Two sources of possible disagreement in bioethics may be associated with pessimism about what bioethics can achieve. First, pluralism implies that bioethics engages with interlocutors who hold divergent moral beliefs. Pessimists might believe that these disagreements significantly limit the extent to which bioethics can provide normatively robust guidance in relevant areas. Second, the interdisciplinary nature of bioethics suggests that interlocutors may hold divergent views on the nature of bioethics itself—particularly its practicality. Pessimists may suppose that interdisciplinary disagreements could frustrate the (...) goals of bioethics. In this article, I explore how wonder may alleviate the concerns of the first group of pessimists regarding problems associated with pluralism, provided that we are willing to accept some interdisciplinary frustrations. Then, I invite readers of this issue of The Journal of Medicine & Philosophy to test these intuitions by considering the role of wonder in these articles. (shrink)

What explains people's propensity to ask existential questions that they have little hope of resolving, such as: Why are we here? What, if any, is our purpose? What is the structure of the universe? That humans engage in these endeavors has long puzzled evolutionary theorists, as they go beyond the immediate demands of fending for ourselves, seeking safety, finding food, and reproducing, which occupy the daily lives of other animals. In this book, philosopher Helen De Cruz draws on a wide (...) range of disciplines and thinkers, from Aristotle and 12th-century Muslim philosopher Ibn Tufayl to Jewish thinker Abraham Heschel and science writer Rachel Carson, showing how awe and wonder lie at the heart of such existential questions. She argues that there is an emotional basis to this drive for inquiry, as wonder and awe are epistemic emotions that help us think about big-picture questions and that motivate the answers we provide to those questions. (shrink)

Various authors see human flourishing as the overarching aim to which education should contribute. We ask whether fostering _wonder_ can help education attain this aim. We discuss two possibilities: firstly, it may be that having a sense of wonder as adults (possibly fostered by and/or refined due to education) contributes to flourishing itself. Secondly, it may be that fostering wonder in education increases the likelihood that education promotes flourishing, which it might do simply by increasing children’s intrinsic interest in what (...) they learn. We argue that there are many plausible connections between wonder and human flourishing (relating to its epistemic and aesthetic dimensions, among others), and that we have reason to believe that early experiences can influence adults’ capacity for wonder. Furthermore, wonder increases the likelihood that education ‘succeeds’; and it supports people’s ability to live well by heightening their appreciation for the world, helping to uncover baseless beliefs, and increasing their awareness of possible goods. In sum, while having a sense of wonder may not be a constitutive element of human flourishing, it is hard to imagine education for human flourishing that is not also wonder-full education. (shrink)

Wonder’s significance is a recurrent theme in the history of philosophy. In the Theaetetus, Plato’s Socrates claims that philosophy begins in wonder (thaumazein). Aristotle echoes these sentiments in his Metaphysics; it is wonder and astonishment that first led us to philosophize. Philosophers from the Ancients through Wittgenstein discuss wonder, yet scant recent attention has been given to developing a general systematic account of emotional wonder. I develop an account of emotional wonder and defend its connection with apparent or seeming value. (...) Recently, several philosophers invoke wonder to back non-eudaimonistic value judgments. I introduce methods to incorporate these judgments into a eudaimonistic moral framework. On the analysis presented, wonder requires its object to seem valuable, but whether the object is in fact valuable remains an open question. Wonder enraptures us with objects that might be of true or merely illusory value, grounded either in our own well-being or in non-eudaimonistic value. (shrink)

Is it possible to distinguish, as sociologist Arthur Frank proposes, an ‘ideal of wonder’ within which ill persons could recover some of their former sense of life and flourishing, even within the constraints of ill-health? Beyond this, are there more general benefits in terms of health and well-being that could accrue from cultivating an openness to wonder? In this paper I will first outline and defend a notion of wonder that gives philosophical support to Frank’s proposal, noting why thinking about (...) medical treatment may readily provoke a sense of wonder. Second I will however limit the normative force of such an ‘ideal of wonder’ noting its demands and some of the challenges facing it. The paper goes on, third, to conjecture wider benefits within and beyond the clinical encounter arising from being mindful of the wonder of embodied human agency. Fourth the paper will consider alignments between the foregoing analysis and some theoretical commitments in recent work in health geography. Finally I will briefly reconsider the notion of the body-as-territory, and the role of the imagination in bringing it under wonder’s gaze. (shrink)

Three forms of leadership are frequently identified as prerequisites to the re-humanization of the healthcare system: ‘authentic leadership’, ‘mindful leadership’ and ‘ethical leadership’. In different ways and to varying extents, these approaches all focus on person- or human-centred caring. In a phenomenological action research project at a Danish hospital, the nurses experienced and then described how developing a conscious sense of wonder enhanced their ability to hear, to get in resonance with the existential in their meetings with patients and relatives, (...) and to respond ethically. This ability was fostered through so-called Wonder Labs in which the notion of ‘phenomenon-led care’ evolved, which called for ‘slow thinking’ and ‘slow wondrous listening’. For the 10 nurses involved, it proved challenging to find the necessary serenity and space for this slow and wonder-based practice. This article critiques and examines, from a theoretical perspective, the kind of leadership that is needed to encourage this wonder-based approach to nursing, and it suggests a new type of leadership that is itself inspired by wonder and is guided by 10 tangible elements. (shrink)