethics course at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University that guided students in critical thinking, group discussion, and respectful debate regarding various ethical dilemmas in medicine. Students took a validated survey before and after course completion to measure TFA. The average pre- and post-course scores for each semester, as well as the total cohort of 119 students, were compared using paired t-tests.Results: A statistically significant improvement in TFA scores was observed in the overall cohort, as well as in each individual semester of the medical ethics elective course offering.Conclusion: A six-week elective course in medical ethics can significantly improve medical students’ TFA. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Does Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition by Alan L. MittlemanMatthew LeveringDoes Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition by Alan L. Mittleman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), v + 227 pp.Alan Mittleman has written a profoundly thought-provoking book. A main question of the book is whether a higher (revealed) law may in some cases require harm to be done (...) to the neighbor—harm that otherwise would be unjust. Mittleman offers some fascinating examples of cases in which Jews have appealed to God's Law in order to justify oppression of Gentiles. He cites a contemporary halakhic text, Torat ha-Melekh (The King's Torah), as particularly egregious. While Torat ha-Melekh was widely condemned by rabbis and the general public in Israel, it had an audience among the ultra-Orthodox. According to the Torat ha-Melekh, Gentiles' souls are not intrinsically holy in the way that Jews' souls are. This means that killing Gentile children in wartime may be acceptable due to the threat that otherwise these children may grow up to kill Jews. The Torat ha-Melekh observes that many Gentiles do not practice and obey the seven Noachide commandments. Since this is so, the Gentiles who do not obey the Noachide commandments live "in an inhuman state, where the brutish nature of their souls has free rein and their lives have lost value" (186).Another example given by Mittleman is the status of the Holy Land and the Holy People. Insofar as the holiness of the land and people is thought to be intrinsic—an inseparable property—problems can arise. According to a midrash in Bereshit Rabbah, the land is so intrinsically holy that only the dead who are buried in the land—or whose dead bodies somehow travel to the land—will rise from the dead and enjoy everlasting resurrected life. Likewise, the land's air is presented as uniquely making its inhabitants wise, and the divine presence or shekinah comes only in the land. For the medieval Jewish philosopher Yehuda Halevi, in his Kuzari: The Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Most Despised Religion (ca. 1140), the land of Israel is the most temperate climate and the most conducive to producing the ideal human beings. In addition, Halevi thinks that only certain descendants of Adam are "true Adamites" (66). A true Adamite is a son of God, just as Adam was. Specifically, only Seth and some of his descendants are fully human in accord with the Adamic model. It is only in the family of Jacob that "God's influence [finally] becomes the property of an entire people" (67). The true Adamites are Adam's (and Jacob's) seed; other humans are comparatively speaking mere husks. Although people can convert to Judaism, therefore, converts cannot be equal to those born of the Jewish nation. This does not mean that all who descend from Jacob are holy, since [End Page 745] it is possible for a Jew to distort his or her purity of soul. Nevertheless, for Halevi the Jewish people are a holy seed that is intrinsically superior to all other humans, so that it is possible to say that "Israel is an angelomorphic, even theomorphic race" (69).Moses Maimonides responded to Halevi, rejecting his viewpoint completely—on the grounds that holiness is not an intrinsic or biological (let alone racial) property. Yet, Halevi's viewpoint influenced Jewish Kabbalah in a major way. For the Kabbalist text the Zohar, the people of Israel derive from the emanations of the divine, whereas all other nations derive from the impure powers. The Zohar holds, "The other nations count for nothing in God's sight. They are the products of Eve's illicit union with the serpent," rather than coming forth from the theomorphic being who was Adam (70). Similarly, Moses de Leon—thought to be an author of the Zohar—argues that Gentiles ontologically possess impure souls that will carry them to spiritual damnation and will ensure that they have no participation in the resurrection of the dead. Another Kabbalist, Joseph of Hamadan, makes the same point that Gentiles... (shrink)

Simple decency, to say nothing of Matthew's law of love, demands that we allow our neighbors to define themselves rather than to impose a caricature on them ; and to speak today of the utter reprobation of the people of Israel is monstrous and obscene.

