Talk:Consequentialism

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Icon philosophy.svg

This Philosophy related article has not received a brainstar for quality. Please consider expanding the article appropriately. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Steelbrain.png

The problem with "actions are transient, consequences are lasting"[edit]

How do we define "lasting"? This has potential for reductio ad absurdum. Ultimately nothing is lasting apart from dissipated elementary particles after the heat death of the universe, and this will happen no matter what we do, so why bother? - LucidFox (talk) 09:28, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Why not bother? Just because nothing "matters over cosmic timescales" is not an argument against taking action. We define what's relevant, and on human timescales results do last a substantial period of time, albeit with the caveat that the metrics we use are inherently subjective. Carthage (talk) 06:02, 4 March 2024 (UTC)