Because human behavior boils down to Plato vs Aristotle. If you don't read both, then there is a segment of the population who's actions and opinions are going to be a complete mystery to you.
Interesting no one has pointed out that those explicitly studying human behavior might have some insights on the subject as well, by which I mean psychologists.
This is one the most unfortunate things I commonly run into when reading philosophy (or talking with those who study it): imagine if once physics became an established, separate scientific endeavor from philosophy (though it was once a part of it), and yet the majority of philosophers kept on inventing their own versions of physics (without ever doing experimental verification) and pretending the scientific branch didn't exist. I think this is a fairly accurate analogy for the relationship between psychology and philosophy.
To be certain there are many subjects bordering on psychology which are still correctly in the domain of philosophy (e.g. free will or the 'hard problem' of consciousness), but then there are many more mundane issues which are already basically settled in psychology which philosophers still treat as if they were some deep fundamental aspect of reality.
I suppose part of the difficulty is finding quality material in psychology, since it's a vast field with many sub-disciplines. That said, the search can be richly rewarding. There are experiments described in Gazzaniga's The Social Brain, for example, which profoundly changed my understanding of the human brain (and have remained consistent with much more reading over the decade following).
I agree with the second statement. As for the first one, there's some other stuff in there too: Mythologies, religions, Foucault, philosophy of science. Why some wear t-shirts and eschew the automobile, while others drive cars in grass skirts.
Many of my professors loved the idea of the cargo cult, the horror and glory of it. So, don't be fooled: You may discover a bit of cargo cult within modern studies of Plato and Aristotle.
It's the cargo cult of Western Civilization, when Plato, Aristotle, Greece, and Rome are taught. Universities and teachers invoke the grandeur and largesse of ancient empires and philosophers, in the hope that the future will be more like the semblance of an idealized past. Whereas Greece and Rome had the shield and spear, now these have been replaced by technologically-advanced militaries, the same which created the cargo cults Feynman mentioned.
For one thing, Plato and Aristotle both assert that there's some sort of absolute truth or order to the world, but many other human traditions reject this idea and offer a variety of counterpoints. My favorite is that the questions of material/immaterial, monism/dualism are irrelevant, and that the universe is presided over by tricksters of various sorts with almost nothing to do with the co-occurring human world. There's Coyote, Loki, Anansi, Hermes, many mythical characters from across traditions who would have both Plato and Aristotle know they're merely daft professors, and there's no such thing as atoms nor caves.
These ideas and their idealized past always center on the idea of a natural human order. This arises from, in Plato, the idea that each mind is imprisoned in a series of closed cabinets, and can achieve perfect knowledge of neither truth nor justice; in Aristotle, from a first-moving cause within a universe in which all things are bound by a certain causality. Rome utilized an initiate religion which was used to structure business hours, and you can trivially extrapolate to Darwin and Victorian society, or wherever you like. And, generally speaking, things aren't great for people without the "advanced literacy." Philosophers from around the same era would lampoon all of these notions: Heraclitus insisted there was no cause and effect, Diogenes insisted there could be neither ideals nor wisdom. Even today you can find physicists who are skeptical of causality outside of controlled experiments.
When you look at alternatives to the Great Civilizations of the West and Near East, many of them vanished without written record (I wrote from my laptop, as a technology professional) or created massive citadels and then abandoned them the way one leaves behind sand castles (common throughout the Americas). The apocalypse prophecy of the Hopi tradition, Koyaanisqatsi, states that the world ends when people begin to mine for minerals. Note that after the fall of the Roman Empire, steel was lost to civilization (outside of China? Can't remember) for a long time. But of course, you can think of perhaps ten traditions, without using Google, where the end times have always been upon us.
To place faith in one particular myth, philosophy, or history as always defining of an individual person or their world, or somehow superior to another, is to err. Individual world-theories are often the o-rings of our society, to be puzzled out by inspectors like Feynman long after they fail catastrophically, but in other places their graceful interaction can indeed change the world forever and for the better.