The past century has seen various studies on the nature of Matthew’s community, and conclusions are still being debated. The study on which this article is based acknowledges the past studies, but further proposes that the nature of the Matthean community was one of coexistence. The Matthean community implied in the book of Matthew coexisted in three ways. Firstly, Jews and Gentiles coexisted within the community: the Jewish–Christian-centred community had started to accept Gentiles and became a community where (...) Gentiles and Jews lived together. Secondly, the community was in a state where both the Jewish law and the teachings of Jesus were followed. Finally, the community tended to set both Jews and Gentiles as targets for the mission. This means that there was missionary coexistence within the community. These three main reasons are the basis for the claim that the Matthean community maintained the nature of coexistence. (shrink)

This article approaches the issue of Matthew’s theological context by examining Matthew’s use of Mark, including through redaction and supplementation, in Matthew 1–4. This is undertaken in two parts: Matthew 1–2, which is largely additional material, and Matthew 3–4, followed by a concluding assessment. Issues addressed or alluded to in these chapters frequently find resonance in the remainder of Matthew’s gospel and so give important clues about Matthew’s concerns and their relevance for understanding (...) its context. Such issues include the importance of messiahship; continuity with Israel, but also with John the Baptist and the Church; defence against slander; heightened christological claims; soteriology; Gentile mission; the status of Torah; and Jesus as judge to come. The article suggests a location within a Jewish religious context with a Jewish self-understanding, separate from the synagogue, but claiming to belong where its opponents would claim it did not; and a Christian tradition where the approach of ‘Q’ to Torah is upheld in contrast to Mark’s, while embracing and expanding Mark’s Christology and restoring the common understanding of Gentile mission as a post- Easter phenomenon. (shrink)

Halakhah and ethics in the Jesus tradition -- Matthew's divorce texts in the light of pre-rabbinic Jewish law -- Let the dead bury their dead : Jesus and the law revisited -- James, Israel, and Antioch -- Natural law in Second Temple Judaism -- Natural law in the New Testament? -- The Noachide commandments and New Testament ethics -- The beginning of Christian public ethics : from Luke to Aristides and Diognetus -- Jewish and Christian public ethics in the (...) early Roman Empire. (shrink)

In the mathematics education research literature, there is a growing body of scholarship on how mathematicians practice their craft. The purpose of this chapter is to survey some of this literature and explain how it can contribute to the philosophy of mathematical practice. We first describe how mathematics educators use empirical methodologies to investigate the behaviors of mathematicians and argue that findings from these studies can inform the philosophy of mathematical practice. We then illustrate this by summarizing research on mathematicians’ (...) understandings and mathematicians’ proof reading. (shrink)

Experiences of Depression is a philosophical exploration of what it is like to be depressed. In this important new book, Matthew Ratcliffe develops a detailed account of depression experiences by drawing on work in phenomenology, philosophy of mind and psychology, and several other disciplines.

This chapter describes the attributionist approach to moral responsibility. Works by Pamela Hieronymi, T.M. Scanlon, Angela Smith, and Matthew Talbert are taken to representative of this approach. On the interpretation given here, attributionism is committed to the following: assessments of moral responsibility are, and ought to be, centrally concerned with the morally significant features of an agent’s orientation toward others that are attributable to her, and an agent is eligible for moral praise or blame solely on the basis of (...) these attributions. Attributionism is presented as rejecting the claim that agents are morally responsible only for what is under their voluntary control, as well as the claim that agents are responsible for wrongdoing only if they could have responded to the moral considerations that spoke against your behavior. These supposed conditions on moral responsibility are rejected for the same reason: agents may reveal features of their selves, in a way that is sufficient for moral responsibility, even in cases in which these conditions are not met. (shrink)

