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> Only humans have moral agency, and therefore, as co-inhabitants of planet Earth with an astounding number of plants and animals, have the unique responsibilit

> Only humans have moral agency, and therefore, as co-inhabitants of planet Earth with an astounding number of plants and animals, have the unique responsibility for conservation. Ancient Greek thinking like this usually leaves me with a sense akin to shock, I think because I'm victim of some darling prejudices of our time: that the quality of human thinking has gradually improved over eons. That the vast number of humans now engaged in thinking on all continents, with marvels of technology at their fingertips would mean we have ready access to unparalleled understanding of the human condition compared to times past. Instead we are like children. We can hardly even understand what those people were talking about. Moral agency? Never heard about it :-/.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
We wish there was something like the Central Limit Theorem for philosophy, but moral philosophy, population ethics, utilitarianism, etc. create all these fraught impossibility theorems or paradoxes, and as technology improves, it’s hard to fault a lot of people for taking an instrumentally rational approach to materialism, and just feeling exhausted by the breadth of what you need to think about and the pedantic effort and risks required to act ethically in all the increasing interfaces with society.
AlexB138 8y ago
I read quite a lot of ancient philosophy and grappled with basically this exact thought. It was a bit painful to feel as though we've intellectually slid backwards. There is a theory that calls that era the Axial Age, which is worth looking up. That era contained some of the greatest thinkers in history: Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius etc. The thing to keep in mind is that there is incredible selection bias at work here. The vast majority of people living then were illiterate and living brutal lives. They didn't know or care about philosophy, much like the majority of people now. Yes, ancient Athens was special in that it had a special focus on thought, but I would still bet that the modern era has a greater percentage of people who are interested in great thought than ever before, and we've had our own thinkers at great heights.
- atmosx 8y ago
  I can't speak about Buddha or Confucius. Greek legacy was build in ~100-150 years, which is more like a flash in human history than an era. I'm talking about 5th century BC specifically. Walking to the streets of the Athenian city state you could come across: - philosophers: Socrates, Isocrates, Protagoras, Parmenides - historians: Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon - authors: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes - scientists(?): Democritus (the atom guy), Phidias (greatest sculptor in Ancient Greece), Hippocrates (father of modern Medicine) - politicians: Pericles and Demosthenes - military minds: Miltiades, Themistocles I think the fact that democracy was established the century before, had a lot to do with this concentration of minds. That said, of course, slavery was a thing, women were more like objects and only a few had voting rights.
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    In which sense Democritus is a scientist? He never emprically observed atoms or used scientific method in any meaningful sense. He was a natural philosopher, and a very crucial figure in his school too. The basic idea is that natural philosophy was heavily challenged by Parmenides who made some really good points about how everything should be one and unitary and thus nothing exists in the sense we see and observe ("everything is an illusion"). Then later philosophers tried to circumvent Parmenides while maintaining some bit of realism and common sense. Democritus is one such philosopher, who tried to agree realism with Parmenides by suggesting that everything may be composed of a single type of objects called atoms and their composition gives us the illusion of "differences" such as color, taste etc and thus everything like feelings, colors, tastes are "by convention" when in reality it is atoms all the way down. This argument is more important in the context of post-Parmenidean Greek Natural Philosophy rather than scientific context. EDIT Fun fact: Democritus -- also known as the founder of materialism -- is highly influential in modern enlightenment too. Most famously, Karl Marx was heavily influenced by his ideas so much so that his Doctoral thesis was on him. If you read Marx's writings chronologically, you'll see that he started his philosophical career as an idealist, and then (possibly with Democritus influence) turned 180 degrees and became a materialist and dedicated his life to argue against idealism.
empath75 8y ago
I don’t think it needs to be stated, but the vast majority of Greeks were not Aristotle. If his way of thinking were common, he would have been considered unremarkable. Take some time and read The Clouds and Plato’s apologia, and think about what happened to Socrates, and think about what that says about how the average person thought about philosophy.
- rgrieselhuber 8y ago
  And that there is active discouragement to even read philosophy / metaphysics among much the mainstream science community.