Not sure what all these words will mean to you but I hope they helped you understand where my mind has wandered lately.
Well, for starters, that all of philosophy can be boiled down to those two guys as if the rest of the world or the rest of history doesn't matter. That screams "myopic Eurocentrism" to me at least, which is one form of cargo culting
> Because human behavior boils down to Plato vs Aristotle.
This is correct and the fundamental that distinguishes these two thinkers is the Primacy of Consciousness versus the Primacy of Existence, i.e., subjectivity versus objectivity. Kant's theories are a secularized, modernized version of Plato's ideas (i.e., removed the supernatural elements and replaced God with Society) whereas Rand's theories are a revised and more consistent version of Aristotle's ideas (i.e., consistently applied the law of identity to all branches of philosophy and especially to consciousness itself).
So the two poles of Western thought guiding human behavior are Plato/Kant versus Aristotle/Rand.
Bertrand Russell especially hated him for this. Just read "History of western philosophy"-s section on Aristotle! ;)
e.g.
"Throughout modern times, practically every advance in science, in logic, or in philosophy has had to be made in the teeth of the opposition from Aristotle's disciples."
"Aristotle, it should be said, has been one of the great misfortunes of the human race." (Scientific outlook)
Bertrand Russell also paints an extremely negative view of Nietzsche in that book. The whole work is extremely biased, it's a dangerous book to read on philosophy if you dont already know the field well, theres too much bias and its too difficult to tell what is bias.
I wouldn't call it dangerous. It's pretty obvious from the literary style that it's partly a diatribe against particular intellectual factions Russel didn't like. It's an enjoyable diatribe! But... the lack of objectivity should be pretty obvious to any modern reader. For example the part about Virgin Mary being direct retcon of Artemis is not really defendable. Although the larger idea of a continuity of worship of a mother goddess from pagan times is correct in the larger context.
I say dangerous because of the way I came about the book. I read it in high school before I knew any philosophy and it formed the basis of my perception about which philosophers are important. A decade later, after much self study, I reread the book and was horrified at the hand waving and blatant bias.
Not entirely true. Human behavior boils down to the Big Five[1] and that's what we call personality. However, there is another thing which we generally refer to as "personal philosophy", or something of the sort.
In each of us there are four internal voices: sensation, rational thought, emotion and intuition. When you choose to listen to one or more of these voices you get a philosophical school. Plato is mainly intuitive with a touch of emotion. Aristotle is mainly rational with a touch of intuition. They're both western philosophers because eastern philosophy focuses a lot on the senses.
Here are some pure philosophies for each of the four voices, so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about:
* Sensation: Taoism
* Rational thought: Rationalism
* Emotion: Romanticism
* Intuition: Mysticism
However, philosophies are rarely pure, which is why there are so many of them.
The parts in Guy Robinson's "Philosophy and Mystifications" about Aristotle still resonate with me in one way or another a few years after reading it. The book is happily available online: http://www.spiritual-minds.com/philosophy/assorted/041517851...
Here's a relevant bit:
"When Aristotle looks for a place to begin the investigation
of any topic he suggests that we begin with “the opinions of the many or
the wise.” This is hardly because those opinions are thought to be
infallible. We need not have a mystical view about “the collective wisdom
of humanity” to think it sensible to start there. It simply makes more
sense than wasting our time with random fanciful or extraordinary
views, views that have come out of nowhere and are likely only to lead
nowhere, the wild suppositions of impossible happenings: colors that
change on a certain date, universes that consist only of sounds or of one
object, and so forth. Under the influence of Descartes’s method, these
imaginings have been thought to reveal “conceptual boundaries.”
Aristotle is still the most insightful and relevant philosopher after all these years. From physics, to psychology, to biology, to politics, to ethics, to metaphysics, to logic. No single man has made more contributions to him.
> Aristotle is still the most insightful and relevant philosopher after all these years. From physics, to psychology, to biology, to politics, to ethics, to metaphysics, to logic. No single man has made more contributions to him.
