LS Morality


clark (clark@netsites.net)
Mon, 20 Jul 1998 05:09:56 +0100


LS and Diana, Jonathan, Theo, Horse, Keith. Martin, Nicholas, and Squad.
  I probably should take time to marshal my thoughts and think about
this awhile but it is much more fun to muddle along toward a conclusion.
I don't have any answers either and I agree with Theo that we should
attempt to unify the whole of morality under one definition.
  As I understand it a large faction of the squad in earlier discussions
accepted the "Many Truths" idea and I believe that Pirsig presented this
idea in Lila although I can't give you the reference right now. Doug
Renselle was the main proponent. It does make sense if one regards
morality as solely a function of the human race.
  I agree with Theo, and perhaps others, that the same definition of
Morality should be applied to the whole universal sweep including
humanity. I think that it does except that the advent of sentience
(human) adds a whole new dimension of ethics to the problem. At the
moment I can't see a way around this except with some concept such as
the "Many Truths" idea. I also agree that it is distasteful to make the
Morality question so subjective. I hope someone has a good solution.
  Theo, I tend to place a lower estimate on the good intentions of early
religions. I rather think that that their "living lightly" on the earth
had more to do with the capability to do ecological harm than it had to
do with ecological understanding. With the advent of agriculture and the
ability to support larger populations in a fixed location the record of
the human race with regard to the environment has not been so good. A
good case in point is the difference in the impact on the environment
between the eastern indians (The five civilized tribes) versus the
plains indians who had the buffalo. The eastern indians were heading in
exactly the same direction as were the later Europeans except that they
had not the numbers or the technical ability to do great harm to the
environment. The plains Indians lived about as lightly on the land as
the animals they used for food and clothing and shelter.
  In my mind, the Morality we are talking about here has little to do
with the soul and an afterlife and all to do with compatibility with the
workings of the universe and particularly with the operation of the
biosphere.
  I will be watching the discussions and trying to come up with a
solution of my own. At the moment I am stumped. I hope we can keep the
Greeks out of
this. Ken Clark

--
homepage - http://www.moq.org/lilasquad
unsubscribe/queries - mailto:lilasquad@moq.org



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:43:28 CEST