The sense of duty is a virtue of caring, not directly about the good, or even about justice, but about doing one’s duty. Insofar as doing what one takes to be one’s duty is in fact to do what is good, the sense of duty functions as a backup for the more direct virtues of caring – generosity, compassion, and truthfulness, as well as justice. Being a virtue of caring, the sense of duty can be expressed in emotions: a feeling of satisfaction in having done one’s duties or feelings of guilt or shame at having neglected them. The sense of duty can vary, emotionally, according to how one conceives the authoritative source of duty, on a spectrum from reverence, through respect, to resentful acceptance. Example of the extremes beyond the spectrum are some Hebrew psalmists’ delight in the law of God and the contempt of the utter moral cynic.

‘Truth’ refers to reality – what is, was, will be, and should be – and its aspects, in the context of representations thereof. A true something is the real thing, and a true proposition, belief, hypothesis, exemplar, and so forth is a successful representation of truth in the first sense. The virtue of truthfulness is the judicious love of truth in both senses. From love of reality and correct representations of it, the truthful person tends to tell others the truth as she sees it, but is not fanatical about telling it, because virtues like justice, compassion, and gentleness, which themselves are a kind of truth, can enjoin the withholding or even distortion of truths. Truths can be horrible, and it can take courage and humility to admit them.

Temperance is a condition of a person’s physical appetites (for food, drink, and sexual contact) in which those appetites themselves conform to a rational standard. Temperance is possible for human beings because of the sophistication with which we can conceptualize the objects of our appetites and because an appetite’s object is internal to the appetite’s identity. A salmon steak construed as poisoned appeals to our appetite (and thus affects the pleasure of satisfying it) differently than one construed as healthful. Temperance differs from self-control, which doesn’t involve a conformity of the appetites themselves, but imposes rational control on unmodified appetites. The rational standard for temperance is the human good, which is the object of the virtues of caring. Thus, the temperate person’s physical appetites are such that, without being controlled, they fit the person to participate in an order of peace.

How are virtues constituted psychologically? The virtues of caring or substantive virtues are dispositional concerns for the good in its various aspects: the well-being of people and other animals, the avoidance or relief of their suffering, the reconciliation of enemies, knowledge and truth, justice, proper formation of sensual desire and pleasure, and one’s duties. Generosity, compassion, forgivingness, justice, and the sense of duty are examples of virtues constituted by such caring. Because the caring is virtuous only if directed to real goods, the concerns need to be shaped by correct thought (understanding). The virtues of caring divide into direct (for example, generosity) and indirect (for example, justice). Another class of virtues – the enkratic – are powers, abilities, or skills of self-management. These, too, require understanding – of self and how to manage it in the various situations and influences of life. Examples are self-control, courage, patience, and perseverance.

Practical wisdom is caring understanding of the good in the situations of a human life. Our emotions are rational to the extent that we care about the real good and are truthful about the facts. The two main kinds of virtues – the virtues of caring and the enkratic virtues – embody different aspects of practical wisdom. On the one side, in compassion, generosity, justice, and sense of duty, we care about and understand our good in its varieties and aspects. On the other side, we know about and know our practical way around ourselves, our shortcomings and the ways they may be mitigated and repaired by use of courage, patience, perseverance, and self-control. The virtues of caring form a coherent ensemble and overall picture of the good, a practical wisdom by which we see our situations in the perspective of a whole life.

A distinction between types of methods (understanding and explanation) that generate different kinds of evidence relevant to the psychiatric assessment is characterised. The distinction is animated with both non-clinical and clinical examples and exercises. Scepticism about the distinction is addressed, and three influential systems of psychiatric knowledge which collapse understanding and explanation in different ways are discussed. The argument is made that the distinction (analogous to the romantic/classic distinction) resurfaces and is compelling. However, another challenge becomes important – holism in psychiatric assessment – which the understanding/explanation distinction leaves in an unsatisfactory state.

This chapter surveys influential ideas about scientific explanation. The idea that scientific explanation is a matter of logical deduction from scientific laws has played an important role both as the basis for positive accounts of scientific explanation and as a target of critical arguments spurring the investigation of alternative views. The chapter reviews some of the reasons in favor holding such a covering-law view of explanation and then turn to some alternatives. The chapter also considers a pragmatically oriented account of the act of explaining. Another alternative focuses on the idea that explanations unify phenomena, showing how seemingly different things are manifestations of a single truth about nature. Several approaches emphasize the way explanations indicate what causes something to happen, whether by reference to a process, a possible manipulation, or a mechanism.