I totally agree. Aristotle is still relevant today. But regarding happiness, as presented in this article, all these philosophers, Aristotle included, offer behavioral recipies that the SELF must enforce on his body in order to be happy. Usually by enforcing such things as frugality and fasting, instead of letting the body do what it wants. So let the body decide what is best for itself.
But what I want to say is that, happiness is, to a great extent, a feeling resulting from, or caused by, some chemicals. Like melatonin and seratonin. So all we have to do is to create the right conditions for the body to secrete the optimum amount of happiness chemicals. So it seems happiness is not about forcing body to behave a certain way.
And what if the body decides that the best thing for itself is crack cocaine? You don't want happiness per se, but a fulfilling and satisfying life.
Think about it, if you could wire yourself to a machine that injected all the happiness chemicals into your brain for the rest of your life would you do it?
"Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness."
I’m not arguing about happiness. Or about how to be happy. My point is that Aristotle and others did not know about the role of some chemicals in the body that produce a feeling of happiness.
Maybe difference is short-term happiness vs sustainable. Looking at all kinds of addictions, just giving the right conditions to release happiness chemicals is not sustainable. Meanwhile putting some constraints and forcing the body in a certain way is harder but more sustainable? Sustainable as in longer term and for community as a whole.
That’s not what I meant! If you sleep in a really dark room; if you do not take your phone into your bedroom; if you do a short breathing exercise before you sleep, then, scientists tell us that your body will secrete melatonine and you will feel happier. This is hot short term! Not sure why people are offended by this fact.
But those things are "behavioral recipies that the SELF must enforce on his body". My body doesn't do breathing exercises on its own, and it wants to look at the phone screen before sleep. I have to consciously work against those tendencies. Same with eating. I'm certainly happier long-term if I don't just listen to my body and eat all the delicious things I see in my daily life.
> My body doesn't do breathing exercises on its own, and it wants to look at the phone screen before sleep...
You are right, that's why I said, or I was trying to say, that as the conscious self, I will prepare the most favorable environment for the body to relax and have deep sleep.
This is putting constraints on your body though. How the hell can you leave Facebook on the other side of bedroom door? Why would you force your body to exercise? Taking melatonin may have unforeseen circumstances though. Just like eating too much sugar.
No! I'm not talking about taking melatonin supplements at all. Given the right conditions the body produces it. I didn't even know you could take it as a supplement.
Did Aristotle know about the relationship of seratonin and the feeling of happiness? I believe not. Therefore, he could not have advised about hapiness and seratonin. If you claim Aristotle knew about Seratonin, maybe you can give a reference.
I don’t understand what you mean and I will not continue the discussion, instead I’m reading this article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a great article about Aristotle’s ideas on the topic. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/
Acceptance and its role in happiness is such a great topic and I am so grateful we can access the works of long-past lucid thinkers. This is a very productive use of limited reading time IMO.
Putting aside Aristotelian virtue-of-external-goods, there is so much agreement with the Stoics (action-from-virtue and virtue-from-within). And THEN, when you fold in schools like Daoism and Buddhism (the philosophy, not religion) and their takes on acceptance and happiness ... I am also impressed (comforted?) that there is so much in common with the west. (Confirmation of fundamentals? I recognize this optimism is decidedly un-Stoic. Lol.)
BTW, here's another good article IMO that contrasts the two Greek camps:
Aristotle's notion of megalopsuchia, seems richer than our modern sense of manganimity, and it is a very interesting jumping off point for personal growth. From a practical view, the temperance Aristotle required on qualities to make them virtues, could be applied with the tools of the stoics.
As an oblong reference regarding megalopsuchia, you may enjoy Peter Chung’s Aristotle as visited in the anime film series titled “Reign: The Conqueror”.
I found this article very fascinating. I'm sad to admit that I know very little about the large number thinkers from that time though. If anyone could point me in the direction of some literature that would introduce me to all this, that would be greatly appreciated!
