Nidhish Balakrishnan's ToK Blog

 The Veil of Ignorance by John Rawls is one of the most influential philosophical ideas in the past century. It's a method of understanding what builds up a just society from scratch. One thinks that they're building a society from rock bottom, by imagining themselves in the situations before the society existed, which is called the Original Position. The idea is fundamentally looking at the society your present self is trying to build through your pre-society past self or should I say an older perspective, and judging whether it would approve of your actions as just or not.  This process, of course, has a lot of weaknesses because the person and their Original Position would have fixed biases, and there would be a lot of disagreement between two people. However, this is the problem that John Rawls tries to address, and has found a solution for it. He first assumes certain things about people who design their own society. Their Original Positions are assumed to be all equal an...

 History has had its share of both crippling dictatorships and fair democracies, as well as visionary dictatorships and corrupt democracies. Many countries such as Libya and Burkina Faso reached their peak under firm dictator rule, but countries like France and the USA are examples of countries that have reached their peak under democracy. This goes on to say about how a certain country's prosperity depends on the development of the region during the dictatorship or democracy, as well as the leaders themselves.  For example, Burkina Faso and Libya were very underdeveloped during the establishment of the dictatorship, and by the end of it, they were developed enough and started to prosper under a democratic form of government. For example, Thomas Sankara, the first dictator of Burkina Faso led the country to a golden age after leading a coup on the French leader then. However, the deputy of Thomas, Blaise Compaore led a coup against Thomas Sankara and became the second dictator...

 Astronauts and cosmonauts spend a big chunk of their life studying astronomy and undergoing isolation training to take place in outer space expeditions in order to collect planet samples and perform surveys for a decade or more. They might not get to see their children grow up, nor have a chance at a normal life. Yet, for the acquisition of knowledge, they are passionate enough to throw it all away and dedicate their lives to outer space travel. Countries spend billions of money and resources on fuel, rocket blueprints, rocket parts and rocket simulations.  Is the knowledge we acquire really worth it in the end? The answer might be subjective due to the depth of knowledge regarding the subject varying from person to person. An informed opinion would be that it is worth the sacrifices because collecting planet soil and air samples would help scientists judge if it was suitable for migration if Earth was reaching its limit as a planet where humanity can prosper.  However, ...

 This is a topic that has sparked a lot of controversies and has a lot of subjectivity centring on this issue because there are no firmly drawn ethical boundaries regarding arts yet. There truly are some truly provocative arts that deserve taking down, but just because a piece of art infuriates the viewer does not mean it deserves to be removed. There are two parts to every piece of art: the idea and the medium of expressing it. I think the idea can be as provocative as it can be as long as it has a justifiable reason behind it, such as the lack of empathy in today's society or the depiction of gruesome war crimes during a certain time period. However, I believe that the methods and tools in which this knowledge is conveyed are subjected to ethical boundaries. For example, starving a dog in an exhibit and conveying a message through the callousness of the exhibit visitors is strictly UNACCEPTABLE and is very immoral and unethical to do so. On the contrary, expressing a wildly provo...

     The field of biotechnology is a vast and interesting one, especially the research about how our body functions and how they can be altered or replaced. Recently, the idea that human cells can be grown in monkey embryos has come to light. The reasons behind it are actually very commendable and may favour society greatly in the long run, however, ethical concerns still pose a challenge as it involves using another species that is similar to humans for the research.      A human-monkey embryo I understand the general public's opinion on this research as monkeys are very close in relation to humans, and moreover, it's basically growing human cells in a monkey embryo which is quite an unconventional approach by itself. It tiptoes the line that many in the science field consider the ethical boundary of science. However, from a subjective point of view, if it regards the advancement of humankind on Earth, then it is a necessary line to walk over as it will yi...