LS Defining Right

From: Denis Poisson (Denis.Poisson@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Thu Jun 17 1999 - 00:49:31 BST


Hi,

This will be my first post to the Lila Squad, so I guess I should
introduce myself. My name is Denis Poisson, I'm 24 and living in Paris,
France. I actually came to the MoQ through a role-playing game (figure
this !). ZMM and Lila were listed under the books which had inspired the
game. Then I found ZMM quite by accident in a bookstore I was working in
for summer (actually, I was bored and browsed through English Literature
to see if I could find anything to pass the idle hours). I started
reading it between this customer and the next and was soon enthralled
(my work suffered *a lot* from it). Since Lila wasn't available in
France, I read other stuff, went on with my studies (first Literature,
then Computational Linguistics) and had philosophical arguments with my
friends, which left me with the impression of being very unconvincing on
the Quality matter. When my sister married in Atlanta, I used the
occasion to go to New Orleans (old french colony, you see... ;) ), and
while browsing through a bookstore (again), I remembered about Lila,
and, lo and behold, found it under 'Philosophy' (I was looking for it
under 'New Age'). That was a laugh...
Anyway, no use telling you how good that experience was : you know.

Anyway, I really didn't think I would find something like you guys on
the Net when I first looked for 'Pirsig' on Altavista nine weeks ago, so
thank you very much Diana for the wonderful idea.

Next to this month subject...
I guess we all agree that if righteousness is understood in a
static/dynamic context, no one can possibly state that "learning about
right" will ensure righteousness on the part of the student. We can only
learn static patterns, the dynamic ones we have to discover/invent (and
they will soon become static anyway, or disappear if they lack a static
latch), and everybody seems to agree that deciding which is the right
course to follow is a dynamic choice.

The problem with this, as someone (can't find the post now) said, is
that by narrowing our focus, we can always justify our actions by
prefering one level or another, one code or another, by favoring the
long view over the short one, etc. But is this dynamic ? I don't think
so.

A common belief in this group seems to be that the MoQ will help us
making moral decisions, and only a handful seem to believe the opposite.
As Bodvar said, the MoQ is just too complex for everyday life. We've got
either to rely on good old-fashioned socially acceptable right, or if we
feel something wrong with one aspect of it or another, our "hunches"
(Dynamic perception).
My belief is also that the MoQ does not support Socrates in his claim
(whether or not it was well translated, but thanks for the research job,
David !), but I seem to see a lot of people on the LS and MD who believe
we should use the MoQ to create a kind of "science of morality". This, I
think, is defeating the purpose of the MoQ, which in my opinion was
(among other goals) mainly to bridge the S/O gap into a coherent
*intellectual* framework (i.e. a metaphysic with a lot of explanative
power).

Let me state this more clearly : Pirsig did not wrote a new Bible !
Or even a guidebook for writing one...

We cannot argue that knowing right doesn't make one righteous while at
the same time attempting to do just that : defining a "Guide to Morals :
how to resolve a moral conflict in X lessons".

Trying to get the MoQ support one view or another is, it seems from
looking at our sister group, always successful. My take on this is that
if Lila (and thus the MoQ) is a wonderful tool to *understand* moral
conflicts (in a much wider scope than before, of course, but still à
posteriori), ZMM is the book you should refer to if you want to live a
righteous life.

Do what you *know* is good, and if you don't know, take a break, then
try again.

Over-intellectualizing this only leads to more platypi.

Rest of my rant at a later date. Feel free to attack this position as
much as you want, I don't *know* if it's right, but it sure *feels like
it. ;)

Denis

PS : that wasn't exactly the post I wanted to write, but it seems to
have wrote itself anyway. Strange...

MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org



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