I'd recommend a couple of classics, both accessible to non-specialists:
The Great Chain of Being is a nice overview of some of the main themes of ancient metaphysics and their later influence.[1] It ranges far beyond the ancient world, but it does as good a job as anything can of showing how ancient theories that might easily seem conceptually alien could in fact have been rational.
Shame and Necessity is about what you might call the ethical mindset of the ancient world.[2] The general aim is to explore how the ways Greeks and Romans engaged with moral questions systematically differed from what ethics would become after the advent of Christianity. (I can't praise this book enough. Williams was insanely erudite and analytically sharp.)
There's a nice podcast[1] by the King's College in London about philosophy. It's not going deep on any particular philosopher, bar Plato, but will give you an overview of ancient and modern Philosophy. Then you can decide were you'd like to dig more.
My layman's suggestion is that, rather than trying to read the ancients, start with how ideas from them and more current philosophers are relevant in today's debates. This is akin to diving into using a prog language with little understanding rather than reading books about it, it's more fun!
I lean toward Hume's skepticism and empiricism. I also think stoicism is important. But after deep and reflective thought there platonism and stoicism, tend to be heavy on logic and rationalism.Whereas life is practical, and doesn't really work on rationalism outside of academic matters. example penicillin was a pure accident, found by experience then later studied by academics.
The article cites his works on happiness, but I scanned several times and couldn't find which works I should read about the subject. I'm fairly ignorant about Aristotle's teachings, writings and only have a knowledge of who the man was. So I'm a bit lost as to which to begin with, targeting the article's focus on his ideas of happiness. Suggestions?
"Let us resume our inquiry and state, in view of the fact that all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, what it is that we say political science aims at and what is the highest of all goods achievable by action. Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise."
It has often been said that all of philosophy is just commentaries on Aristotle and Plato and I think that was almost literally true at least up through the Renaissance.
See, every time I try to enjoy ancient philosophy, I get going and then bump into a comment like this.
>Nobody would call a man ideally happy if he has not got a particle of courage nor of temperance nor of decency nor of good sense, but is afraid of the flies that flutter by him, cannot refrain from any of the most outrageous actions in order to gratify a desire to eat or to drink, and ruins his dearest friends for the sake of a penny…
If Aristotle means that the general lack of these qualities leads to unhappiness than he just needed to have some more profligate friends. I've known cowards, adicts and individuals with terrible practical instincts who were all happy people. If he specifically means the total lack of one of these traits well then no s---. Of course those individuals have a harder time being happy. They're lacking a significant tool the rest of us pack around in tool box for dealing with day to day life. And there's a decent chance they're suffering a debilitating neuroses. In the first case it's naive. In the second it's inane. Obviously Aristotle wasn't an idiot but I find the same flaw among nearly all ancient Greek philosophers. He was retroactively fitting a moral reasoning to his own secular but restrained moral instincts. There's a way of living that felt right to him and he reasoned himself into thinking it was "best". I may be more sympathetic to the Stoics and the Epicureans but I get the same vibe when I read their works.
> I've known cowards, adicts and individuals with terrible practical instincts who were all happy people.
Aristotle's retort would be that what you are ascribing as 'happiness' is not what he is talking about. There's a reason he speaks of an 'ideally happy' person. I recommend you to read the section 'The Human Good and the Function Argument' of this: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#HumGooF...:
> Aristotle's search for the good is a search for the highest good, and he assumes that the highest good, whatever it turns out to be, has three characteristics: it is desirable for itself, it is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake.
> Aristotle thinks everyone will agree that the terms “eudaimonia” (“happiness”) and “eu zên” (“living well”) designate such an end. [...] These terms play an evaluative role, and are not simply descriptions of someone's state of mind.
> No one tries to live well for the sake of some further goal; rather, being eudaimon is the highest end, and all subordinate goals—health, wealth, and other such resources—are sought because they promote well-being, not because they are what well-being consists in. But unless we can determine which good or goods happiness consists in, it is of little use to acknowledge that it is the highest end. To resolve this issue, Aristotle asks what the ergon (“function,” “task,” “work”) of a human being is, and argues that it consists in activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue.
