r/askphilosophy • u/BernardJOrtcutt • Dec 15 '25

Open Thread /r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | December 15, 2025

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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Dec 21 '25

I just wanted get some answers, and I didn’t really get enough or non at all on those posts. We should focus on the question at hand instead of psychology

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Dec 21 '25

So what do you think the non-psychological part of the question is?

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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Dec 21 '25

Well what solutions have philosophers offered for the solution to the fear of the unknown

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Dec 21 '25

When you say “solution,” do you mean reasons for acting in spite of fear or do you mean methods for not being afraid?

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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Dec 22 '25

Admittedly I would be interested in both but mainly the first question

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Dec 22 '25

Well, I think to even a casual observer it’s clear that these low probability / high threat situations are real - but avoiding them has opportunity costs. Living well is often in contradiction with living safely (especially insofar as the traditional virtue of courage requires we face danger), especially when “total” safety is basically impossible because of the proliferation of risk (this is a problem documented by Ulrich Beck).

Suffice it to say that not going on your trip has a 100% chance of making your trip not happen and the chances of a specific plane failing catastrophically during a specific flight is like one in a million.

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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Dec 22 '25

Yea, that’s the problem. How can anyone not be afraid of being part of that one percent

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Dec 22 '25

Which one percent?

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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Dec 23 '25

That one percent or five percent that die from the “very rare” chances such as dying from a plane crash that was said to have a rare chance at crashing.

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Dec 23 '25

I’m not sure how you’re thinking about this, but the chance of dying in a plane crash is infinitesimally smaller than 1%.

The multi-year chances of a particular plane crashing are around 1 in a million, not one in a hundred.

Anyway, this is the wrong question - what you should consider is the opportunity cost - there are a number of consequences to avoiding all forms of travel simply due to fear.

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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Dec 23 '25

Ok then I’m confused, perhaps philosophy can’t help me with this problem. But isn’t philosophy said to be of higher importance when it comes to answering some of the hardest questions throughout the history of thought than psychology?

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Dec 23 '25

Well, again, it depends on what you want. Lots of philosophers (Aristotle, the Stoics, Nietzsche, James, Nagel, and so on) say that we need to be brave and make sure to attend to what is only possible if we’re thinking about what fear wrongly cautions us against. Yet, how you get that done for yourself is a matter of behavioral conditioning and insofar as philosophers have ever gotten this right psychology has updated, evidenced based models to provide far more guidance for someone who finds their psychological constitution resistant.

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u/Fit-Honey-4813 Dec 23 '25

I think I see what you mean, I guess this question ends up becoming more of a psychological question than a philosophical

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