Did your chair ask if you’d ever skimmed the “Nicomachean Ethics” before hiring you? Do your patients agonize over whether you’ve pored over Kant’s moral treatises the night before surgery? Probably not. For many, qualities like dependability and technical aptitude are far more critical than intangible ones like philosophical acumen. The remote ponderings of long-dead men from millennia past — about odd concepts like virtue, the forms, and the soul (whatever that might’ve meant to an Ancient Greek) — resonate dissonantly against the real-world concerns of medical innovation, health care access, and public health crises unfolding everywhere and every day. In short: Who cares?
I happen to be wrapping up a PhD in philosophy before resuming my medical studies. While I relished in puzzling out the cryptic musings of canonized writers and crafting my own novice (though abstruse) papers, I initially saw little practical value in introducing the topics I pondered in graduate school to my medical colleagues. Only recently have I realized that this reticence stemmed from the latent revelation that philosophy probably keeps its fruits from those uninterested in climbing the tree. That is, we need to care about philosophy to get anything from it. The question of whether we should care about philosophy depends on whether that “anything” is worthwhile. I offer three reflections from my experience battling with de Beauvoir and Rousseau, and everything in between. Through these reflections, I hope to convince you that we should care about philosophy — and yes, even Aristotle.
Philosophy Helps You Reason Better Under Uncertainty
Let’s face it: “A free will and a will under moral law are one and the same, and if freedom of the will is presupposed, morality together with its principle follows by mere analysis of its concepts,” from Kant’s “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morality,” makes no sense on a first read (and maybe not on a fourth either). A core aspect of philosophy is wrestling with the unknown until it becomes known. Desensitizing yourself to uncertainty through the safe space of philosophy, where there’s no penalty for ignorance, is a great way to resist the knee-jerk reaction to be the near-omniscient authority we feel pressured to be in clinical spaces. Being a clinician means continually integrating a growing body of new evidence and uncertainty into life-or-death decisions. But the ability to learn new things hinges on being open to accepting that there are new things to learn, even when this admission makes us feel vulnerable. Nothing hammers that in quite like trying to understand what Hegel means by “dialectics.”
Philosophy Teaches You How to Articulate Yourself More Clearly
If you can explain to a 5-year-old how Mill defends the principle of utility, you likely have what it takes to help a patient understand the risks and benefits of Treatment A compared to those of Treatment B. The essay is a powerful pedagogical tool, though it’s a lengthier formula than the traditional “see one, do one, teach one.” After all, the heart of philosophy isn’t in passively absorbing what other people think about the world but in finding your way toward what you think about the world. Tracing your reasoning through an argument as to why the mind and brain are (not) distinct is an exercise that can prepare you to express your reasoning for why you want to prescribe a particular experimental drug, why you’re recommending against a conventional surgery, and so on and so forth. This skill works overtime when it comes to collaborating with colleagues. Carefully and charitably considering the viewpoints of others can help you reevaluate or fortify your own. In clinical settings, this can be the difference between effectively synthesizing the professional opinions of peers in the best interest of your patients and failing to grasp what others are communicating, leading to misjudgments, overlooked alternatives, or a breakdown in teamwork that could compromise patient care.
Philosophy Can Show You What Matters
Medical distrust, conspiracy theories, and distributive justice are all contemporary topics with philosophical roots. Consider your patient who vehemently denies a vaccine because he “doubts everything.” Wittgenstein’s reflections on skepticism can show how this kind of doubting is self-defeating and may stem from a deeper misunderstanding of how shared meaning is constructed within a community. Philosophers, as obscure as they may seem, share a common passion for what really matters in life: love, belief, and reality, among other things. Absorbing the works of those who dedicated their lives to making sense of even a sliver of the greatest mysteries can slowly reveal the big picture. How can I treat others well? What’s the purpose of my life? When is the right time to die? Questions like these have enthralled philosophers for millennia and are integral to the practice of medicine, especially in the face of a growing and aging population inundated with new and disorienting technologies. We have nothing to lose by giving them at least some of our attention.
In other words, it couldn’t hurt to pick up that dusty copy of the “Nicomachean Ethics” from college. It might not refine your intubation skills or tell you which new drug to prescribe. But in medicine today, the ability to think clearly, communicate precisely, and understand what truly matters might be just as important as any technical skill. And for that, a little Aristotle could go a long way.
What disciplines, like philosophy, outside of medicine have informed how you practice? Share in the comments!
Rajeev Dutta is an MD/PhD student in philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, with a passion for all things mind and brain. He spends his free time reading old fiction, losing at chess, and playing piano poorly.
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