Mr. Truman’s Degree
E286751
"Mr. Truman’s Degree" is a famous 1958 essay by philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe that forcefully criticizes President Harry Truman’s decision to use atomic bombs in World War II and challenges the moral reasoning behind such acts.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Mr. Truman’s Degree canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2653312 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mr. Truman’s Degree Context triple: [Elizabeth Anscombe, notableWork, Mr. Truman’s Degree]
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A.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is the formal spoken address traditionally used for the sitting President of the United States.
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B.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is the formal style of address used for the head of state of Romania.
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C.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is the formal style of address used for the presiding officer of the Massachusetts Senate.
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D.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is a formal style of address used for the President of Ecuador.
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E.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is the formal style of address used for the head of state of the Russian Federation.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mr. Truman’s Degree Target entity description: "Mr. Truman’s Degree" is a famous 1958 essay by philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe that forcefully criticizes President Harry Truman’s decision to use atomic bombs in World War II and challenges the moral reasoning behind such acts.
-
A.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is the formal spoken address traditionally used for the sitting President of the United States.
-
B.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is the formal style of address used for the head of state of Romania.
-
C.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is the formal style of address used for the presiding officer of the Massachusetts Senate.
-
D.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is the formal style of address used for the head of state of the Russian Federation.
-
E.
Mr. President
"Mr. President" is a formal style of address used for the President of Ecuador.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (32)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
philosophical essay
ⓘ
work of moral philosophy ⓘ |
| arguesAgainst | the idea that good consequences can justify intrinsically evil acts ⓘ |
| arguesThat |
deliberate killing of the innocent is always morally wrong
ⓘ
political leaders can commit grave moral wrongs even when acting for perceived greater goods ⓘ |
| author | Elizabeth Anscombe ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| criticizes |
Harry S. Truman
ⓘ
linked to:
President Harry S. Truman
consequentialist moral reasoning ⓘ use of atomic bombs in World War II ⓘ |
| criticizesView | that Truman’s decision was morally justified by ending the war more quickly ⓘ |
| field |
applied ethics
ⓘ
moral philosophy ⓘ political philosophy ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
intention and moral action
ⓘ
limits of political authority ⓘ moral absolutes ⓘ permissibility of killing innocents ⓘ |
| influenced |
Catholic discussions of just war and nuclear weapons
ⓘ
later discussions of nuclear deterrence ethics ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
ⓘ
ethics ⓘ just war theory ⓘ moral responsibility of political leaders ⓘ |
| notableFor |
early systematic philosophical critique of the atomic bombings
ⓘ
influence on contemporary debates about just war and nuclear ethics ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition |
Catholic moral theology
ⓘ
analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1958 ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
Intention (Anscombe)
ⓘ
Modern Moral Philosophy ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Mr. Truman’s Degree Description of subject: "Mr. Truman’s Degree" is a famous 1958 essay by philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe that forcefully criticizes President Harry Truman’s decision to use atomic bombs in World War II and challenges the moral reasoning behind such acts.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.