You'd Save a Drowning Child

You're walking past a pond and see a child drowning. You might ruin your shoes if you wade into the pond, but that doesn't matter. Of course you're going to save the child's life.

A child is dying somewhere far away, and saving her life costs you about what the shoes cost. For most, this is less obvious.

Bring an answer for that. Your guide will spend the next twenty minutes pressing on it.

You don't need to have read any philosophy. You need to be willing to say what you actually think and find out whether it holds.

Sometimes your guide takes the other side

Most discussion classes give you a facilitator who stays neutral and asks how that makes you feel. That's a fine way to run a conversation and a bad way to test an idea.

So some weeks your guide holds a position, often an actual philosopher's: Kant refusing to lie even to a murderer at the door, Rawls asking what rules you'd write if you didn't know who you'd turn out to be. You get a real argument to push against.

Other weeks the room doesn't need it. When a squad is already taking a question apart on its own, The guide will just jump in to the conversation.

How sessions run

You create the session! Bring a dilemma you can't stop thinking about and we'll run it. Decide the group wants three more weeks on free will and that's what happens.

Some weeks are one question for a full hour. Some are a few small related dilemmas, arranged so each one ruins the rule you just made. Some run for a month. This is up to each squad to decide.

What you might talk about

• If a machine copied your mind perfectly and destroyed the original, would the copy be you?
• A whole city's happiness depends on one child suffering alone in a basement. Do you stay?
• Is it stealing to take medicine you can't afford to save your wife? Is there morally acceptable crime?
• Does anyone deserve anything, if nobody chose their own brain?

What you'll learn

Verbal confidence. Speaking up, staying with a thought under pressure, and knowing when to stop talking and listen.

Socratic questioning Finding the question that opens a stuck conversation, which is harder than having an answer ready.

Argument construction Building a case that survives a serious objection, and finding the weak joint in someone else's.

Perspective-taking Understanding a position well enough to state it fairly, including ones you don't hold.

Intellectual humility Telling the difference between caving and being shown something better, and disagreeing hard with someone you still like at the end.

Philosophy foundations Justice, identity, freedom, obligation, and the thinkers who got there first.

Who it's for

• Curious thinkers who like a real conversation
• Anyone who has ever kept turning a question over hours after everyone else moved on

A note on worldview and discussion guidelines

These squads are a space for exploring big questions, not for prescribing answers. All worldviews are welcome and no single perspective is promoted. When your guide argues a position, it is always as a position: a guide defending Kant one week may defend the opposite the next, and the purpose is to give students something solid to push against, never to move them toward a conclusion.

Guides stay neutral on outcomes, make sure no one dominates the conversation, and encourage perspective-taking from all sides. Parents are always welcome to reach out with questions or concerns, and a summary of the main points of each discussion is shared at the end of every session.

What you'll need

• A mic and camera, camera on every session
• Willingness to say what you think out loud

Important Note Cohort names describe who's currently in each squad, not who can join. We list it so you know what you're walking into, not to keep anyone out