6 ms·

Lucretius saw no boundary between scientific interests and ethical claims

45 points by Hooke 7y ago

pvg 7y ago
Title works curiously well for Locutus (of Borg) as well.
mgamache 7y ago
I don't believe that "we can’t get ought from is". This is because there is a connection between what is and the 'ought' actor (namely humans and the laws of the universe). That connection and the most basic reality of being human are enough to get a sense of ought from is. I know this goes against traditional philosophical thought. If you mean some type of ought that would be true after humans are extinct then sure, but it's almost a non-sense question (morality in the absence or human existence). Of course, no one acts as if we can't get ought from is (even if they disagree about the ought in many specific instances).
- UnFleshedOne 7y ago
  Exactly, human desires, morals and all other sources of 'ought' are ultimately influenced by the way humans 'are'. So if you took in account whole evolutionary history, the way it influenced culture, the way culture developed itself based on that and other external influences (all 'is' questions), you would eventually arrive at human moral framework and that would let you generate 'ought' statements. Basically what we as humans do every day.
  - perfmode 7y ago
    How do you know one would eventually?
    - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
      Good question. There is no reason to think otherwise at the moment and research in physics, biology, neuroscience, psychology and sociology kinda points that way? And I know that as well as I know anything I'm not an expert in -- from my own cursory review and stated opinions of people who are experts (again, as far as I know). In other words, it would be surprising otherwise? Our morals/desires depend on the way we are built and they dictate the 'oughts', thus providing a link from 'is'. And of course it is possible that we can never have enough information to decompile our own values because it is lost in compression, so we'll be stuck with dealing with a black box. But this is a technical limitation, not a philosophical one, and for a simpler system (for example a AGI if one can be built understandably) we would be able to derive its 'oughts' from what it 'is'.
      - perfmode 7y ago
        Your prediction without proof is about as bankable as a prediction without proof of P == NP or P != NP. Just because something is intuitive doesn’t make it true.
  - CM30 7y ago
    So if psychopaths were 100% of the population, and empathy didn't exist at all, would that make most morals null and void? I think most would agree that a useful moral code shouldn't entirely be relativistic, and that an entire society can be in the wrong even if everyone in it considers their actions just.
    - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
      A species of sentient hermit crabs would have entirely different moral intuitions from a species of sentient apes. Take this [0] as fictional evidence. :) Empathy doesn't have much to do with morals, it is closer to a mechanism of knowing what the other entity feels. This is useful in antagonistic scenarios as well as in cooperative ones. What you use it for is entirely up to you (and your built-in morals). I agree that entire society can be wrong, even if all other societies of a given species share that opinion at the time. Where relativism would come in is where there is a major difference in mind architecture. [0] - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worl...
    - TomMckenny 7y ago
      Exactly so: most existent people (myself included) would still insist the current "oughts" still apply in a universe of psychopaths. The question is why. Given that we can not directly observe or measure ought-ness, there must be some psychological feature that evolved to created the idea in us. Further more, that feature is critically necessary for us, often more than life itself. We also know it breaks down in hypotheticals. In that example about a world of psychopaths, most would agree right and wrong remain constant. But a different hypothetical, where god and sacred texts say the exact opposite of what they do, we would not see as many people saying their god would now be wrong. Furthermore, we do know somethings about "ought" like that it is not entirely relative, remains constant across world changes and, is vital to pursue. But we don't know were it comes from and why it varies slightly among cultures. So while we know right from wrong and that such distinctions are vital, we don't know how we know this. It might be that what I am describing is not quite what is meant by "ought". But there are other vital "self evident" concepts that needed adjustment to their definitions yet those adjustments neither destroy the entire concept nor even make any practical difference. Time, for example, is not quite what people intuit and heat seems self evidently entirely different than light yet is not. Yet those facts make no difference in every day life. I expect a better understanding of the origin of ethics will follow that pattern.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  > That connection and the most basic reality of being human are enough to get a sense of ought from is. but how? I think you might not appreciate how vexing the is/ought question is. murder is something that almost everyone agrees is wrong. most people couldn't exactly articulate why they think this, but I suspect the reason is that obviously causes ripples of pain, distress, and instability through a community. we may even be biologically conditioned against murdering our own kind. so clearly, if one wants to remain part of society, not cause unnecessary harm, and not experience guilt, one ought not commit the act of murder. but this is still not a universal moral claim; it depends on the desires of the agent. you are conflating practicality with the philosophical notion of truth. these philosophers are not interested in "a sense of ought"; they are looking for a rigorous method of constructing "ought" from what "is". that is the problem.
  - YjSe2GMQ 7y ago
    > but how? I think it's quite simple - subjective experience. Under the assumption that others experience things (much like you do) you can just ask or infer what would they prefer, and what would cause pain. You can be wrong about what would they prefer (and they can be wrong), but it doesn't mean there's no coherent morality hiding under such mistakes. And I don't think that it's much to assume. I think it's no more that the general assumption that "causes have effects", or that there are any invariants we can attribute to the universe (like laws of physics). Note that this notion of morality extends beyond humans - for example to animals and potentially AI systems.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      I don't want to cause the subjective experience of pain, and I assume you don't want to either. the fact that we want to avoid pain, even the fact that (possibly) we have evolved to want to avoid harming fellow humans (and possibly other sentient beings) is a statement of what "is". unless you are willing to reduce morality to mere pragmatism, it is not at all clear how you get to an "ought" from these facts. I'm not saying this is some huge conundrum that we need to solve before we decide to go get breakfast without killing everyone we see along the way, but the problem as stated is a hard one.
