From: Mark Walker (tap@cgocable.net)
Date: Mon Jun 25 2001 - 08:57:02 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: Waldemar Inghdahl <waldemar.ingdahl@eudoxa.se>
> Today I' m going to bring up a fellow from Ancient Greece that should be
discussed more: Aristotle.
I am sympathetic with your call to consider Aristotle in our
conversation. (Indeed, I am writing a paper that appeals to Aristotelian
ethics as part of a panel--with Nick Bostrom and James Hughes--on
transhumanism at a conference sponsored by the Society for the Social Study
of Science). However, I have several questions:
You wrote:
>
> The aristotelian philosophy is an ethics of purposes, that says us that
there is a goal that every human being wants, or should want to achieve.
> The task of the philosopher is thus to identify this goal, and find the
best possible means to achieve it.
>
snip
> Modern philosophy is quite often about problematizing the values and the
concepts that are the foundation of the aristotelian thinking.
> Yep, I can read Wittgenstein, but the aristotelian view gives an important
question that I think is quite relevant to transhumanism.
> The question is- what does it mean to "live a good life", and how should I
act if I wish to achieve it. The question emphazises the possiblities of
philosophy to act as a guide to life.
> The objective knowledge, not confusion.
>
> So what is the this highest good i the ethics we are discussing?
> Aristotle answers "eudaimonia". I think that the term is translated into
"happiness" in English, which isn't the same as pure lust or joy.
> A state of eudaimonia is also closely knit to ACTION, more specifically
the kind of action that enables man to accomplish his nature.
> What nature?
> The specifically human, that distinguishes us from the animals, is the
faculty of reason. To achieve eudaimonia is thus to achieve a harmonical
fullfilling of the faculty of reason.
>
Your presentation seems to gloss a traditional difficulty with virtue
ethics, whether humanity has a univocal goal and nature. Aristotle himself
(in the Nichomachean Ethics) gives two different, and some would say
contradictory answers to these questions. One answer is that we ought to be
good citizens, (to be the best exemplar of the "man of practical wisdom
(phronensis)). The other answer is that we ought to strive, where humanly
possible, to become godlike, that is, to emulate the unmoved mover. Plato of
course assigned three different natures and goals to humans depending on
whether they were born with a gold, silver or bronze nature. In our age,
there are a number of Nietzschean type worries about the possibility of
discovering anything specific enough about human nature about which we could
construct a workable ethics.
> As you can see, there are som differences between a platonic and
aristotelian view.
> And thus it is important to see that an enmeshing of Plato into the
transhumanist tradition will only damage it. These are very important
things.
Really? There are many contemporary scholars who believe that Plato too was
an eudamonist. (See, for example, Julia Annas, _Platonic Ethics, Old and
New_ and references therein).
> Aristotle is not only important just because he spoke about Artifical
Intelligence more >than 2. 000 years ago (the "automathon" that would enable
the emancipation of all slaves, >since they would do the work), but because
he presented a morality and a political theory >that started up a good line
of thinking that takes us to the transhumanist political project.
>
What would you say to the objection that this looks like you are putting
"the cart before the horse"? Mussoluni said that Facism is relativism in
practice. So he might have said that ethical relativism "started up a good
line of thinking that takes us to the Facist political project". Let me ask
you the same type of question that Plato used to ask Aristotle: are we
arguing to or from the ethical goodness of transhumanism?
> That is why I think that liberalism is important, as a meta- ideology, as
a frame in which transhumanism can act since it bring on a society where
people are given the possibility and the freedom to use their faculty of
reason.
> In that society transhumanism is protected, given the possibility to
develop itself, while not enforcing itself on someone.
>
>
Really? What would you say to the argument that even a classical liberal
like Mill would not allow one the liberty of pursuing the transhumanist
project, given that it presents a clear and present danger to the lives and
liberty of all? Mark.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:08:17 MST