That kind of scientistic atheism equates philosophy with theology, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If a human right is nothing more than the act of respecting someone, does that mean that when a freeloader, parasite, or predator neglects to respect anyone, no one has any rights? Why should the respecters of people be given more priority than the disrespecters? Because the former are more productive? But what if the civilizational project is ultimately self-destructive? Would that mean the disrespecter has the last laugh?
I agree we should focus on making this the best place we can. But won't the results of that work reflect our self-image? Won't the world we make reflect what we are? So shouldn't we improve ourselves before we start reshaping our environment?
I've just written an article that touches on this. It's called, "Why We’re Killing Off All The Wild Animals." The point is that regardless of what we might tell ourselves at a superficial level of self-exploration, the pattern of history is clear: we're opposed to the wilderness because it's inhuman, and as a spider spins its web and a beaver builds its dam, we humanize the environment with our conceptual filters and technological advances.
In that case, we may be inherently self-destructive: our civilizational project may be self-destructive as well as fraudulent from the theocratic start (as I argue in the article linked below).
That's why philosophical self-exploration may come in handy, so our notion of "progress" doesn't end up being vain and foolhardy.