  - flattone 8y ago
    Should MP be in same lot as philosophy?
    - MattSteelblade 8y ago
      It's a branch of philosophy.
  - timthorn 8y ago
    And yet Science is the "new" name for Natural Philosophy. For example, The Cambridge Philosophical Society (http://cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/ http://cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/) was founded in 1819 'for the purpose of promoting scientific inquiry'.
SuddsMcDuff 8y ago
I think the mistake you're making there is presuming that people like Aristotle are representitive of the average person of their era. That's certainly not the case. Peoples who's names are still remembered and revered thousands of years later are anomalies. The Aristotles of the ancient world represent the best humanity had to offer over a thousand year period. Comparing them to an average person of today is apples to oranges. Instead compare to the most prolific thinkers of the last 1000 years. How does Aristotle stack up against Leonardo Da Vinci or Isaac Newton?
pjmlp 8y ago
Spend some time reading ancient books like the ones from Herodotus and other similar aged ones. It is quite interesting how in some ways ancient societies were already relatively advanced, how we lost some of it thought the centuries and how only in modern societies we are getting some of those 3000 or something old ideas back. Naturally there was other stuff that it is quite good that it was lost in the mist of time.
- sho 8y ago
  I have recently been reading The history of the Peloponnesian war and honestly, if you got rid of the greek names, the ancient weapons and other anachronisms.. it could be easily set in modern society. Our technology has improved. That's pretty much it! We're certainly no more intelligent than our ancient cousins...
Sylos 8y ago
Moral agency simply means that you're capable of making moral judgements. He's basically saying that only humans are smart enough to judge the outcome of their actions as good or bad, and as a result he thinks that we have a responsibility to not do things we deem bad. Which is exactly a notion that's being challenged by modern science. We observe animals from apes to crows that do understand the outcome of their actions. Whether they judge it as good or bad in a grander scheme, we don't know, but that grander scheme is just as well being challenged by nihilism.
- stareatgoats 8y ago
  Yes, I know what moral agency means, I was being facetious, sorry about that. The implied meaning was a jab at a rather common interpretation of the 'modern science' paradigm, which advocates determinism and downplays free will (and hence moral agency). It is one of many stupefying factors of our time.
- danielam 8y ago
  Moral agency entails more than understanding (predicting outcomes is also not sufficient for moral understanding). It also requires that the agent is capable of acting voluntarily. Whether an agent has rights also depends on his (in principle) capacity for moral responsibility. Furthermore, much of what is presented as modern science challenging "classical" views of free will, language and the like is dubious on closer inspection. Libet is a great example.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Do you know how Socrates died? He was put to death for asking hypothetical religious/political/philosophical questions of his students leading to charges of corruption and impiety. On the other hand, true to his philosophy to the end, he had every possibility to escape the city after being convicted and sentenced to death. He instead accepted the judgement of the law and ended his own life with a drink of hemlock. And it's easy to look back at that and imagine how much we have progressed, yet at the same time we still have as much a fear of words as ever. And I imagine there's hardly a person that would respect our system of law so much as to be voluntarily willing to sacrifice their lives as a matter of principle in obedience to such, even when he certainly felt he was being grievously wronged.
- watwut 8y ago
  During wars and revolutions and such, people did sacrificed themselves. People did sacrificed themselves when talking against communism and nazism. People today in critical situations still do that. Hell, Snowden sacrificed a lot and so did other wistleblowers. Not life, but definitely a lot.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    It has very little to do with sacrifice in and of itself. Socrates could have escaped punishment and left Greece very easily had he wanted. And he certainly felt he was in the right and the law was in the wrong which could create a relative justification for doing so. Yet he chose to accept his punishment. There's immense discussion about the reasons for this, but there's no doubt that a major part of it is that he felt the 'social contract' that held society together was sacred. And so he did what he could to improve that society even when it may have run afoul of that society's laws, but also did not aim to avoid its judgement and justice when it came to that, however unjust he might have felt them. Snowden did the exact opposite in seeking to achieve his ends yet also avoid justice at even extreme costs to himself. It's a mindset that we can even hardly imagine in times today, which is precisely what Socrates feared society would turn into.
    - 8y ago

