I argue that the absence of some of the ‘greatest hits’ of Western philosophy in Classical China can be explained by a Wittgensteinian take on the role of language in philosophy. One is the ‘Idea Theory’ of meaning which anchors Western Mind-Body dualism. Its attraction is removed when the writing reminds us that a picture does not by itself ‘give life to’ our language even while it plays a role of cross-linguistic communication. Another is the centrality of a law-command theory of normativity which combines with mind-body dualism to give a natural push toward monotheistic supernaturalism. Western attempts to make the ‘God’ impulse logical (e.g., the Ontological Argument) fail because of differences in Chinese syntax. The upshot is we need not deny Chinese thinkers the status of philosophers for their failure to share our philosophical presuppositions and resultant agenda.

I argue that stories are ‘equipment for living’ in two senses: retrospectively, they provide ‘configurational comprehension’ of a temporal sequence of events; prospectively, they offer templates for action. Narrative conceptions of the self appear well poised to leverage these functional roles for stories into an intuitively compelling view of self-construction as self-construal. However, the narrative conception defines selves in terms of the lives they live: a self is the protagonist in a lifelong story. And narrative structure is itself defined by ‘retrospective necessity’: the meaning of events within a story is given by their contribution to that story's ending. Together, this entails that life stories hold selves metaphysically, epistemically, and practically hostage to their ends. Fortunately, narratives are just one species of interpretive frame. I suggest some alternative types of frames, including identity labels and metaphors, that support configurational comprehension, action guidance, and self construction without shackling selves to their lives’ ends.

What is the best way to respond to monuments in our communities if they represent people who stood for harmful ideas and/or societal structures? I start with the assumption that it would be best for everyone if all of the harmful monuments were removed from our public squares. The more interesting question is: Why would it be best? I will examine critically two different explanations as to why it would be best: one, Plato's, which rests on the harmful non-intellectual influences of images and the other, Socrates’, which rests on the harmful intellectual influences of those images. In the end, I shall argue that Socrates got it right and Plato wrong due to the former's ability to explain human behaviour and the latter's surprising lack of that same ability, despite how widely it is believed. If the argument is correct, it will have deep and widespread implications for how we educate our children and ourselves about every important aspect of the human condition.

If a benevolent and all-powerful God exists, how can there be so much suffering? Could God have created a better world? Or is evil the price we pay for freedom of the will?

Free riding involves benefiting from common resources or services while avoiding contributing to their production and maintenance. Few studies have adequately investigated the propensity to overestimate the prevalence of free riding. This is a significant omission, as exaggeration of the phenomenon is often used to justify control and coercion systems. To address this gap, we investigate how the common good approach may mitigate the flaws of a system excessively focused on free-riding risk. In this conceptual paper featuring illustrative vignettes, we argue that the common good perspective is realistic and effective in preventing this excessive attention by promoting trust as an unconditional gift and a response to vulnerability. We discuss the common good perspective’s originality over the dominant approaches and propose a set of ethical and managerial recommendations that may be the best protection against this excessive focus and maybe even against free riding itself.

Since the publication of Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue in 1981, tensions inherent to the relationship between morally educative practices and the institutions that house them have been widely noted. We propose a taxonomy of the ways in which the pursuit of external goods by institutions undermines the pursuit of the internal goods of practices. These comprise substitution, where the institution replaces the pursuit of one type of good by another; frustration, where opportunities for practitioners to discover goods or develop new standards of excellence are frustrated by institutional priorities and resource allocation; and injustice, which undermines the integrity of relationships within the organization and/or with partners. These threats, though analytically distinct, are often mutually reinforcing. This conceptual contribution is illustrated both by the extant literature and by a novel context, the three-ring circus.

Sometimes, we see crises coming. Sometimes, we can muster the resources we need to respond effectively. Sometimes, we can acquire the information we need to respond effectively.

My aim in this essay is to argue for a better moral-conceptual framework and for institutional innovation in preparation for the next pandemic. My main conclusions are as follows. (1) The primary moral principle that should guide responses to the next pandemic is the duty to prevent and mitigate serious harms. (2) A proper understanding of the moral foundations and scope of the duty to prevent and mitigate serious harms requires rejecting both Extreme Nationalism and Extreme Cosmopolitanism. (3) A better response to the next pandemic requires transforming the moral landscape through institutional innovation by developing an international institution that can perfect indeterminate duties (i) by identifying duty-bearers, (ii) by specifying their duties to provide medical resources and other forms of aid, (iii) by allocating the specified duties to various public and private entities in such a way as to ensure effective coordination and that the costs of providing aid are fairly distributed, and (iv) by providing effective mechanisms for compliance with the specified duties. (4) Institutional innovation is morally required, regardless of whether the harm prevention and mitigation duties of the better-off are duties of justice or of beneficence, because without institutionalization, some duties of justice, including those requiring the prevention and mitigation of serious harms, suffer some of the same indeterminacies that are present in duties of beneficence.