You've known addicts who were happy ? What's your definition of happiness? Most addicts I know off, are extremely miserable. I don't know many, just a few, but none of them look even remotely happy to me. They were well aware of their situation and the repugnant feeling that their presence caused to others. They can/could barely stand themselves.
I think you may be confusing addicts with the popular notion of a "junky".
But yes, I've known alcoholics, pot heads, pill poppers and a few dope fiends who lead productive fullfilled lives, seem extraordinarily content and actively contribute back to their communities. If those aren't signs of happiness, I don't know what are.
Of course I've known many more for whom addiction has been a total disaster. So I'm not recommending it or anything but I don't think it should be a disqualifier for considering one "happy". And yes when I say "happiness" I mean something beyond momentary satisfaction.
This just strikes me as more of the same old school dudes conflating control or self discipline with virtue and conflating virtue with happiness (not that they have nothing to do with each other but I'm not sure they're the same things.)
You are projecting a modern definition of “happiness” onto Aristotle. Think of it instead as “thriving” or “reaching your potential in all aspects of your life.”
Uh, yes. Cause the premise of this article was why we as modern people we should appreciate Aristotle's reflections on happiness, not why I should appreciate the meticulous perfection of the internal logic of his world view.
In my opinion, either Aristotle should've broadened his view of "virtue" or "happiness" to not worry so much about personal weakness or vice. Or his notion of these aren't really worth taking up as a modern measure against one's life.
In The Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle wrangles at long length hashing out the difference between pleasure and happiness ("the good"). It's an unfair assessment to lift a quote like that out of context.
I was NOT prepared to see someone reference Ethics as a rebuttal because that's precisely what I was preparing to do. You have to wade through quite a bit of setup, especially as Aristotle ponders questions of the origins of virtue in book two in order to appreciate the quote from GP.
Contextomy and Aristolean philosophy are like oil and water.
> There's a way of living that felt right to him and he reasoned himself into thinking it was "best"
Yep, and this is at the core of C.S. Lewis' work.
To me the notion of a base morality contrived by man seems wildly arbitrary. Taking the most obvious case of murder; without some entity or force outside/independent of man exercising judgment for the act I don't see why one would naturally be compelled to submit to this morality. Especially if said morality could be justified in one's mind as impeding on their own well being.
There are many many murderers in the world, who are not naturally compelled to submit to this morality. If everyone naturally submitted, there would no need for Laws or Commandments.
Yeah none of that's is true. Failing to know persons in suffsiciently deep level. Any addict, terrible friend etc who has core faculties in place to reflect on themselves knows what's missing. A person unaware of this can disagree. They could also disagree with climate change and gravity but I believe it's for what progress we have today as a whole... Generally accepted that unhealthy behaviors and "happiness" are at odds.
(Please forgive any typos 5am reply here)
Specifically @ the last point it's sad to read. I get and have gotten a sense of uptick that the nobody tries to live well for a root cause outside themselves.. and see politically etc how this is a popular behavior. But it.. in my gut-analytical self feels de-evolution-y of our, well of what we could be doing.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Since the scientific method wasn’t known at the time, it’s hard to argue that indeed, he was more of a philosopher.
That said the quote: “Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.” spelled more than 2k years before J. Dalton, is enough to call him a scientist IMHO.
After, the only way one can progress and see the future, is by standing at the shoulders of giants.
Yes, agree that those philosophers did not represent their societies as a whole. But it is not fair to say that they were totally separated from their time either. For example how sortition was the rule of choice in Athens: it echoes a careful thoughtfulness about how to organize society that included every citizen (excluding women, slaves and barbarians, granted) in an intelligent discourse.
Our time in contrast has outsourced thinking to experts, who in turn don't think at all, only use various automations (maths or other systems) to synthesize something that is instrumental in some way, be it to sway peoples opinions or (vastly more common) get into their pockets (I've been in marketing, I know how it works). Even free will has been mathematically 'disproved' in our time, and many believe it to be so, so why bother use any moral agency at all?