tbirrell 7y ago
Okay, but did Memmius end up building over the school or not?
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  Good question. This site seems to suggest that the answer is unknown, as is the location of the Garden! http://wiki.epicurism.info/Epicurus%27_Garden/ http://wiki.epicurism.info/Epicurus%27_Garden/
bambax 7y ago
> Lucretius’s poem, dedicated to Memmius, was an attempt to convince the boorish Roman that he was obliterating a site of importance. [Citation needed!!!] This is so contrary to everything that we know about Memmius, Lucretius, and the place of poets in Ancient Rome that if you want to argue along those lines you'd need an extensive bibliography. In Rome, "poets" were craftsmen, not "authors" in the modern sense of the term. They worked for hire. Memmius, who was an extremely important man from one of the most famous families, placed an order for an epic poem to Lucretius, in order to appear more gracious and to advance his political career. Lucretius was happy to oblige. To think that Lucretius wrote this poem on his own accord and then dedicated it to Memmius in order to lecture him about his behavior is ludicrous.
- chmod775 7y ago
  > In Rome, "poets" were craftsmen, not "authors" in the modern sense of the term. They worked for hire. Memmius, who was an extremely important man from one of the most famous families, placed an order for an epic poem to Lucretius, in order to appear more gracious and to advance his political career. I wonder if we'd go back to mostly having this if copyright as we know it went away and no alternative way of paying artists (think Patreon-like platforms, governmental support, or unconditional basic income) existed. For example EVE Online has plenty of poets-for-hire and I sometimes pay one to write me a poem commemorating the loss of one of my ships. Makes you feel better about your loss and also looks good in your character bio... There's obviously still "contract" work being done by artists in the real world today as well, though probably proportionally less so. With US artists often signing away the rights to their works completely to their labels and publishers, which is technically the same, we're not even too far off I'd think. But this is not possible in some other legal systems. How "creative" were ancient cultures, where probably only the well-off or people with patrons/customers could spend meaningful time on art, in comparison to today's culture?
  - dTal 7y ago
    The EVE Online poets-for-hire thing is absolutely fascinating. If something that tangential to gameplay arises organically... it makes me think that MMORPGs are an underrated technology for test driving social and government structures. Maybe we should have a sim-world that models our actual world as closely as possible, so that we can test-drive things like Basic Income in it.
michannne 7y ago
>He presents the splendid argument that, if it had a boundary, then all the falling atoms would collect at the bottom. From this, it is clear that Lucretius respected the intuitive idea that there are absolute directions of up and down. By itself, this makes a globular Earth unfeasible because, unless perched right on the top, we’d slip off the sides. I disagree with the author's point here. It seems to me Lucretius uses a bounded object as an example for his claim that the universe must be unbounded. A bounded object inherently has ups and downs, there is no mention on which direction either correspond to. What other phrasing could he have used? A lot of what the author states actually seem to be grasps at straws.
- woodandsteel 7y ago
  Have you read Lucretius? If not, then you are not really in a position to make a claim as to what he was really thinking.
  - michannne 7y ago
    Any reason as to why you'd single me out? I have read On the Nature of Things but what would make you question if I have? We can all contribute opinions, just as the author cannot read Lucretius' mind as to why he would choose to write the way he did
    - woodandsteel 7y ago
      In that case my comment was off target. I made it because you didn't state you had read the piece, but I guess I shouldn't have assumed that. I have not read Lucretius, but I assumed the author was correct because his overall views fit well with what I do know about the history of metaphysics. But perhaps he is mistaken in this particular case.
woodandsteel 7y ago
I think this is an excellent article, very informative.
henriquemaia 7y ago
For the record: I'm currently researching on Lucretius as a part of my MA in Philosophy. This article starts from an assumption on Lucretius intentions that is weird for anyone familiar with the author. The thing is: we actually know way too little about Lucretius to try to make any 'learned' guesses. However, I got the opposite impression reading the article. If that's the starting point of the author's argument, that somewhat taints its point. Fun fact: all we know about Lucretius is a conjecture. There are so many holes in who he was, how he lived, why he wrote, etc, that some researchers simply go off-script and invent whole biographies for Lucretius [1]. There is even those who go even further and simply state that Lucretius didn't even exist — he was a pseudonym for another author, Titus Pomponius Atticus, a friend of Cicero [2]. Others think that Lucretius' poem was edited by Cicero himself [3]. Others that the poem was tampered by the renaissance humanists [4], trying to make it more coherent and complete. The point is: no one really knows. So, when I read/hear someone stating very confidently that Lucretius did this or that, that he was this or that person living this or that life, my alarm bells start ringing: there must be a bit of creative interpretation here that goes beyond what the historical facts allow. ——— [1] Guido Della Valle (1884-1962), according to the account of Carl Joachim Classen (1928–2013). [2] Aloïs Gerlo (1915-1998), on a paper titled Pseudo-Lucretius?. [3] Saint Jerome (c.347-420) was the first to make this claim. [4] Lee Fratantuono mentions this in his book A Reading of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.
- mcguire 7y ago
  "Others think that Lucretius' poem was edited by Cicero himself." That would be odd. Cicero didn't care for Epicurean philosophy.

