Artists often emphasize the importance of risk to their work. But this raises a puzzle, as on a standard probabilistic account of risk we are obliged to treat some of these cases as not involving genuine risk at all. It is argued that the way to resolve this puzzle is to recognize a crucial shortcoming in the probabilistic account of risk. With this shortcoming rectified, and hence with a revised modal account of risk in place, we are able to treat the relevant cases of putative aesthetic risk as entirely genuine.

Amid the ongoing political turmoil, symbolized by the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, books and articles abound today to encourage us to re-read anti-totalitarian classics ‘for our times’. But what do we find in this body of work originally written in response to Nazism and Stalinism? Do we find a democratic consensus forged by a shared anti-totalitarian commitment? I doubt it. Considering the cases of Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt, this article highlights discord beneath what may today appear like a post-war democratic consensus. I argue that the anti-totalitarian literature of the last century encompassed multiple political philosophies, which sometimes differed irreconcilably from each other.

In general, it is morally wrong to joke about the suffering of a category of people while in front of a person who fits into this category. I argue that, when people play the game Cards Against Humanity, it is likely that they do this very action. Thus, I conclude that it is morally wrong to play Cards Against Humanity.

Christianity and Islam subscribe to a doctrine of salvific exclusivism, according to which only the adherents of the one true religion will escape divine punishment – usually conceived of as an eternity of torment. In this article, I argue that salvific exclusivism is inconsistent with ordinary intuitions about fairness and justice, together with certain facts about belief formation. In particular, I argue that what one believes is sufficiently beyond one's capacity to choose that persons cannot fairly be punished for what they believe. It seems unfair, and inconsistent with God's moral perfection, to base the difference between an eternal reward and an eternal punishment on something that one can't control.

Most theorists agree that the ability to think critically is distinct from the disposition to do so. Many of us may have the ability to be critical thinkers, but unless we are consistently and internally motivated to think and reason this way, these abilities are effectively redundant. Such dispositions are both intellectual character traits, and dispositions to behave in certain ways. As such, the first step to understanding critical thinking requires us to develop an operationalized taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions. To avoid explicating these dispositions in abstracto, this article draws upon a murder trial in order to demonstrate the central role dispositions play in critical thinking.

Initially Locke is inclined to pour cold water on Moore's enthusiasm for spreading the word about Secret Reference. Locke believes it will remain a pearl hidden in the bushes of neglect. Moore, on the contrary, sees Secret Reference exercising a far-reaching influence on the way we approach our understanding of misunderstanding. For a start, Moore believes realizing meaning is inherently, not accidentally, indeterminate might help. Subsequently Locke begins to warm to Moore's beliefs. He proposes a possible way forward, though still not wholly convinced much can really be achieved given the kind of society we live in.

Most people believe that happiness is the supreme good; that it is achievable by everyone and that everyone has a right to it. It is usually identified with the passive possession of some other material or non-material good or goods and the state of being these confer. Aristotle was one of the first thinkers to attempt an analysis of happiness. For him it consists of the active exercise of characteristic human excellence as manifested in intellectual activity and moral action. This article sets out to explain Aristotle's views and to suggest what is wrong with them.

Should we congratulate runners who participate and finish a marathon without winning it? Although it might seem that all who muster the will to do so deserve praise, this article questions whether self-regarding virtues, such as running a marathon, deserve it.

When pressed, many atheists offer three reasons why they reject theism: there is strong evidence against theism, there is no strong evidence for theism, and theism is so outrageous that it needs a great deal of support in order for us to believe it in a reasonable manner. I examine the third reason, arguing that it fails.

Philosophy, by no longer performing its original therapeutic function of helping people to become wise, choosing instead to offer analysis, has left us at risk of losing the techniques which had evolved to facilitate the task of teaching wisdom throughout its history. In the process of endeavouring to re-establish Philosophy as Therapy after the war, with the aim of helping people to think for themselves rather than just study the ideas of others, Wittgenstein and Wisdom rediscovered the need for many of these techniques, especially for a way of revealing to people their underlying and unconscious assumptions.

A discussion of the under-representation of women in academic philosophy, focusing on the perception both of the nature of women and of the nature of philosophy itself.