Glossary

The Stoic Dichotomy of Control is the foundational ethical doctrine of Stoicism, most clearly articulated by Epictetus, which divides all things into two categories: those that are 'up to us' (eph' hēmin)—our own judgments, impulses, desires, aversions, and deliberate actions—and those tha

Prohairesis (προαίρεσις) is a central concept in Epictetus's Stoicism, often translated as 'reasoned choice,' 'moral purpose,' or 'will.' It refers to the faculty of the mind that is fully in our control—the ability to form judgments, to assent to or withhold assent from impressions, and t

Feminist masculinity is a concept developed by bell hooks that redefines manhood by rejecting patriarchal norms of stoicism and embracing vulnerability, emotional honesty, and connection as strengths.

Negative responsibility is the idea, most forcefully articulated by Bernard Williams, that we are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we fail to prevent. In the context of the Survival Lottery, negative responsibility implies that if we refuse to kill one person to save t

The emotional straightjacket is a metaphor used by bell hooks to describe the cultural conditioning that forces men to suppress their emotions and conform to rigid patriarchal norms of masculinity, leading to isolation and disconnection.

Expected Utility Theory is a prescriptive model of decision-making under uncertainty, stating that a rational agent should choose the option that maximizes the 'expected value'—the weighted average of all possible outcomes' utilities, where the weights are the probabilities of those outcom

The Swampman thought experiment, proposed by philosopher Donald Davidson, is a philosophical puzzle about personal identity and meaning. It asks us to imagine a man (Davidson) who is vaporized by a lightning strike in a swamp. Simultaneously, an identical bolt creates a perfect, atom-for-a

Scapegoat Ethics refers to any moral or political framework that justifies the sacrifice, marginalization, or suffering of a minority group (or individual) to preserve the stability, happiness, or 'purity' of the majority. It is characterized by the belief that certain harms are 'necessary

The Omelas Dilemma is a thought experiment that asks whether the perfect happiness of a society is morally justified if it depends on the deliberate, extreme suffering of one innocent individual. It serves as a limit-case critique of utilitarianism, forcing a confrontation between collecti

In the context of the Omelas dilemma, the scapegoat mechanism is the structural requirement of a community to isolate all its potential suffering, guilt, and misfortune onto a single individual to ensure the flourishing of the collective. Unlike ritualistic scapegoating where guilt is proj