Imperfect Cognitions

In today’s post, Lydia Tsiakiri, Research Fellow at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore, explores whether judgments of wrongful discrimination are sensitive to personal responsibility, drawing on her research into responsibility, discrimination, healthcare, and public policy. Lydia Tsiakiri Imagine two patients who both need a lung transplant. One developed severe lung disease after decades of smoking. The other has the same condition because of a rare genetic mutation. If the hospital gives priority to the second patient, is that an instance of wrongful discrimination? Most of us agree that wrongful discrimination is morally objectionable. Yet cases like this raise a more difficult question. Does it matter whether the characteristic on which people are treated differently is something they are responsible for? If two individuals are treated differently because one is responsible for the relevant characteristic and the other is not, are we less likely to ...

In today’s post, Hielke Bosma explores the role of inner strength in rehabilitation care. Hielke is a spiritual care professional and academic researcher affiliated with the Amsterdam Rehabilitation Research Center  and the University of Humanistic Studies in the Netherlands, whose research focuses on spiritual exercises and chronic pain. Hielke Bosma The idea for my research on inner strength began in a rehabilitation centre. I remember two young men of roughly the same age. One was a student; the other worked in construction. Both had sustained a spinal cord injury in an accident and faced the prospect of never walking again.  Their responses could hardly have been more different. The construction worker felt that his life was over. He believed he could no longer do anything. The student responded: “I was studying before the accident, and now I am studying again. I don’t see the problem.”  Neither wanted to join a discussion group. For one, talking seemed pointless: it ...

In today's post, Carme Isern-Mas (University of the Balearic Islands) discusses the potential harms of everyday self-help discourse in contexts of systemic oppression. Carme worked on this topic with Sally Latham (The Open University) and Manuel Almagro (University of Valencia).  Carme Isern-Mas When I was a teenager, Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret took everyone by storm. For some time, conversations about how to better “manifest” our life goals, or on the importance of having a “positive attitude” were frequent. Later I learned about the self-help industry and how The Secret , among others, was a paradigmatic product of it. Criticisms of this cultural phenomenon were not long in coming. But, in recent years, the discourse of the self-help industry has also conquered our everyday talk.  The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne Everyone knows what “vision boards” are, most of us have tried to keep a “gratitude diary”, and we try to “stay positive” despite the adversity. A worry with such d...

In this follow-up to last week's post , Sorin Baiasu (University of Liverpool) and Luke Jordan (NHS Compass Manchester) continue introducing their interdisciplinary project on philosophy and mental well-being. Luke Jordan We currently face a particularly serious problem: a global mental health crisis combined with the psychiatrisation of society and medicalisation of mental disorders. To contribute to a solution to this serious challenge, our interdisciplinary research relies on some of academic philosophy’s untapped resources. In particular, we examine philosophy’s training potential for the mental health workforce through continuing professional development (CPD) sessions. Providing training to mental health practitioners through philosophy may lead to a common problem : misaligned and irrelevant content. On one good account of the differences between psychotherapy and academic philosophy, the latter is a self-reflective discipline, usually classed among the ‘humanities’. These...

In today's post, and next week's follow-up, Sorin Baiasu, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Liverpool-Oxford-St Andrews Kantian (LOSAK) Research Centre at the University of Liverpool, and Luke Jordan, Clinical Lead at NHS Compass Manchester (Later Life CERN Pathway) and an MBT, SCM and RO-DBT practitioner, introduce their new interdisciplinary project on philosophy and mental well-being. Sorin Baiasu Globally, we are going through a mental health crisis . In 2025, the World Health Organisation (WHO) noted that over 1 billion people were living with mental health disorders. In the UK, in 2021/22, the National Health Service (NHS) spent 12 billion pounds on mental health – 8% of the entire NHS budget (comparable to the amount allocated for the treatment of cancer). The total spend on mental health in 2025/26 increased to almost £14 billion . At the same time, we are experiencing a psychiatrisation of society and a medicalisation of mental disorders , both with their...

Currently on display at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery is Christopher Samuel's Watch Us Lead . The exhibition explores themes of stigma, belonging and agency while encouraging conversations about under-representation, autonomy and the lived experience of disability. In this post, Kate Lynch reflects on the exhibition and the role museums can play in shaping whose stories are heard. One of the first works to catch the eye in this exhibition is a large stained glass panel. Stained glass is often associated with churches and public acts of remembrance, making it an especially powerful medium for an exhibition about stories that have been overlooked.   Pray For Me by Christopher Samuel Elsewhere, visitors encounter a series of portraits, each accompanied by a quotation and the opportunity to hear more. The stories touch on healthcare, education, employment, identity and family life, exploring not only the experience of stigma but also the ways participants have asserted their own ...