Too broad a brush? Maybe. But history does have a way of labeling eras. And my guess is ours will be labelled as the era of great automation, without any thoughtful direction.
I think this is spot on. Another way of considering this feeling is that despite great minds existing for (probably well over) 2000 years, the wins of great minds may not seem as great as one would have hoped. Don’t get me wrong, great minds have done great things to further humanity. But humanity also has a less-than-stellar record of protecting wins & progress, and the forces that wish to drag us back remain ever powerful and vigilant.
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?
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.
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.
And yet Science is the "new" name for Natural Philosophy. For example, The Cambridge Philosophical Society (http://cambridgephilosophicalsociety.org/) was founded in 1819 'for the purpose of promoting scientific inquiry'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
To be perfectly frank we don't for a reason. Given how definitive the early 20th century was in what not to do and the dangers of obedience. If people just followed orders as told we would have had a nuclear war in which the best case was the collapse of the US and USSR. there are few left who would fit in the categories. Societal metacognition is a necessity - to stand by its wrongs is the surest way to destroy it.
This has nothing to do with blind obedience whatsoever, which goes entirely against the point.
Socrates knew his teachings could run afoul of the law. And in fact it already had put him in contention with this in power, which many believe was an underpinning of his prosecution. In particular Socrates was a strong and vocal critic of democracy, which is the direction that 'the powers that be' were taking Greece. He feared that masses of people, of no meaningful qualification, were unlikely to be able to be able to vote to effective ends. He similarly feared the election of demogogues, which even at the time democracy had started to show trends towards.
And he was stating all of this at the height, and eventual decline, of Athenian democracy. Said democracy was in fact overthrown multiple times during Socrates' life in movements headed by former pupils of his! At one point Socrates was ordered to arrest one of his pupils. An order which he refused though at the same time making no effort to avoid its execution such as, for instance, by informing his pupil of it. See the nuance? Perhaps most ironic is that his final fate was decided by a vote of 500 Athenians of no particular qualification. And he was put to death by a 52% to 48% margin.
The point is difference between deference to law and deference to justice. Socrates would not obey the law without consideration, but he would also not seek to avoid repercussion for his actions.
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.
It was outlier back then too. Outliers like that exist still, but they are less prominent (And happened in both Germany and Communists countries, I have run across self sacrifices like that. Russian admiral who refused to leave out of sense of duty and got tortured, blinded and killed. Last tzar refused to leave for similar reason. Less prominent German people who dissented and knew what will happen to them and knew they achieve nothing.)
But also, it is less frequent because that mindset achieves nothing. It is interesting personal story as you cross it in history book, but they are drops nobody takes lesson from and nobody cares about. Just about only ones that was close to achieving something were those who made popular martyrs from themselves. From top of head, there was that Polish man who turned himself into concentration camp so that he can escape and be witness. (Was not much believed.)
It could be said that that mindset alone accomplishes nothing but in mass it creates the foundation for a just society. And even when the society itself may lack it, when its leaders follow such a code it can at least be justly governed. But as democracy has become the norm, so as has the election of individuals whose personal code is dubious at best. And that in turn results in the formation of rules and laws that reflect such a lack of values.
I suppose I mostly just long for a time when political leaders were those deeply schooled participants in political and logical philosophy. Now a days instead of writings on political theory and ideology, the most we can expect from our political leaders is ghost written "autobiographies" that seem to be little more than self indulgent money grabs.
Socrates was not leader at that moment, he was killed. The regime at time was authoritarian and its leaders killed a lot of other people too.
None of those other deaths created just society - the violent and corrupted people stayed in power till they were topped by other violence. (Or in case of communism regime remained violent till it died dozens years after for different reasons).
I don't know when deeply thinking political and logical philosiphers were supposed to rule. I also don't think it would necessary imply just or fair society. It might end like cruel but effective society too with strong entrenched power structure.
Socrates lived in Athens during Athenian democracy, which was a true and literal democracy, and was executed by democratic vote of 500 Athenian citizen jurors - 52% to 48%, perhaps a validation of Socrates' criticisms of democracy! Aside from that, many individuals at a high level of society and political involvement were direct students of Socrates.