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

We wish there was something like the Central Limit Theorem for philosophy, but moral philosophy, population ethics, utilitarianism, etc. create all these fraught impossibility theorems or paradoxes, and as technology improves, it’s hard to fault a lot of people for taking an instrumentally rational approach to materialism, and just feeling exhausted by the breadth of what you need to think about and the pedantic effort and risks required to act ethically in all the increasing interfaces with society.

AlexB138 8y ago

I read quite a lot of ancient philosophy and grappled with basically this exact thought. It was a bit painful to feel as though we've intellectually slid backwards. There is a theory that calls that era the Axial Age, which is worth looking up. That era contained some of the greatest thinkers in history: Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius etc. The thing to keep in mind is that there is incredible selection bias at work here. The vast majority of people living then were illiterate and living brutal lives. They didn't know or care about philosophy, much like the majority of people now. Yes, ancient Athens was special in that it had a special focus on thought, but I would still bet that the modern era has a greater percentage of people who are interested in great thought than ever before, and we've had our own thinkers at great heights.

atmosx 8y ago
I can't speak about Buddha or Confucius. Greek legacy was build in ~100-150 years, which is more like a flash in human history than an era. I'm talking about 5th century BC specifically. Walking to the streets of the Athenian city state you could come across: - philosophers: Socrates, Isocrates, Protagoras, Parmenides - historians: Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon - authors: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes - scientists(?): Democritus (the atom guy), Phidias (greatest sculptor in Ancient Greece), Hippocrates (father of modern Medicine) - politicians: Pericles and Demosthenes - military minds: Miltiades, Themistocles I think the fact that democracy was established the century before, had a lot to do with this concentration of minds. That said, of course, slavery was a thing, women were more like objects and only a few had voting rights.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  In which sense Democritus is a scientist? He never emprically observed atoms or used scientific method in any meaningful sense. He was a natural philosopher, and a very crucial figure in his school too. The basic idea is that natural philosophy was heavily challenged by Parmenides who made some really good points about how everything should be one and unitary and thus nothing exists in the sense we see and observe ("everything is an illusion"). Then later philosophers tried to circumvent Parmenides while maintaining some bit of realism and common sense. Democritus is one such philosopher, who tried to agree realism with Parmenides by suggesting that everything may be composed of a single type of objects called atoms and their composition gives us the illusion of "differences" such as color, taste etc and thus everything like feelings, colors, tastes are "by convention" when in reality it is atoms all the way down. This argument is more important in the context of post-Parmenidean Greek Natural Philosophy rather than scientific context. EDIT Fun fact: Democritus -- also known as the founder of materialism -- is highly influential in modern enlightenment too. Most famously, Karl Marx was heavily influenced by his ideas so much so that his Doctoral thesis was on him. If you read Marx's writings chronologically, you'll see that he started his philosophical career as an idealist, and then (possibly with Democritus influence) turned 180 degrees and became a materialist and dedicated his life to argue against idealism.

empath75 8y ago

I don’t think it needs to be stated, but the vast majority of Greeks were not Aristotle. If his way of thinking were common, he would have been considered unremarkable. Take some time and read The Clouds and Plato’s apologia, and think about what happened to Socrates, and think about what that says about how the average person thought about philosophy.

rgrieselhuber 8y ago
And that there is active discouragement to even read philosophy / metaphysics among much the mainstream science community.
- flattone 8y ago
  Should MP be in same lot as philosophy?
  - MattSteelblade 8y ago
    It's a branch of philosophy.
- timthorn 8y ago
  And yet Science is the "new" name for Natural Philosophy. For example, The Cambridge Philosophical Society (http://cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/ http://cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/) was founded in 1819 'for the purpose of promoting scientific inquiry'.