Of these discussions the last, from the Summa Theologiae, is the best known and is often taken as representative of Thomas’ response to Anselm. Yet it would seem, on the face of it, unsatisfying as a refutation. Gareth Matthews’ comment expresses a very widely shared reaction: "Instead of showing that Anselm’s argument is invalid, Aquinas seems content to state, without counterargument, that the alleged conclusion does not follow." To many, Thomas’ critique represents no advance beyond Gaunilo in understanding Anselm, but (...) merely reproduces Gaunilo’s objection against Proslogion III in Pro Insipiente VII, and his critique has even evoked from one of the most influential modern proponents of Anselm’s argument the remark "This is not very perceptive, is it?" Such an attitude has, as one might expect, hardly been modified by the satisfaction with which Thomists often regard Thomas’ rebuttal while ignoring both the logic of the argument and the details of Thomas’ reply to it. (shrink)

The view that it is better for life to be created free of disability is pervasive in both common sense and philosophy. We cast doubt on this view by focusing on an influential line of thinking that manifests it. That thinking begins with a widely-discussed principle, Procreative Beneficence, and draws conclusions about parental choice and disability. After reconstructing two versions of this argument, we critique the first by exploring the relationship between different understandings of well-being and disability, and the second (...) by more briefly focusing on the idea of a significant reason. By placing these results against the broader historical and ongoing contexts in which the lives of those with disabilities have been deemed of inferior quality, we conclude with a call for greater humility about disability and well-being in thought and practice. (shrink)

In this article I compare and contrast various elements of the work of George Santayana and Arthur Schopenhauer. Though others have acknowledged the relation between these thinkers, they have failed to consider whether and to what extent Santayana fits within the American tradition via this relation. I consider this by first identifying three areas of kinship in their philosophies, each of which I claim distinguish Santayana from the American tradition. Finally, I identify a significant point on which Santayana's philosophy departs (...) from Schopenhauer's, a point which I claim ultimately identifies Santayana with the American tradition. (shrink)

In the present essay our concern will be with some of the earliest documents that shed light on the development of Indian reflections on the puzzles of personal identity. These texts are derived from the Upanisads, which exemplify a type of literature that some philosophers may regard as classic, but not as philosophy. What I will be proposing here is that we attempt to regard such very ancient sources of Indian thought more philosophically, more in the manner that some recent (...) writers have begun to re–examine the Presocratics. I attempt to show that although philosophical method was not yet developed in the early literature under consideration , several important arguments are nonetheless already emerging there in limine . In surveying these proto–arguments, we will also have occasion to remark on their historical and/or conceptual affinities with the developed philosophies of later ages. (shrink)

Spinoza was one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment, but his often obscure metaphysics makes it difficult to understand the ultimate message of his philosophy. Although he regarded freedom as the fundamental goal of his ethics and politics, his theory of freedom has not received sustained, comprehensive treatment. Spinoza holds that we attain freedom by governing ourselves according to practical principles, which express many of our deepest moral commitments. Matthew J. Kisner focuses on this theory and presents (...) an alternative picture of the ethical project driving Spinoza's philosophical system. His study of the neglected practical philosophy provides an accessible and concrete picture of what it means to live as Spinoza's ethics envisioned. (shrink)

Why do war crimes occur? Are perpetrators of war crimes always blameworthy? In an original and challenging thesis, this book argues that war crimes are often explained by perpetrators' beliefs, goals, and values, and in these cases perpetrators may be blameworthy even if they sincerely believed that they were doing the right thing.

