Hello Platt and all,
PLATT
> Do we have-- like our physical senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste
and
> smell--an inborn, instinctive moral sense?
>
Well, well, well! I just looked back over some posts from November 1998
(Re: MD PROGRAM: Morality and the MoQ), when Platt and I were arguing on
the same point.
The argument actually got rather heated - I know I did, with one of my
post going out under the following header:
>JONATHAN RAGES AT PLATT AND CALLS HIS
>RATIONAL MORALITY A MoQery
Platt, in November 1998, you were calling it "warmed over pseudo love".
That doesn't quite fit with what you are now writing in March 2000:
PLATT
> In chapter 20, [Pirsig] leaves little doubt about our possessing an
intuitive moral
> sense: "There was 'something wrong-something wrong-something wrong'
> feeling like a buzzer in the back of his mind. It wasn't just his
imagination. It
> was real. It was a primary perception of negative quality. First you
SENSE
> the high or low quality, then you find reason for it, not the other
way around.
> Here he was SENSING it."
[snip]
> As radical as the idea may seem, belief in a innate moral sense has
been
> expressed by some of the world's greatest philosophers including
Buddha,
> Plotinus, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Henry David Thoreau, Herbert
Spencer
> and William James. Darwin also believed that humans possessed an
innate
> moral sense which separates us from the rest of the animals. But
Immanual
> Kant, who many modern thinkers hold up as the last word in secular
moral
> matters, claimed that belief in a moral sense was a fallacy. That most
> biologists today agree with Kant is hardly arguable. (Am I right,
Jonathan?)
>
I don't understand how it happened, but it seems to me Platt that you
have completely changed your position. I find that a most welcome and
honourable change. But before I start to sound condescending, I have a
confession to make: I haven't read most of the philosophers in your
list, and only a tiny bit of Kant. My bet is that the average biologist
has read none at all! Biologists freely accept the concept of instincts,
but can't necessarily explain them, especially if they try to use
familiar mechanistic terms. "Objectively" the instinct of morality is no
different from hundreds of other instictive behaviours. To attach a
special value to morality is to take a ... rather novel "Pirsigian"
view! Biology (as a subject) hasn't yet recognised the need for this.
PLATT
> I don't know about you, but it's a tough nut for me to swallow. Those
logical
> positivists have me brainwashed pretty good.
>
That's hardly surprising. Movements that brainwash themselves first tend
to be pretty convincing. The logical positivist doesn't see it, and is
thus the one who stays brainwashed the longest.
I must, however, put in a good word for us scientists: We aren't really
logical positivists at all - the practicalities of working in the lab.
tend to do that! The people to watch out for are the amateurs cheering
from the sidelines who "value" science without understanding it. They
can sometime be a dangerous breed.
Jonathan
PS. I know I should be looking for relevant recent posts that I know are
there, but I'm tired and this post is already too long. Any comments?
Jon, Matt, Anyone?
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