About us
We are a free & open group dedicated to exploring issues common to all humanity. We meet almost every other Sunday between 5pm- 7p.m. at a cafe in Publika, Kuala Lumpur. We encourage everyone to join in the discussion, but there's no compulsion to do so.
This is a discussion not a lecture nor debate and you don't need to be a Ph.D holder.
The owners of the cafe have allowed us to use their premises without charging so we urge you to return this generosity by buying at least a drink.
Interested in hosting a meet up? We strongly recommend attending at least 2 meet ups consecutively, so that you know what to expect and also have a good feel for moderating.
Once you’ve done that, send us a message on MeetUp.com with a short write up on the topic you’d like to moderate. This write up must have:
> 1. A title; which lets members know generally what to expect from the discussion.
> 2. A description, which may be in the form statements or questions, we find that crisp bullet points are best.
Try to cover multiple angles and hidden questions in the topic; ideally about 3 different ones. Remember that 2 hours is a pretty long time, thinking about the many dimensions within topic will definitely help drive the discussion.
Once you’ve sent us the write up, give us about a week to get back to you, and if it meets those minimum requirements listed above, we’ll try our best to schedule your topic in the next couple of months.
Upcoming events
1
Can You Do the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason?
Top G Coffee & Cafe, Lot 05, Level G4, Block D5, Publika Shopping Galery, Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur, MYA man pays for a new wing of a hospital. It gets built. People are treated there who otherwise would not have been. Then you find out he did it on his lawyer’s advice, to soften his image ahead of a court case.
Something shifts. But the wing is still standing. The patients are still treated. Nothing about the world has changed — only what we know about why he did it.
We do this constantly. A friend visits you in hospital and you are glad; then they mention they felt they had to, and the visit changes character. A colleague covers for you and you find yourself wondering what they want. We keep asking why, long after we have settled what.
And yet we insist on the opposite too. Someone with the purest intentions who ruins everything has not done a good thing. Good motives do not feed anyone.
When we say an action was right, what are we actually pointing at — what it brought about, the principle behind it, or the person it came from?
Most of the time these three travel together. The good person acts on decent principles and things turn out well. You only notice they are three separate things when they split.Three ways in
Outcomes (consequentialism) — Is the action right because of what it brings about?
The wing is good because of what the wing does. Suffering reduced is suffering reduced, whatever was going on in the donor’s head.
Principles (deontology, or duty ethics) — Is it right because it honours a rule or a duty?
Some things are owed regardless of what they produce. You keep the promise because it is a promise. On this view the donor may have landed on the correct behaviour without having done anything moral at all.
Character (virtue ethics) — Is it right because it expresses what a good person is like?
Generosity is a settled disposition, not a transaction. A calculated gift is not stinginess — but it is not generosity either.
You do not need to know anything about these traditions to take part. What matters is what happens when they collide.Questions we may explore
- The donor builds the wing to protect his reputation. Two questions, and you may find you answer them differently: was what he did a good thing to do, and was he being generous? If those come apart, what is the gap between them?
- Two people drive home equally carelessly. A child runs into the road in front of one of them. Are they equally at fault? If not, why should chance decide how much blame a person deserves?
- Would you rather live in a town where everyone behaves well out of self-interest, or a town where people genuinely care about each other but often get things wrong?
- Imagine a pill that makes you always act well, and removes any pull you ever felt toward acting badly. Would taking it make you a better person — or does being good require that doing wrong was actually possible for you?
- Suppose two people agree on every fact about a situation and still disagree about which of the three matters most. Is there any way to settle that, or is it simply a difference in temperament? And if the three usually recommend the same action anyway, does the disagreement matter?
- If we designed a school, a workplace, or a legal system around one of these — outcomes, principles, or character — what would each look like? What would each one miss?
- Can a good person do a bad thing?
- How many times before you change your view of this good person?
Reading
Three short pieces, about 1,000 words each, free:- Consequentialism and Utilitarianism — judging actions by their results.
- Kantian Deontology: Immanuel Kant’s Ethics — judging actions by the principle behind them.
- Virtue Ethics — judging by character rather than by acts or rules.
If you want to go further:
- Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”: Would You Walk Away? — a city’s happiness resting on one child’s suffering.
- Justice, with Michael Sandel (Harvard) — free lecture videos
28 attendees
Past events
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