45 points by Hooke 7y ago

pvg 7y ago

Title works curiously well for Locutus (of Borg) as well.

I don't believe that "we can’t get ought from is". This is because there is a connection between what is and the 'ought' actor (namely humans and the laws of the universe). That connection and the most basic reality of being human are enough to get a sense of ought from is. I know this goes against traditional philosophical thought. If you mean some type of ought that would be true after humans are extinct then sure, but it's almost a non-sense question (morality in the absence or human existence). Of course, no one acts as if we can't get ought from is (even if they disagree about the ought in many specific instances).

UnFleshedOne 7y ago
Exactly, human desires, morals and all other sources of 'ought' are ultimately influenced by the way humans 'are'. So if you took in account whole evolutionary history, the way it influenced culture, the way culture developed itself based on that and other external influences (all 'is' questions), you would eventually arrive at human moral framework and that would let you generate 'ought' statements. Basically what we as humans do every day.
- perfmode 7y ago
  How do you know one would eventually?
  - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
    Good question. There is no reason to think otherwise at the moment and research in physics, biology, neuroscience, psychology and sociology kinda points that way? And I know that as well as I know anything I'm not an expert in -- from my own cursory review and stated opinions of people who are experts (again, as far as I know). In other words, it would be surprising otherwise? Our morals/desires depend on the way we are built and they dictate the 'oughts', thus providing a link from 'is'. And of course it is possible that we can never have enough information to decompile our own values because it is lost in compression, so we'll be stuck with dealing with a black box. But this is a technical limitation, not a philosophical one, and for a simpler system (for example a AGI if one can be built understandably) we would be able to derive its 'oughts' from what it 'is'.
    - perfmode 7y ago
      Your prediction without proof is about as bankable as a prediction without proof of P == NP or P != NP. Just because something is intuitive doesn’t make it true.
- CM30 7y ago
  So if psychopaths were 100% of the population, and empathy didn't exist at all, would that make most morals null and void? I think most would agree that a useful moral code shouldn't entirely be relativistic, and that an entire society can be in the wrong even if everyone in it considers their actions just.
  - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
    A species of sentient hermit crabs would have entirely different moral intuitions from a species of sentient apes. Take this [0] as fictional evidence. :) Empathy doesn't have much to do with morals, it is closer to a mechanism of knowing what the other entity feels. This is useful in antagonistic scenarios as well as in cooperative ones. What you use it for is entirely up to you (and your built-in morals). I agree that entire society can be wrong, even if all other societies of a given species share that opinion at the time. Where relativism would come in is where there is a major difference in mind architecture. [0] - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worl...
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    Exactly so: most existent people (myself included) would still insist the current "oughts" still apply in a universe of psychopaths. The question is why. Given that we can not directly observe or measure ought-ness, there must be some psychological feature that evolved to created the idea in us. Further more, that feature is critically necessary for us, often more than life itself. We also know it breaks down in hypotheticals. In that example about a world of psychopaths, most would agree right and wrong remain constant. But a different hypothetical, where god and sacred texts say the exact opposite of what they do, we would not see as many people saying their god would now be wrong. Furthermore, we do know somethings about "ought" like that it