This article defends the proposal that voters be permitted to choose whether to cast a vote for a candidate or against a candidate: a vote for a candidate would increase their total number of votes by one, as it does at present, whereas a vote against a candidate would decrease their total number of votes by one.

When exactly does life end? When can we justifiably said to be ‘dead’. How we answer this question has important ethical and medical consequences.

Do we have free will? In this interview, Professor Helen Beebee sets out the problem, a key argument for the conclusion that we lack free will, and explores the solutions that have been offered.

Graduation is supposed to be a time to be happy and celebrate. So why does it often feel so terrifying, so empty? The work of existentialist philosophers Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre can shed some light on why graduation is a rupture that is so disruptive.

Is childhood something that we can leave behind, or indeed should? In their latest article for Think, Emma Swinn and Steven Campbell-Harris challenge the conventional understanding of children and adults, revealing how these rigid categories create problems in our education system, democracies and personal lives. Through the revolutionary education movement ‘Philosophy for children’ (P4C), they explore how retaining the ‘childlike’ qualities of questioning, playing and embracing uncertainty can transform our approach to learning and paradoxically help us to live more fulfilled adult lives.

People have often thought that Kant left no room for compassion in the virtuous life, because virtue for him is about doing the right thing when you don't feel like it. However, compassion is an important virtue in Kantian ethics, where it is understood as a form of moral cognition grounded in a commitment to act for the good of others. Though this means that the Kantian virtue of compassion is primarily intellectual in nature, contrary to what people have thought, the virtuous person can experience great feelings of compassion, affection and pleasure. And yet, these feelings are not strictly necessary for someone to have the virtue. For this reason, some, for example neurodiverse, agents who would not qualify as virtuous on the Aristotelian picture do qualify as virtuous on the Kantian picture. This expands the traditional virtue label in a good way.

In a short article, Saul Smilansky (THINK 60, 2022) provides an argument in favour of the belief in social progress. He considers the ‘probability of losing a child’ to be a pivotal element among various criteria to be assessed in order to evaluate human progress and as this probability has decreased considerably in the modern era, he believes humanity is today in a better situation than in previous generations. In this article, I criticize Smilansky's argument and try to show that his criterion of progress is superficial.

Horror tropes are very popular for entertainment. From novels to films, to video games, we can't seem to get enough of vampires, witches and zombies. But these folkloric creatures were believed to be real by previous generations (and even some contemporary ones). It is worth engaging with our ancestors' history, their thought processes, their religious beliefs and general human psychology to see if this constant investment of energy that people give to malign supernatural agents can illuminate our thought processes and survival mechanisms.

Can you have true beliefs about the future? Obviously it would be a good thing if you could. If you have true beliefs about the future then you can make plans and things will turn out as you expect. But many people – including philosophers – think that beliefs about the future cannot be true. The thought might be this: a belief cannot be true if there is nothing for it to be true about, and since the future does not yet exist, beliefs about the future cannot be true. I argue that this view depends on treating beliefs in the abstract. Once we look at them in their conversational context we will see how beliefs about the future can be true. Given the value of having true beliefs about the future – especially the near future – we should have no qualms pursuing them.

The Dark Forest Theory of the universe applies a pessimistic view of humanity to alien civilizations. While many look to space with hope and optimism, the Dark Forest Theory suggests that humanity should be fearful and cautious when expanding beyond Earth and that interaction with aliens could spell humanity's doom. This article will briefly examine the theory and present some arguments against the pessimistic view offered by the Dark Forest Theory.

Each one of us who has come into this world (so far) has done so via birth. Everyone therefore has a birthing ‘parent’, but not all would consider that respective person to be their parent. For example, those who have been adopted might instead consider the person (or people) who adopted them to be their parent(s). There are, therefore, ways to become a parent that do not involve giving birth, and instances of giving birth that do not result in becoming a parent. But what about motherhood, more specifically? Must mothers be women, and must mothers have given birth? What makes a ‘mother’ – is it always and only the person who makes us? It is these questions that I explore here, in order to find a trans-inclusive approach to parental designations.

Black K-12 students are four times more likely to receive out-of-school suspension than their white peers; housing lenders are more likely to offer black homebuyers subprime loans even when they qualify for prime loans; employers call back candidates for interviews with ‘white-sounding’ names 50 per cent more often than candidates with ‘black-sounding’ names. All these are said to be examples of systemic racism. But what does it mean to say that racism is systemic? Using the tools of social ontology, this article explores the various ways in which social systems can be racist.