Most people would agree that a small child, or a cognitively impaired adult, is less responsible for their actions, good or bad, than an unimpaired adult. But how do we explain that difference, and how far can anyone be praised or blamed for what they have done? In this fascinating introduction, Matthew Talbert explores some of the key questions shaping current debates about moral responsibility, including: What is free will, and is it required for moral responsibility? Are we responsible (...) for the unforeseen consequences of our actions? Is it fair to blame people for doing what they believe is right? And are psychopaths open to blame? As Talbert argues, we are morally responsible for our actions when they are related to us in particular ways: when our actions express our true selves, for example, or when we exercise certain kinds of control over them. It is because we bear these relationships to our actions that we are open to praise and blame. _Moral Responsibility_ will be an important resource for students and researchers in ethics, moral psychology, and philosophy of agency and of great interest to all those wishing to understand an important aspect of our moral practices. (shrink)

We suggest a rigorous theory of how objective single-case transition probabilities fit into our world. The theory combines indeterminism and relativity in the “branching space–times” pattern, and relies on the existing theory of causae causantes (originating causes). Its fundamental suggestion is that (at least in simple cases) the probabilities of all transitions can be computed from the basic probabilities attributed individually to their originating causes. The theory explains when and how one can reasonably infer from the probabilities of one “chance (...) set-up” to the probabilities of another such set-up that is located far away. (shrink)

What do mathematicians mean when they use terms such as ‘deep’, ‘elegant’, and ‘beautiful’? By applying empirical methods developed by social psychologists, we demonstrate that mathematicians' appraisals of proofs vary on four dimensions: aesthetics, intricacy, utility, and precision. We pay particular attention to mathematical beauty and show that, contrary to the classical view, beauty and simplicity are almost entirely unrelated in mathematics.

Suppose that you are looking at a vase of flowers on the table in front of you. You can visually attend to the vase and to the flowers, noticing their different features: their colour, their shape and the way they are arranged. In attending to the vase, the flowers and their features, you are attending to mind-independent objects and features. Suppose, now, that you introspectively reflect on the visual experience you have when looking at the vase of flowers. In doing (...) so, you might notice various features of your experience, for example that individual petals on the flowers are difficult to distinguish. Although in introspection your interest is in the character of your experience, your attention is still to the objects of your experience – to the mind-independent vase and the flowers. Since attending to your experience involves attending to the mind-independent objects and features of your experience, your experience seems introspectively to involve those mind-independent objects and features. 2In general, then, when we introspect a visual experiential episode, it seems that we are related to some mind-independent object or feature that is present and is a part, or a constituent, of the experience. We can call this property – the property of having some mind-independent object or feature as a constituent – the naïve realist property of experiences. It is widely accepted that visual experiences seem to have the NR property; 3 naïve realism is the view that some experiences – the veridical ones – actually do have it: " veridical experiential episodes have mind-independent objects and features as constituents."On a plausible conception of phenomenal character, the phenomenal character of a perceptual experience just is those properties of the experience that explain the way it introspectively seems. Naïve realism is then the view that veridical …. (shrink)

Discussions about the meaning of the word “ought” are pulled in two apparently competing directions. First, in ethical theory this word is used in the paradigmatic statement of ethical principles and conclusions about what some agent is obligated to do. This leads some ethical theorists to claim that the word “ought” describes a real relation, roughly, of being obligated to (realism) or expresses some non-cognitive attitude toward agents acting in certain ways (expressivism). Second, in theoretical linguistics this word is classified (...) as a modal auxiliary verb alongside words like “might,” “may,” “can,” “must,” etc. This leads some theoretical linguists to claim that the word “ought” is a weak necessity modal, which can be modeled with universal quantification over a restricted set of possible worlds. This chapter seeks some resolution of this tension by showing how versions of realism and expressivism can be modified in light of the best semantics of “ought” as a weak necessity modal. In addition, the chapter explains how this semantics might point to a third view—inferentialism—that accounts for the meaning of “ought” not in terms of what relation it describes, nor in terms of what attitude it expresses, but rather in terms of its inferential role. (shrink)

In _Camus, Philosophe: To Return to our Beginnings_ Matthew Sharpe reads Camus as a _philosophe_ in the classical and enlightenment lineages, arguing that his defense of _mesure_ singles him out amidst 20th century French thought and makes him of renewed relevance today.

