Big ideas.
Once a week.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Why We Need Philosophy Camp for Adults
Go back to school, Agora style. Philosophy can train us to respond to life's problems rather than merely react. One such training camp is coming to Baltimore.

Consider this: you know that your best friend’s husband or wife is having an affair. Do you tell your best friend about the affair even if they don't ask you? And when you make the decision, do you consider the “ripple effect” of your actions? For example, who will be affected if you don’t tell? How about if you do? What moral principle or virtue are you exercising in each case?
Similar cases and questions are being discussed in the classes of Dr. Fred Guy, Director of the Hoffberger Center for Professional Ethics and associate professor at the University of Baltimore. Guy’s main goal is to inspire his students to think about philosophy and ethics and help them improve ethical decision making in their personal and professional lives.

Recently, Guy has been thinking about the need for a similar type of education for adults, a philosophy camp that will challenge its participants with complex cases and force them to revisit and refine their moral principles.
“Adults are so busy and focused on so much other than ethical issues that we don’t often stop to think coherently about what our moral principles really are. Or what we think of our own moral character. We just assume we’re good people and let it go at that,” he says.
But he has seen first-hand how transformative studying philosophy and examining our moral code can be. He remembers a policewoman in his ethics class who told him that had it not been for that class and his “Guide to Ethical Decision-Making,” she may have killed a man over the weekend. The man was the uncle of her daughter and was guilty of molesting her.
The idea for philosophy camp for grownups came to Guy after an op-ed piece he published in The Baltimore Sun describing his experience with a diverse group of 22 city teenagers who participated in the University of Baltimore’s first Philosophy Camp.
As he writes, “There was no particular reason why this post-millennial, Instagramming, Snapchatting generation would want to engage in serious conversations with each other.” Yet they did, very successfully. A recent study has even shown the gains in confidence and academic performance that comes from teaching philosophy in schools.
He ended the article with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek challenge for adults to behave as well as those kids, and was surprised at the positive response he received. Now, he promises to make the Philosophy Camp for Adults a reality next summer at the University of Baltimore.
Participants in the first Philosophy Camp for Teens at the University of Baltimore / Photo Credit: University of Baltimore
We reached out to Dr. Guy to find out more about his idea, why we need such a camp, how it would work, and what kind of tips he can give us to become more ethical decision-makers ourselves.
BIG THINK: What are the main benefits of studying philosophy as an adult?
DR. FRED GUY: The benefits of studying philosophy as an adult are many. First, it opens the mind to a greater appreciation of what we don’t know. Sounds paradoxical. But it’s the start of wisdom. Knowing that we don’t know and admitting it. In this process, we are more apt to leave behind some personal prejudices, biases, and pet theories that just can’t be supported by good philosophical thinking. If we only get this response: “Oh, wow, I hadn’t thought of it like that before,” I’d say the camp would be a success.
BT: How would the camp work? What would you teach?
FG: I haven’t figured out in detail how the camp would work, but I would imagine that we would follow the teen camp by dividing the week up into the major branches of philosophy or what we called the Big Questions: What is real? What can we know? What is good? And what is the best way to live? We may include: 'Is there a God?' with the adults. I think they would like that. These questions resulted in the major divisions in philosophy respectively: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political & social philosophy, and philosophy of religion.
A couple of days ago marked the 50th anniversary of Louis Armstrong’s 'What a Wonderful World'. We start with that. What gives you a sense of wonder? What gives you a feeling of awe? Are we so fixed in our daily routines that we can’t appreciate the idea that our lives, the world around us, and existence itself is a great mystery?
We would have exercises in wonder. Aristotle wrote that “Philosophy begins and ends in wonder.” So we would certainly start with that. I think adults would get into this very quickly and find it refreshing: “Hey, it’s ok to wonder and contemplate the beauty and mystery of it all.”
BT: Do you think that big companies would benefit from implementing such education for their employees?