SuddsMcDuff 8y ago

I think the mistake you're making there is presuming that people like Aristotle are representitive of the average person of their era. That's certainly not the case. Peoples who's names are still remembered and revered thousands of years later are anomalies. The Aristotles of the ancient world represent the best humanity had to offer over a thousand year period. Comparing them to an average person of today is apples to oranges. Instead compare to the most prolific thinkers of the last 1000 years. How does Aristotle stack up against Leonardo Da Vinci or Isaac Newton?

pjmlp 8y ago

Spend some time reading ancient books like the ones from Herodotus and other similar aged ones. It is quite interesting how in some ways ancient societies were already relatively advanced, how we lost some of it thought the centuries and how only in modern societies we are getting some of those 3000 or something old ideas back. Naturally there was other stuff that it is quite good that it was lost in the mist of time.

sho 8y ago
I have recently been reading The history of the Peloponnesian war and honestly, if you got rid of the greek names, the ancient weapons and other anachronisms.. it could be easily set in modern society. Our technology has improved. That's pretty much it! We're certainly no more intelligent than our ancient cousins...

Sylos 8y ago

Moral agency simply means that you're capable of making moral judgements. He's basically saying that only humans are smart enough to judge the outcome of their actions as good or bad, and as a result he thinks that we have a responsibility to not do things we deem bad. Which is exactly a notion that's being challenged by modern science. We observe animals from apes to crows that do understand the outcome of their actions. Whether they judge it as good or bad in a grander scheme, we don't know, but that grander scheme is just as well being challenged by nihilism.

stareatgoats 8y ago
Yes, I know what moral agency means, I was being facetious, sorry about that. The implied meaning was a jab at a rather common interpretation of the 'modern science' paradigm, which advocates determinism and downplays free will (and hence moral agency). It is one of many stupefying factors of our time.
danielam 8y ago
Moral agency entails more than understanding (predicting outcomes is also not sufficient for moral understanding). It also requires that the agent is capable of acting voluntarily. Whether an agent has rights also depends on his (in principle) capacity for moral responsibility. Furthermore, much of what is presented as modern science challenging "classical" views of free will, language and the like is dubious on closer inspection. Libet is a great example.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

Do you know how Socrates died? He was put to death for asking hypothetical religious/political/philosophical questions of his students leading to charges of corruption and impiety. On the other hand, true to his philosophy to the end, he had every possibility to escape the city after being convicted and sentenced to death. He instead accepted the judgement of the law and ended his own life with a drink of hemlock. And it's easy to look back at that and imagine how much we have progressed, yet at the same time we still have as much a fear of words as ever. And I imagine there's hardly a person that would respect our system of law so much as to be voluntarily willing to sacrifice their lives as a matter of principle in obedience to such, even when he certainly felt he was being grievously wronged.

watwut 8y ago
During wars and revolutions and such, people did sacrificed themselves. People did sacrificed themselves when talking against communism and nazism. People today in critical situations still do that. Hell, Snowden sacrificed a lot and so did other wistleblowers. Not life, but definitely a lot.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  It has very little to do with sacrifice in and of itself. Socrates could have escaped punishment and left Greece very easily had he wanted. And he certainly felt he was in the right and the law was in the wrong which could create a relative justification for doing so. Yet he chose to accept his punishment. There's immense discussion about the reasons for this, but there's no doubt that a major part of it is that he felt the 'social contract' that held society together was sacred. And so he did what he could to improve that society even when it may have run afoul of that society's laws, but also did not aim to avoid its judgement and justice when it came to that, however unjust he might have felt them. Snowden did the exact opposite in seeking to achieve his ends yet also avoid justice at even extreme costs to himself. It's a mindset that we can even hardly imagine in times today, which is precisely what Socrates feared society would turn into.
  - 8y ago