In this chapter, we consider the plausibility and consequences of the use of the term “honest errors” to describe the accidental killings of civilians resulting from the US military’s drone campaigns in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. We argue that the narrative of “honest errors” unjustifiably excuses those involved in these killings from moral culpability, and reinforces long-standing, pernicious assumptions about the moral superiority of the US military and the inevitability of civilian deaths in combat. Furthermore, we maintain that, given (...) the knowledge-distorting practices within the US military’s organizational structure, few if any civilian deaths from drone strikes meet the criteria of a genuinely morally excusing “honest mistake”. Instead, these accidental killings often reflect objectionable attitudes of relative disregard for the safety of civilians. These attitudes are, we argue, sufficient to warrant the attribution of blame and moral responsibility, both with respect to certain individual actions and with respect to the US military as an institution. In light of this, we propose incorporating a Principle of the Moral Equality of Non-combatants into military assessments of what counts as “acceptable risk” to civilians. This would go some way, we argue, to redressing the ongoing injustice inflicted on the victims of civilian killings by the failure of the US military and US political leadership to take moral responsibility for unjustified civilian deaths. (shrink)

Mathematical explanations are poorly understood. Although mathematicians seem to regularly suggest that some proofs are explanatory whereas others are not, none of the philosophical accounts of what such claims mean has become widely accepted. In this paper we explore Wilkenfeld’s suggestion that explanations are those sorts of things that generate understanding. By considering a basic model of human cognitive architecture, we suggest that existing accounts of mathematical explanation are all derivable consequences of Wilkenfeld’s ‘functional explanation’ proposal. We therefore argue that (...) the explanatory criteria offered by earlier accounts can all be thought of as features that make it more likely that a mathematical proof will generate understanding. On the functional account, features such as characterising properties, unification, and salience correlate with explanatoriness, but they do not define explanatoriness. (shrink)

We investigated whether mathematicians typically agree about the qualities of mathematical proofs. Between-mathematician consensus in proof appraisals is an implicit assumption of many arguments made by philosophers of mathematics, but to our knowledge the issue has not previously been empirically investigated. We asked a group of mathematicians to assess a specific proof on four dimensions, using the framework identified by Inglis and Aberdein (2015). We found widespread disagreement between our participants about the aesthetics, intricacy, precision and utility of the proof, (...) suggesting that a priori assumptions about the consistency of mathematical proof appraisals are unreasonable. (shrink)

Judith Jarvis Thomson famously argued that abortion is permissible even if we accept that a fetus qualifies as a person and possesses a right to life. The current paper presents two arguments that undermine Thomson’s position. First, the paper sketches a contractarian argument that explores Thomson’s violinist thought experiment from behind a veil of ignorance, which suggests that if we had an equal likelihood of being an unwanted fetus and a pregnant woman, it would be rational for us to oppose (...) abortion. Second, the paper discusses the hypothetical self-aborting fetus, a thought experiment that reverses the dependence relationship between a woman and a fetus. It is argued that in this scenario, where fetuses have agency of their own, Thomson’s position would counterintuitively prohibit a woman from temporarily curtailing the freedom of her fetus even to save her own life. (shrink)

Sounds and Perception brings together original essays on auditory perception and the nature of sounds - an emerging area of interest in the philosophy of mind and perception, and in the metaphysics of sensible qualities. The essays discuss a wide range of issues, including the nature of sound, the spatial aspects of auditory experience, hearing silence, musical experience, and the perception of speech; a substantial introduction by the editors serves to contextualise the essays and make connections between them. The collection (...) serves both as an introduction to the nature of auditory perception and as the definitive resource for coverage of the main questions that constitute the philosophy of sounds and audition. (shrink)

