Socrates on Life, Death and Suicide

Socrates and Plato on Poetry

PTSD and Death from Suicide

ed from a wide range of data systems (sociodemographic, US Army career, criminal justice, and medical or pharmacy) were used to predict suicides in the subsequent 12 months using machine learning methods (regression trees and penalized regressions) designed to evaluate cross-validated linear, nonlinear, and interactive predictive associations. Main Outcomes and Measures: Suicides of soldiers ho...

Suicide and Life Insurance

In this paper, we investigate the nexus between life insurance and suicide behavior using OECD cross-country data from 1980 to 2002. Through semiparametric instrumental variable regressions with fixed effects, we find that for the majority of observations, there exists a positive relationship between suicide rate and life insurance density (premium per capita). Since life insurance policies pay...

Teaching Socrates, Aristotle, and Augustine on Akrasia

A long-standing debate among moral philosophers centers on the question of whether ignorance is always at the root of moral wrongdoing, or whether, in certain cases, wrongdoing stems from something else—namely akrasia. This paper is a discussion of how undergraduate core curriculum teachers can incorporate Augustine’s work into this debate. I begin by briefly reconstructing Socrates’ and Aristo...

Socrates and Superiority

I propose a n alternative interpretation of the Crito. The arguments tha t a re typically taken to be Socrates’ primary arguments against escape are actually supplementary arguments that rely on what I call the Superiority Thesis, the thesis tha t the s ta te and i ts citizens a re members of a moral hierarchy where those below are tied by bonds of obligation to those above. I provide evidence ...