Lucretius saw no boundary between scientific interests and ethical claims | Hacker News Reader

Lucretius saw no boundary between scientific interests and ethical claims

aeon.co

45 pointsHooke32 comments

> 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.

> 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?

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.

Cicero (http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname...):

"This Patron [the Epicurean], therefore, having written to me at Rome, begging me to reconcile you to him, and to ask you to grant him some ruined house or other once belonging to Epicurus,...to maintain his own honour and duty, the sanctity of a will, the prestige of Epicurus, the solemn injunction of Phaedrus, the home, the dwelling-place, the footprints of famous men."

On the other hand, Lucretius died the year before Memmius became consul and a couple of years before he went into exile in Greece.

> 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.

This has to be the classiest most high-brow sentence I've ever read on Hacker News. Could have been straight from Fraiser.

It’s likely referring to Stearns hypothesis.

Stearns, John Barker. "Lucretius and Memmius." Classical World 25 (1931): 67-68.

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).

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.

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.

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.

To expand on external source of 'ought': I saw a thought experiment somewhere -- what if you found the True Objective Source of Morality and it said something you don't like -- for example that murdering every 14th stranger you meet is justifiable. Thus are the moral laws of Universe.

Society would then promptly adjust the laws to follow suit (it is a true source of morality after all). Would you then consider murdering 14th stranger you meet today if that brings you some benefit (outweighing the risk, etc)?

If not, why not?

(Any similarities to religious texts is intentional)

No... because the idea of an objective source of morality is meaningless. I 'ought' to murder someone – or else what? why should I? 'Ought' is fundamentally subjective, existing relative to an agent's basic goals. If I already believe that I ought to do X, an objective source of truth can convince me I ought to do Y by showing that Y will accomplish X. For example, I might at least consider murdering every 14th stranger I met... if you could somehow credibly demonstrate that doing so would save the lives of millions of people in the future. But no source, no matter how authoritative, can say I should murder every 14th stranger "just because" – or, for that matter, that I shouldn't.

Morality only seems universal in our society because we're all human, and most of our morality is derived from emotional responses preprogrammed into the human brain as a product of evolution. To evaluate the morality of more complex actions, we build architectures of logic on top of those emotional responses, and there's plenty of room to argue about the best way to do so. But fundamentally, murder is bad because it feels bad, and it feels bad because we evolved to live in groups; that's all there is to it. Any arguments about how forbidding murder creates a more stable society are fundamentally secondary. At best they're explanations for why we evolved this way, and/or reasons to strengthen a pre-existing moral precept. They can also encourage us to suppress emotional responses inclining us toward murder, because those exist too... but the effect of the suppression is limited, and in practice people sometimes commit murder anyway.

Importantly, though, the fact that my morality is in some sense 'arbitrary' does not mean I have to tolerate other arbitrary choices of morality. If some person or AI is strongly driven to kill lots of people or fill the universe with paperclips, I'm not sure I could argue that my morality is inherently superior. But I'm still going to try to stop them, because that's what my morality tells me to do.

Yep, that though experiment is specifically designed to show that idea of objective external source of morality is absurd.

Internal source like you described is also objective, it is shared among all humans and based on objective realities of evolution and history.

I bet psychopaths share significant portion of it with neurotypical humans as well -- they just have different weights among multiple contradicting heuristics and/or certain mechanisms working slightly differently.

Far from a thought experiment, this is the exact scenario for most of the monotheisms. The Bible, for example, which is held to be the ultimate source of truth including moral, contains many passages condemning behaviour we find acceptable today, and condoning behaviour we would find abhorrent. Are its followers violent atavists? For the most part, no.

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-worl...

How do you know one would eventually?

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'.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

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.

I am willing to reduce morality to mere pragmatism. After all what's more than just experience, shaped by such pragmatism?

And I think all moral systems are essentially built around avoiding pain. Even if you allow for supernatural beings and follow the tracks of some religion - it's still a concern over well being, except in the after-life (for which we may or may not have much evidence for ...).

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

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/

>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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

"Others think that Lucretius' poem was edited by Cicero himself."

That would be odd. Cicero didn't care for Epicurean philosophy.

I think this is an excellent article, very informative.

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