Though in my comment I was alluding to the founding of the US in particular. The writings and philosophy that underpinned the founding and logic of this nation were incredible and undoubtedly set the stage for a rural backwoods colony to, in less than 300 years, become the most powerful and influential nation in the world. Of course much of the philosophy and logic that the nation was founded on has been disregarded or ignored when convenient and it's not so hard to argue that our ongoing success has been more the result of inertia than a fundamental superiority.
People having citizenship and thus right to vote were minority in Athens. And I dont mean just that it excluded women and slaves. It was more then in other cities, but still a minority.
Two of Socrates students, overthrown the democratic government twice and killed a lot of people. Thousands, plus others lost properties or were send away. One of those students was friend of Socrates. The authoritarian killers here being friends and students of Socrates. So you know, some hard feelings are to be expected toward Socrates too.
Maybe he was considered dangerous, because his ideas were used in past to kill a lot of people. Where rule based society would respect amnesty (there was amnesty) despite fear and danger, this one was violent. Socrates might been big thinker, but his death is not the only one in the story that counts or counted for his contemporaries.
It is not totally entirely clear how Socrates was involved with what, but the society there was dealing with a lot of violence in close memory and that is ignoring violence against slaves.
It took a lot of violence too, in coming to power for US, not just writings and philosophy. And a lot of that philosophy was not "disregarded" in violence, but instead used to argue for violence and to defend violence. For both good and bad causes. And a lot of gains were not inertia, it was decision to take things and fight to take things from others. Not that other powers were not like that too, absolutely they were violent and entitled too.
But, the freedom rhetorics was often used to take away property or freedom from others.
You stated previously that Socrates was killed by an authoritarian regime that killed lots of other people. That is false. You're now stating that the Athenian government was violently overthrown with lots of killing in the process, which is also false. The Athenian democracy was overthrown legally and with words and laws.
I'm also not sure what you mean now that the founding US philosophy was used to justify violence. Things like westward expansion is what I imagine you're referencing, but that had nothing to do with the political philosophy of the founding of the nation.
I mixed them up when writing first comment. Don't take my issue with it, google trial of socrates either on wiki or on more historical sites. Read on thirty tyrants. Overthrown democracy for some months with help of Sparta, followed persecutions of opposition, then got overthrown back. This part of story is in most of them, only artistic ones limit themselves to the simple one.
Teritory is one thing, south and west. Freedom and property rights theories were developed and used to argume for slavery expansion and slavery itself. Freedom and destiny no matter what you are about to do, not just the big questions but also the smaller conflicts around.
Both sides of civil war said to fight for freedom too and the affair had huge number of deaths.
It is interesting to compare this interpretation of Aristotle on happiness with the transhumanist take on happiness, pleasure, and suffering known as the Hedonistic Imperative. When doing so, Aristotle starts to look a lot closer to stoicism, in sense of acceptance of the human condition as it is, planning a strategy within established limits that cannot be changed. The spectrum of philosophy expands, with most of the ancients sitting quite close to one another in a much larger state space than they had access to.
One of the great things about Aristotle is his focus on induction, using the facts and experience of life as the basis for reasoning, and human nature specifically for inducing virtue, morality and the good life. But I would even more highly recommend Jordan Peterson's "12 Rules of Life" as far more helpful given Peterson's incredible intelligence and inductive abilities through both his practice as a psychologist and his intense study of past philosophy.
I read 40 books from the beginning of the year. "12 Rules of Life" is the only book I could not finish. I stopped at about 70-80% (actually I just left it on 1.25x on Audible while doing other things but without my full attention). He just rambles
about Gepetto story and Bible stories that after a while it loses al sense, yeah we get it what you want to tell, but if you make parallels with Bible stories for a hundredth time it loses its appeal and point. His book would be fine if it cut almost all of those Bible references out, left some, and included other references and stories also to which people could more relate to.
