Tag: ethics

Zuihitsu, 2025-12

~ cafebedouin ~ Leave a comment

These aren’t polished essays or tidy aphorisms. They’re scraps I’ve carried around this month—half-heard thoughts, borrowed lines, sudden recognitions—that refused to be forgotten. Zuihitsu literally means “following the brush,” and while my version is shorter and scrappier than the classical form, the impulse feels the same: to catch what drifts across the mind before it … Continue reading Zuihitsu, 2025-12

Evil: Between Circumstance and Disposition

~ cafebedouin

https://twitter.com/DiabolicalSpuds/status/1970837235907035151 Evil: Between Circumstance and Disposition The claim that "evil does not exist" offers seductive comfort in our contemporary moment. It suggests that all human harm can be explained away through trauma, ideology, or circumstance—that beneath every atrocity lies a victim of forces beyond their control. Yet this denial, however psychologically appealing, fails to account … Continue reading Evil: Between Circumstance and Disposition

The Ryder Review: Independent Legal Review of the Governance of Biometric Data in England and Wales

~ cafebedouin

"First, strong law and regulation is sometimes characterised as hindering advancements in the practical use of biometric data. This should not be the case. In practice a clear regulatory framework enables those who work with biometric data to be confident of the ethical and legal lines within which they must operate. They are freed from … Continue reading The Ryder Review: Independent Legal Review of the Governance of Biometric Data in England and Wales

L.M. Sacasas’s The Questions Concerning Technology

~ cafebedouin ~ 3 Comments

If you find the list below interesting, you could always subscribe to his newsletter, and as with all Substack newsletters, it can be turned into an RSS feed by adding /feed to the main url, like so: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/feed. Don't know what RSS is? There's a post for that. h/t to Alan Jacobs for the reminder. … Continue reading L.M. Sacasas’s The Questions Concerning Technology

On Being Evil

~ cafebedouin

Are you a good person? If you ask most people this question, they'll answer, "Yes." Of course they are. They might think to themselves, "I'm not a monster. I'm not like X." Pick your monster, let X equal Hitler for illustration purposes here. But, what's the threshold for good? Does the same thinking apply in … Continue reading On Being Evil

Safety or Stalker App?

~ cafebedouin ~ 2 Comments

"...Life360, a location-sharing app aimed at families, is apparently ruining the lives of teenagers all across the United States...Parents can now remotely check their child’s browsing histories and social media accounts, watch their movements via motion-sensing cameras, and track everywhere they go with location-sharing apps. In a Pew Research Center study last year, 58 percent … Continue reading Safety or Stalker App?

The Impossibility of Comparative Consequences

~ cafebedouin

A calculus of comparative consequences is impossible. Every effort to develop one is a process of rationalizing bias. Consequentialism assumes, based on experience or thought experiments, that it can assess the consequences of a particular act. This position implies that one act causes consequences. These consequences can be evaluated, reduced to some kind of common … Continue reading The Impossibility of Comparative Consequences

Varieties of Good

~ cafebedouin

Ethics is talked about having three flavors: consequentialism, deontological and virtue ethics. One way of thinking about it is that consequentialism is relative value. Deontological ethics is value according to an objective standard. Virtue ethics is inherent value.