This chapter discusses different types of evidence that conversation analysts use to ground their claims about social action. We begin by reviewing the epistemological perspective of CA, which demands that evidence reflect participants’ orientations; as a critical part of understanding the terms ‘participant orientation’ and ‘relevance,’ here we also discuss two ways in which CA’s position and emphasis on them are commonly misunderstood. The bulk of this chapter then reviews and illustrates a range of types of participant-orientation evidence. We organize our presentation of types of evidence roughly by sequential position vis-à-vis the focal action about which the analyst is making claims, including evidence to be found in: (i) next-turn, (ii) same-turn (e.g., same-TCU self-repair, accounts), (iii) prior turn or sequence, (iv) third turn/position (e.g., repair after next turn, courses of action/activity), (v) fourth turn/position, and (vi) more distal positions. We also discuss other forms of evidence that are not necessarily defined by sequential position, including: (i) third-party conduct, (ii) reported conduct, (iii) deviant cases, and (iv) distributional evidence. We conclude by offering some brief reflections on bringing different types and positions of evidence together toward the construction of an argument.

In Chapter 9, I discuss the next two chapters of the Itinerarium (Chapters 3 and 4), those that correspond to the second pair of the Seraph’s wings, those around the angel’s body. These represent the vision of God we get from looking at the image we find of God “inside” us in our intellectual powers — those made possible by reason alone (such as memory, understanding, and will) and those infused by grace (such as faith, hope, and love). I show why these two chapters are the most complex and difficult in the entire book.

The chapter delves into the question of whether medicine is a science, examining arguments that suggest medicine is not a science due to differing aims, progress criteria, and moral commitments (as proposed by Munson 1981; Pellegrino 1998; Miller and Miller 2014). The chapter counters these arguments by challenging assumptions about science’s aims. Rather than simply increasing knowledge, the chapter defends the "Understanding Thesis" (informed by debates in epistemology and philosophy of science with reference to authors such as Kitcher 2001; 2008; 2011; Kvanvig 2003; Bird 2007; 2019a; 2019b; Douglas 2009; Pritchard 2010; Grimm 2014; Potochnik 2017), which holds that science’s aim is understanding, making the world more transparent. This aim is inherently practical, driven by our interest in manipulating the environment and bolstering our agency, thus making scientific inquiry responsive to promoting human agency and autonomy. As such, science, like medicine, is a moral enterprise, and there is no significant difference in terms of aims, progress criteria, or moral commitments that would disqualify medicine from being considered a science. It concludes by discussing the implications of this for scientists’ responsibilities.

The chapter, informed by the Systematicity and Understanding Theses, discusses how understanding in medicine bolsters human agency. Rejecting the initial pathocentric proposal of medicine’s aim (Pellegrino 2001; McAndrew 2019; Hershenov 2020), it advocates the Autonomy Thesis that argues medicine’s goal is not merely treating disease, but promoting health to enhance autonomy (Christman 2009). It adopts a "positive" notion of health that is more than disease absence (Venkatapuram 2013; Nordenfelt 2017) and establishes its relation with well-being and autonomy. The chapter introduces a pluralistic view of health concept difficulties through the lens of "conceptual engineering" and refutes criticisms suggesting the Autonomy Thesis’s permissiveness. The investigation is confined to "mainstream medicine" (Broadbent 2019, ch. 1) and considers the internal morality of medicine (Brody and Miller 1998; Pellegrino 2001). It strives to define a broad yet rigorous aim of medicine that applies to various branches.

The chapter delves into the specific kind of understanding aimed at in medicine, starting from the Understanding Thesis. Drawing on recent work by Broadbent (2019), debates in the epistemology of understanding (Kvanvig 2009; Grimm 2012; Khalifa 2017), and scholarship on the aims of inquiry, the chapter unpacks what it means to understand something, differentiating types of understanding, and using the history of scurvy to explore understanding a disease in medicine. The hypothesis is that biomedical understanding of a disease requires grasping a mechanistic explanation of the disease. This understanding of causal and constitutive relationships draws on an influential account of causation (Woodward 2003; 2010; 2015) and work on mechanistic explanations in biological sciences and neuroscience (Thagard 2003; 2005; Craver 2007; Nervi 2010; Kaplan and Craver 2011; Darrason 2018). However, it argues that biomedical understanding is necessary but not sufficient for clinical understanding, which combines biomedical understanding of a disease with personal understanding of an illness. This chapter revisits the distinction between "understanding" and "explanation" from debates in the field.

This chapter explores the connections between ethics, the phenomenological (and hermeneutical) traditions, and education. It focuses on the idea of the subject, showing phenomenology’s contrast with the modernist picture of the autonomous subject. The chapter first briefly traces the idea of the subject in phenomenology through four representative figures – Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Levinas – and then sketches their approaches to ethics. Then it pivots to four ethical concepts in philosophy of education in this tradition – understanding, risk, subjectification, and responsibility – by connecting them to phenomenological tradition’s broad conception of the subject. The chapter brings into relief the contribution phenomenology makes to envisioning living well together and human flourishing, and education’s role in fostering ethical subjects that would enact such societies.

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion regarding why an exploration of the concept of equity is so greatly needed in education. By developing a foundational understanding of equity, education leadership can move toward truly effective leadership. Case studies provide a relevant and relatable venue for this growth endeavor through the Case Study Analysis Protocol provided.