is not entirely relative, remains constant across world changes and, is vital to pursue. But we don't know were it comes from and why it varies slightly among cultures. So while we know right from wrong and that such distinctions are vital, we don't know how we know this. It might be that what I am describing is not quite what is meant by "ought". But there are other vital "self evident" concepts that needed adjustment to their definitions yet those adjustments neither destroy the entire concept nor even make any practical difference. Time, for example, is not quite what people intuit and heat seems self evidently entirely different than light yet is not. Yet those facts make no difference in every day life. I expect a better understanding of the origin of ethics will follow that pattern.
leetcrew 7y ago
> That connection and the most basic reality of being human are enough to get a sense of ought from is. but how? I think you might not appreciate how vexing the is/ought question is. murder is something that almost everyone agrees is wrong. most people couldn't exactly articulate why they think this, but I suspect the reason is that obviously causes ripples of pain, distress, and instability through a community. we may even be biologically conditioned against murdering our own kind. so clearly, if one wants to remain part of society, not cause unnecessary harm, and not experience guilt, one ought not commit the act of murder. but this is still not a universal moral claim; it depends on the desires of the agent. you are conflating practicality with the philosophical notion of truth. these philosophers are not interested in "a sense of ought"; they are looking for a rigorous method of constructing "ought" from what "is". that is the problem.
- YjSe2GMQ 7y ago
  > but how? I think it's quite simple - subjective experience. Under the assumption that others experience things (much like you do) you can just ask or infer what would they prefer, and what would cause pain. You can be wrong about what would they prefer (and they can be wrong), but it doesn't mean there's no coherent morality hiding under such mistakes. And I don't think that it's much to assume. I think it's no more that the general assumption that "causes have effects", or that there are any invariants we can attribute to the universe (like laws of physics). Note that this notion of morality extends beyond humans - for example to animals and potentially AI systems.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I don't want to cause the subjective experience of pain, and I assume you don't want to either. the fact that we want to avoid pain, even the fact that (possibly) we have evolved to want to avoid harming fellow humans (and possibly other sentient beings) is a statement of what "is". unless you are willing to reduce morality to mere pragmatism, it is not at all clear how you get to an "ought" from these facts. I'm not saying this is some huge conundrum that we need to solve before we decide to go get breakfast without killing everyone we see along the way, but the problem as stated is a hard one.

tbirrell 7y ago

Okay, but did Memmius end up building over the school or not?

8bitsrule 7y ago
Good question. This site seems to suggest that the answer is unknown, as is the location of the Garden! http://wiki.epicurism.info/Epicurus%27_Garden/ http://wiki.epicurism.info/Epicurus%27_Garden/

bambax 7y ago

> Lucretius’s poem, dedicated to Memmius, was an attempt to convince the boorish Roman that he was obliterating a site of importance. [Citation needed!!!] This is so contrary to everything that we know about Memmius, Lucretius, and the place of poets in Ancient Rome that if you want to argue along those lines you'd need an extensive bibliography. In Rome, "poets" were craftsmen, not "authors" in the modern sense of the term. They worked for hire. Memmius, who was an extremely important man from one of the most famous families, placed an order for an epic poem to Lucretius, in order to appear more gracious and to advance his political career. Lucretius was happy to oblige. To think that Lucretius wrote this poem on his own accord and then dedicated it to Memmius in order to lecture him about his behavior is ludicrous.

