Digest Week 3 Michaelmas Term 2025
MT25, Week 3 (26 October - 1 November)
If you have entries for the weekly Digest, please send information to admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk by midday, Tuesday the week before the event.
Notices - other Philosophy events, including those taking place elsewhere in the university and beyond
Massada Public Seminar
Speaker: Daniel Sperling
Title: Compassion at the Crossroads: Ethics, Emotion & Human Care
Date and time: Monday 27th October, 5:15pm – 7:00pm
Venue: Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre, Worcester College
Abstract: Since compassion is often perceived to be a spontaneous humane response to the suffering of another, it may be assumed that compassion ought to be central to healthcare and, indeed, affect both the quality of care and the patient's wellbeing. Lack of compassion, conversely, may negatively impact patients, weakening resilience and increasing vulnerability. However, overly compassionate care may demand too much of caregivers, resulting in distress and even burnout, usually referred to as “compassion fatigue”. In my talk, I will argue that compassion is more than an emotional response resulting from closeness to a patient, or even internalization of that patient's suffering. Rather, compassion is related to more general ideas of human dignity and solidarity, and functions as a core ethical value in healthcare. The talk will therefore suggest why, on the one hand, compassion is often not fully exercised in healthcare, and why, on the other hand, it is nonetheless of great importance to healthcare professionals.
Further details: If you would like to attend please click on the following like and register via the form on the webpage: Daniel Sperling: Compassion in Healthcare - Worcester College
Wittgenstein Reading Group
Title: Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Discussing Part I Appendices I & II (pp 49-63)
Date and time: Tuesday 28th October, 4.45pm - 6.45pm
Venue: Canada Room, St Hilda's
Further details: Please contact Richard Gipps (richard.gipps@bfriars.ox.ac.uk) to enquire about attending the meeting
Ethox Seminar
Speaker: Alex Broadbent
Title: The Age of Health
Date and time: Tuesday 28th October, 3:30pm – 5:00pm
Venue: This will be a hybrid seminar in the Big Data Institute, Lower Ground Seminar Room 0, or on Zoom (joining link)
Abstract: In this talk I explore the hypothesis that we are entering, or have entered, an “age of health”. I begin by identifying some suggestive pieces of evidence: the handing-over of social issues to the medical profession (e.g. concerning end of life); the growth of scope of “health” (e.g. to include mental health and planetary health); the increasing power of public health (e.g. lockdowns; health-related taxes); and the growth of health-related academic work, such as this talk. I then try to formulate the hypothesis more precisely. I develop the idea that this is not merely a sociological change, but a conceptual one: health has come to operate as a master-value, incorporating matters that used to be treated as belonging to separate social, legal, political, personal, ethical, or spiritual domains. I contrast this idea with existing work on related themes, such as medicalisation and biopolitics. I go on to consider what the implications are if the hypothesis is true. If we live in an age of health, what does that mean for science, politics, and medicine? Finally, I consider what evidence might tell for or against the hypothesis, or whether it might lead us to a better one.