Philosophy

A consequentialist refers to anyone who says the ends justify the means. This might be something innocent, such as lying to a child about them being adopted in order to psychologically protect them, or it could refer to something darker, such as believing in Stalin's old idea that "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs".

Looking back, we all know those people in life who use an identity to get out of something. Again, it might be innocent, such as people in wartime pretending to be Amish so they can say it's discriminatory for you to draft them in a war they might be killed in, or it might be something less based in courtesy, such as people pretending to be a certain medical condition so they can eat something else during school lunch.

I never see anyone talk about this, but I look at consequentialism and see it as the ultimate form of this. "I did steal from the rich" they might say, "but I did it to give to the poor" (or alternatively "to feed my family"). Or they might say a death can be praised for the sole reason that it was the fastest way to achieve a certain societal outcome. Even if people were consistent about this, it would be one thing, but somehow saying something like "I'm going to apply this to religion and live Amish from now on to get out of all future war" raises a few eyebrows in our society that frowns upon things like religion both inside and outside the context of consequentialism. There are a number of things you can't excuse with "but it was for a good outcome that outweighs the outcome of if I hadn't done it", though it definitely can be used that way, which is the issue.

Why is one (consequentialism) considered acceptable while the other (being something to get out of something) not acceptable?

[The philosopher Martin] Heidegger feared that under the dominance of technology, humanity might lose its capacity to relate to “being itself”. This “forgetting of being” is not merely an intellectual error but an existential poverty.

Today, it can be seen as the loss of depth — the eclipse of boredom, the erosion of interiority, the disappearance of silence. Where there is no boredom, there can be no reflection. Where there is no pause, there can be no real choice.

Heidegger’s “forgetting of being” now manifests as the loss of boredom itself. What we forfeit is the capacity for sustained reflection.

I'd like to learn about taoism, the teachings and their historical context.

Does anyone perhaps have a good suggestion for english language works on the subject?

Sietske A.L. van Till and Eline M. Bunnik (2024) have recently expressed a concern about science miscommunication regarding human brain organoids. They worry that the mereological fallacy is often being committed when the possibility of brain organoid psychological capacities such as consciousness and intelligence are considered, especially by bioethicists discussing the moral status of human brain organoids. Focusing specifically on one psychological capacity, namely consciousness, this article begins with a brief introduction to van Till and Bunnik’s concern about the mereological fallacy as it relates to brain organoids. It is then shown that whether the mereological fallacy is being committed depends on commitments in philosophy of mind about how consciousness relates to the brain and its neural mechanisms. This is demonstrated by appealing to two different example views about the ontology of consciousness embraced by J.J.C. Smart’s type identity theory and a version of hylomorphism. The article ends with a discussion of how neurobiological theories of consciousness can be intertwined with ontological commitments about consciousness that have significant implications for HBOs. An awareness of this can yield a philosophically informed application of neurobiological theories to the topic of whether HBOs could be conscious.