Nathan Sheff

_Explore the deep philosophical questions lurking in the Fallout wasteland_ The _Fallout_ franchise welcomes you to the Wasteland through both the post-nuclear role-playing games and the Amazon streaming series. Set against a retro-futuristic world of mutants, warlords, and weird science, the decent and wicked alike eke out survival despite the irradiated dangers surrounding them. But beneath the irreverent humor and constant violence, _Fallout _forces its players and characters into circumstances with weighty philosophical implications, and it compels fans of all stripes to consider complex, sometimes harrowing moral dilemmas. _Fallout and Philosophy_ tackles these issues head-on. In the 26 essays included in this volume, philosophers follow the implications of _Fallout_’s dystopian world and the challenging questions it raises to their logical conclusions. Even if war never changes, could wars be waged justly? Is freedom possible in the closed and controlled world of the Vaults? Are “kill everything” playthroughs harmless fun, or are they ethically suspect? Are the Institute’s synths mere machines, or are they people? How can we tell? Is the Brotherhood justified in hoarding pre-War technology? Is Lucy’s Golden Rule too idealistic for the world outside her Vault? Is it defensible to bring children into a postapocalyptic wasteland? “Everyone disliked that” ending of _Fallout 3_, but why? If you’re a fan of the franchise and you want to think more deeply about - and more fully appreciate - all things _Fallout_, then it’s time to climb out of your Vault and strap on your power armor. Let _Fallout and Philosophy_ be your Wasteland Survival Guide.

Finding ways to foster intellectual humility (IH)—the willingness to own one’s limitations—is an important goal for facilitating effective learning. We report the results of a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study, conducted across six undergraduate, culturally diverse (58% racial/ethnic minority) introductory philosophy courses, that evaluates how social perceptions and cross-cultural reasoning change following a course on epistemology and social ethics. Critically, we manipulated whether each class received a standardized lesson in IH at the start of the course or not. Participants provided self-ratings of IH, gave round-robin judgments of their classmates, and completed a wise-reasoning writing exercise focusing on a cultural conflict at both the beginning and end of the summer course session. Results revealed no change in self-reported IH, but an increase in perceived peer IH and conscientiousness within classes where IH was taught. Moreover, an analysis of the participants’ writing suggested greater levels of compromise-seeking when dealing with a cultural conflict among the students taught about IH, relative to those in the control classes. This study provides initial insights regarding the relationship between IH and cultural humility, as well as the efficacy of facilitating the development of IH among undergraduate students.

Conciliationists about peer disagreement claim that, when epistemic peers (that is, people who are equally intelligent, aware of the same relevant evidence, and so on) disagree, the rational response is for each to lower their confidence in their initial views – perhaps even suspending judgment on the matter entirely. While conciliationism in cases of disagreement among individual peers remains controversial, the case for conciliation in other types of disagreement has been underexplored. This chapter aims to explore this territory, making the case for conciliationism in intra-group disagreements.