Ghee and Ethics

September 2, 2024
By Aathreya Kadambi

Here’s some music you can listen to while reading if you’re logged into Spotify:

Today I actually made a real amount of food, compared to just peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches and other snacks I’d been making prior. I also got to use some ghee from home, which tasted pretty good. Low key from the picture it looks a little too glossy in the photo in the sense that there’s an uncanny amount of light/highlight clipping, but that’s just me taking a mid photo. Trust me, it tasted good. 😉

I’ve also been reading a lot more concrete philosophy stuff. Check these videos out:

• A Video on Objective and Subjective Morality by Red Pen Logic
• Is There an Objective Morality? by The Institute of Art and Ideas
• Some Arguments and Counterarguments about Objective Morality by Jeffery Kaplan
• An interesting argument against objective morality that reaches self-contradiction by Jeffery Kaplan
• Utilitarian theory of punishment by Jeffery Kaplan

To be honest, before I watched the Red Pen Logic video, I probably would have made the same mistake in the definitions as the person in the video. The video by the Institute of Art and Ideas was also very interesting, it gave me some ideas that I hadn’t thought about before. And Jeffery Kaplan’s videos were also very insightful. I thought the self-contradicting argument against objective morality was especially interesting.

For now, I think I like objective (but situational) morality better, because the definitions of subjective reality I have seen are a bit shaky on how to define the length of time of discussion it takes for something to have no right answer. I think the question is very deep rooted and important though. For one, it’s important in understanding whether all issues have good solutions. If for some things there just isn’t a good right or wrong answer and someone of a certain opinion will never be swayed, are they worth fighting over? And what is the “best” way to live life, or at least one of the best ways, if such best ways exist? This question about philosophy might also underly the fundamental differences between art and science, where art tends to embrace the idea of a subjective reality based on subjective experiences, whereas scientists prefer objective methods and the scientific method. Although, that is somewhat of a generalization, and I think the best artists and scientists should (and do) take inspiration from both philosophies to stay sane haha.

I’m still thinking about utilitarianism and whether or not it really is a good philosophy to have. My gut instinct is that it isn’t really “fair”, but I’ll definitely have to think about it more and maybe make a blog post eventually. Recently I’ve found myself questioning whether fairness is even a real thing worth pursuing, which sounds to me like a horrible thing to say, but I think it’s a good question to ask because if there is an answer, it could guide us towards a better world.