Wait, what?
So one of these essays is saying that philosophy as science and philosophy as ethics are two different animals. I have to disagree.
Philosophy as science attempts to explain the natural world. Philosophy as ethics attempts to explain how and why we behave (or ought to behave) in relation with each other and in society. But philosophy as metaphysics bridges the two and connects ethics with the nature of existence.
If we are ontologically separate with God (but can expect a reuniting in a happy afterlife), there's no problem seeing ourselves as also distinctly separate from each other and the natural world. We can use each other and the natural world for our own convenience and happiness, with "do unto others" alternately being a threat of future judgment and a reminder that the other guy can bite back.
If we are ontologically identical with God and the world, then there is an immediacy to "do unto others" that dualism can't match. Destruction of the natural world becomes our own destruction; war, famine, and disease becomes everyone's existential business; equality becomes not a matter of legal justice, but of spiritual unity.
Your ethics must be built on how you see the world. How you see the world must be built on your natural philosophy. But the two are intertwined by metaphysical philosophy which informs both sides.
Philosophy as science attempts to explain the natural world. Philosophy as ethics attempts to explain how and why we behave (or ought to behave) in relation with each other and in society. But philosophy as metaphysics bridges the two and connects ethics with the nature of existence.
If we are ontologically separate with God (but can expect a reuniting in a happy afterlife), there's no problem seeing ourselves as also distinctly separate from each other and the natural world. We can use each other and the natural world for our own convenience and happiness, with "do unto others" alternately being a threat of future judgment and a reminder that the other guy can bite back.
If we are ontologically identical with God and the world, then there is an immediacy to "do unto others" that dualism can't match. Destruction of the natural world becomes our own destruction; war, famine, and disease becomes everyone's existential business; equality becomes not a matter of legal justice, but of spiritual unity.
Your ethics must be built on how you see the world. How you see the world must be built on your natural philosophy. But the two are intertwined by metaphysical philosophy which informs both sides.