chmod775 7y ago
> In Rome, "poets" were craftsmen, not "authors" in the modern sense of the term. They worked for hire. Memmius, who was an extremely important man from one of the most famous families, placed an order for an epic poem to Lucretius, in order to appear more gracious and to advance his political career. I wonder if we'd go back to mostly having this if copyright as we know it went away and no alternative way of paying artists (think Patreon-like platforms, governmental support, or unconditional basic income) existed. For example EVE Online has plenty of poets-for-hire and I sometimes pay one to write me a poem commemorating the loss of one of my ships. Makes you feel better about your loss and also looks good in your character bio... There's obviously still "contract" work being done by artists in the real world today as well, though probably proportionally less so. With US artists often signing away the rights to their works completely to their labels and publishers, which is technically the same, we're not even too far off I'd think. But this is not possible in some other legal systems. How "creative" were ancient cultures, where probably only the well-off or people with patrons/customers could spend meaningful time on art, in comparison to today's culture?
- dTal 7y ago
  The EVE Online poets-for-hire thing is absolutely fascinating. If something that tangential to gameplay arises organically... it makes me think that MMORPGs are an underrated technology for test driving social and government structures. Maybe we should have a sim-world that models our actual world as closely as possible, so that we can test-drive things like Basic Income in it.

michannne 7y ago

>He presents the splendid argument that, if it had a boundary, then all the falling atoms would collect at the bottom. From this, it is clear that Lucretius respected the intuitive idea that there are absolute directions of up and down. By itself, this makes a globular Earth unfeasible because, unless perched right on the top, we’d slip off the sides. I disagree with the author's point here. It seems to me Lucretius uses a bounded object as an example for his claim that the universe must be unbounded. A bounded object inherently has ups and downs, there is no mention on which direction either correspond to. What other phrasing could he have used? A lot of what the author states actually seem to be grasps at straws.

woodandsteel 7y ago
Have you read Lucretius? If not, then you are not really in a position to make a claim as to what he was really thinking.
- michannne 7y ago
  Any reason as to why you'd single me out? I have read On the Nature of Things but what would make you question if I have? We can all contribute opinions, just as the author cannot read Lucretius' mind as to why he would choose to write the way he did
  - woodandsteel 7y ago
    In that case my comment was off target. I made it because you didn't state you had read the piece, but I guess I shouldn't have assumed that. I have not read Lucretius, but I assumed the author was correct because his overall views fit well with what I do know about the history of metaphysics. But perhaps he is mistaken in this particular case.

woodandsteel 7y ago

I think this is an excellent article, very informative.

henriquemaia 7y ago

For the record: I'm currently researching on Lucretius as a part of my MA in Philosophy. This article starts from an assumption on Lucretius intentions that is weird for anyone familiar with the author. The thing is: we actually know way too little about Lucretius to try to make any 'learned' guesses. However, I got the opposite impression reading the article. If that's the starting point of the author's argument, that somewhat taints its point. Fun fact: all we know about Lucretius is a conjecture. There are so many holes in who he was, how he lived, why he wrote, etc, that some researchers simply go off-script and invent whole biographies for Lucretius [1]. There is even those who go even further and simply state that Lucretius didn't even exist — he was a pseudonym for another author, Titus Pomponius Atticus, a friend of Cicero [2]. Others think that Lucretius' poem was edited by Cicero himself [3]. Others that the poem was tampered by the renaissance humanists [4], trying to make it more coherent and complete. The point is: no one really knows. So, when I read/hear someone stating very confidently that Lucretius did this or that, that he was this or that person living this or that life, my alarm bells start ringing: there must be a bit of creative interpretation here that goes beyond what the historical facts allow. ——— [1] Guido Della Valle (1884-1962), according to the account of Carl Joachim Classen (1928–2013). [2] Aloïs Gerlo (1915-1998), on a paper titled Pseudo-Lucretius?. [3] Saint Jerome (c.347-420) was the first to make this claim. [4] Lee Fratantuono mentions this in his book A Reading of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.

mcguire 7y ago
"Others think that Lucretius' poem was edited by Cicero himself." That would be odd. Cicero didn't care for Epicurean philosophy.