FG: Yes, I think big companies could benefit from this kind of education. An obvious benefit would be thinking outside the box and actually challenging a company’s “boxes” along the way. I also think it may encourage employees to think less linearly and more organically in planning ahead and being creative about their products and services. Knowing people is essential for most companies and philosophy is all about self-awareness, “know thyself” said the ancient Greeks and, “All things in moderation.”
Philosophy teaches self-discipline, especially the ancient Stoics and Buddhists. Leadership in corporations must reflect discipline and the primary virtues of moral character: courage, self-control (or temperance), practical wisdom and justice. Aristotle taught this in his Nicomachean Ethics. And the Stoics and Buddhists were all about knowing what is within our control and what is not, as well as the problems of becoming slaves to our desires and wants. This will fit a corporation as a whole or persons in a corporation.
BT: It appears that adults have a relatively fixed moral code. What are the main mechanisms through which our moral frameworks change as we get older?
FG: I think the best way to approach adults with fairly fixed moral codes is to do what I do in my philosophy and ethics classes: Put them in positions from which they cannot escape without thinking. By this I mean challenge adults with ethics case scenarios that put them at the center of the issue and have them justify on moral principles the decisions they make in these scenarios. The adults will be what we call the primary moral agent, who is responsible for the ethical dilemma or problem. Or they may be the moral recipient, who is adversely or positively affected by another’s actions.
Most people just say things like, “Well, it seems to me to just be the right thing to do.” Or, “I wouldn’t want to be treated that way, so I followed the Golden Rule.”
[As adults] we often “back into” moral and ethical wrongdoing without noticing fully what we’re doing. Or we justify a lie, a cheat, a theft on the basis of some greater good — e.g., family, finance, friendships, career goals.
So, I would emphasize exercises in self-awareness of our moral character and what we stand for. I would especially challenge adults to justify their ethical decisions and actions.

How New York's largest hospital system is predicting COVID-19 spikes
Northwell Health is using insights from website traffic to forecast COVID-19 hospitalizations two weeks in the future.
- The machine-learning algorithm works by analyzing the online behavior of visitors to the Northwell Health website and comparing that data to future COVID-19 hospitalizations.
- The tool, which uses anonymized data, has so far predicted hospitalizations with an accuracy rate of 80 percent.
- Machine-learning tools are helping health-care professionals worldwide better constrain and treat COVID-19.
The value of forecasting
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTA0Njk2OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzM2NDQzOH0.rid9regiDaKczCCKBsu7wrHkNQ64Vz_XcOEZIzAhzgM/img.jpg?width=980" id="2bb93" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="31345afbdf2bd408fd3e9f31520c445a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1546" data-height="1056" />Northwell emergency departments use the dashboard to monitor in real time.
Credit: Northwell Health
<p>One unique benefit of forecasting COVID-19 hospitalizations is that it allows health systems to better prepare, manage and allocate resources. For example, if the tool forecasted a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations in two weeks, Northwell Health could begin:</p><ul><li>Making space for an influx of patients</li><li>Moving personal protective equipment to where it's most needed</li><li>Strategically allocating staff during the predicted surge</li><li>Increasing the number of tests offered to asymptomatic patients</li></ul><p>The health-care field is increasingly using machine learning. It's already helping doctors develop <a href="https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2020/06/09/dc19-1870" target="_blank">personalized care plans for diabetes patients</a>, improving cancer screening techniques, and enabling mental health professionals to better predict which patients are at <a href="https://healthitanalytics.com/news/ehr-data-fuels-accurate-predictive-analytics-for-suicide-risk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">elevated risk of suicide</a>, to name a few applications.</p><p>Health systems around the world have already begun exploring how <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7315944/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">machine learning can help battle the pandemic</a>, including better COVID-19 screening, diagnosis, contact tracing, and drug and vaccine development.</p><p>Cruzen said these kinds of tools represent a shift in how health systems can tackle a wide variety of problems.</p><p>"Health care has always used the past to predict the future, but not in this mathematical way," Cruzen said. "I think [Northwell Health's new predictive tool] really is a great first example of how we should be attacking a lot of things as we go forward."</p>Making machine-learning tools openly accessible