Lewisian theism is the view that both traditional theism and Lewis’s modal realism are true. On Lewisian theism, God must exist in worlds in one of the following ways: God can be said to have a counterpart in each world; God can be said to exist in each world in the way that a universal can be said to exist in worlds, i.e. through transworld identity; God can be said to be a scattered individual, with a part of God existing (...) in each world; and, God can be said to exist in each world, through His existing from the standpoint of each world. In the literature, – have been rejected as viable options. I grant that and are not viable. However, I believe that and have been too hastily rejected. Herein, I develop ways to respond to objections to and, and conclude that is a viable option for Lewisian theists. (shrink)

One of the central debates within contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy concerns how to formulate an egalitarian theory of distributive justice which gives coherent expression to egalitarian convictions and withstands the most powerful anti-egalitarian objections. This book brings together many of the key contributions to that debate by some of the world’s leading political philosophers: Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Derek Parfit, John Rawls, T.M. Scanlon, and Larry Temkin.

On Anselmian theism, God is, amongst other things, a necessary being. On genuine modal realism, possible worlds are maximal mereological sums of spatiotemporally connected individuals. I argue in this paper that AT and GMR are either incompatible or their conjunction leads to—amongst other things—modal collapse. Specifically, I argue: regardless of whether God is concrete or abstract, His necessary existence either is inconsistent with AT-GMR or it leads to, amongst other things, modal collapse for AT-GMR. I conclude the paper by contending (...) that, if I am correct, the ATist will have an argument against the truth of GMR, and the GMRist will have an argument against the truth of AT. (shrink)

Does artificial intelligence (AI) pose existential risks to humanity? Some critics feel this question is getting too much attention, and want to push it aside in favour of conversations about the immediate risks of AI. These critics now include the journal Nature, where a recent editorial urges us to 'stop talking about tomorrow's AI doomsday when AI poses risks today.' We argue that this is a serious failure of judgement, on Nature's part. In science, as in everyday life, we expect (...) influential actors to consider the consequences of error. As the world's leading scientific journal, Nature is certainly an influential actor, especially so in the absence of robust global regulation of AI. Yet it has manifestly failed to consider the cost of error in this case. (shrink)

This paper explains three ways to develop a conceptual role view of meaning in metaethics. First, it suggests that there’s a way to combine inspiration from noncognitivism with a particular form of the conceptual role view to form a noncognitivist view with distinctive advantages over other noncognitivist views. Second, it suggests that there’s also a way to combine a strong commitment to cognitivism with a different form of the conceptual role view to form a version of cognitivism with distinctive advantages (...) over other cognitivist views. Finally, it suggests that there's another way to think of the conceptual role view in metaethics is as opening up the space for a third way, beyond cognitivism and noncognitivism. (shrink)

This article attempts to show that Heidegger’s phenomenology may shed light on political phenomena. It pursues this project by arguing that Heidegger’s phenomenology is an appropriation of Aristotle’s practical philosophy and his conceptualization of phronesis. I argue that, in Being and Time, Heidegger’s ‘circumspection’, which is a capacity for making sense of practical situations, is a translation of phronesis. Heidegger argues, though, that the sight of circumspection is foreshortened by the rules and norms of ‘the one’. In division 2, ‘conscience’ (...) becomes a sharpening of the vision of phronesis, which sees through the one. I then defend Heidegger’s appropriation of phronesis and argue that Heidegger’s concept of conscience, which takes up a critical stance toward plurality, may actually be a proper vision of practical wisdom under modern conditions. I substantiate this claim by turning to an unlikely source to bolster Heidegger’s reading of phronesis and the modern public, Hannah Arendt. (shrink)

This is an advanced overview of ethical expressivism, which discuss some of the history of the research program and recent developments in the work of Michael Ridge and Mark Schroeder.

It might be suggested that in auditory experience elements of the material world are not apparent to us in the way they are in vision and touch, and that this constitutes a shortcoming in the kind of cognitive contact with the world provided by auditory perception. I develop this suggestion, and then set out a way of thinking about the appearances of sound-producing events that might provide a response.