<p>Northwell Health has made its predictive tool <a href="https://github.com/northwell-health/covid-web-data-predictor" target="_blank">available for free</a> to any health system that wishes to utilize it.</p><p>"COVID is everybody's problem, and I think developing tools that can be used to help others is sort of why people go into health care," Dr. Cruzen said. "It was really consistent with our mission."</p><p>Open collaboration is something the world's governments and health systems should be striving for during the pandemic, said Michael Dowling, Northwell Health's president and CEO.</p><p>"Whenever you develop anything and somebody else gets it, they improve it and they continue to make it better," Dowling said. "As a country, we lack data. I believe very, very strongly that we should have been and should be now working with other countries, including China, including the European Union, including England and others to figure out how to develop a health surveillance system so you can anticipate way in advance when these things are going to occur."</p><p>In all, Northwell Health has treated more than 112,000 COVID patients. During the pandemic, Dowling said he's seen an outpouring of goodwill, collaboration, and sacrifice from the community and the tens of thousands of staff who work across Northwell.</p><p>"COVID has changed our perspective on everything—and not just those of us in health care, because it has disrupted everybody's life," Dowling said. "It has demonstrated the value of community, how we help one another."</p>3,000-pound Triceratops skull unearthed in South Dakota
"You dream about these kinds of moments when you're a kid," said lead paleontologist David Schmidt.
Excavation of a triceratops skull in South Dakota.
- The triceratops skull was first discovered in 2019, but was excavated over the summer of 2020.
- It was discovered in the South Dakota Badlands, an area where the Triceratops roamed some 66 million years ago.
- Studying dinosaurs helps scientists better understand the evolution of all life on Earth.
Credit: David Schmidt / Westminster College
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We had to be really careful," Schmidt told St. Louis Public Radio. "We couldn't disturb anything at all, because at that point, it was under law enforcement investigation. They were telling us, 'Don't even make footprints,' and I was thinking, 'How are we supposed to do that?'"</p><p>Another difficulty was the mammoth size of the skull: about 7 feet long and more than 3,000 pounds. (For context, the largest triceratops skull ever unearthed was about <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.2010.483632" target="_blank">8.2 feet long</a>.) The skull of Schmidt's dinosaur was likely a <em>Triceratops prorsus, </em>one of two species of triceratops that roamed what's now North America about 66 million years ago.</p>Credit: David Schmidt / Westminster College
<p>The triceratops was an herbivore, but it was also a favorite meal of the T<em>yrannosaurus rex</em>. That probably explains why the Dakotas contain many scattered triceratops bone fragments, and, less commonly, complete bones and skulls. In summer 2019, for example, a separate team on a dig in North Dakota made <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/science/triceratops-skull-65-million-years-old.html" target="_blank">headlines</a> after unearthing a complete triceratops skull that measured five feet in length.</p><p>Michael Kjelland, a biology professor who participated in that excavation, said digging up the dinosaur was like completing a "multi-piece, 3-D jigsaw puzzle" that required "engineering that rivaled SpaceX," he jokingly told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/science/triceratops-skull-65-million-years-old.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a>.</p>Morrison Formation in Colorado
James St. John via Flickr
Triceratops illustration
Credit: Nobu Tamura/Wikimedia Commons |
World's oldest work of art found in a hidden Indonesian valley
Archaeologists discover a cave painting of a wild pig that is now the world's oldest dated work of representational art.
Pig painting at Leang Tedongnge in Indonesia, made at 45,500 years ago.
- Archaeologists find a cave painting of a wild pig that is at least 45,500 years old.
- The painting is the earliest known work of representational art.
- The discovery was made in a remote valley on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Oldest Cave Art Found in Sulawesi
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a9734e306f0914bfdcbe79a1e317a7f0"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b-wAYtBxn7E?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>What can Avicenna teach us about the mind-body problem?
The Persian polymath and philosopher of the Islamic Golden Age teaches us about self-awareness.
The incredible physics behind quantum computing
Can computers do calculations in multiple universes? Scientists are working on it. Step into the world of quantum computing.
