Hi Platt and LilaQs
On 17 Jan 99, at 12:14, Platt Holden wrote:
> Evil has no place in the MoQ? I beg to differ. The MoQ is all about good
> and evil. Pirsig says:
It had always been my impression that the MOQ is about Quality and how it creates
reality.
> HORSE would also prefer to eliminate good and evil from the MoQ. He
> wrote:
>
> > HORSE
> > "The term 'Evil’ with all it's religious and social connotations can be
> > replaced by low value and ‘Good’ as high value."
Platt, it was not my intention to LITERALLY replace the terms Good, Bad, Evil etc.
with Low Value and High Value. What I was suggesting was that the idea of Good and
Evil in their old Socio-Religious context are superceded by an MOQ context. Good and
Evil are Quality/Value judgements. What is perceived as Good at one level may also
be simultaneously Evil at another - what's Good for Society may be Evil for Biology.
This is contextual not relative. In the MOQ there is only Quality, be it Static or
Dynamic. Quality is the basis of reality and as such Good and Evil are the extent to
which Quality is present, to what degree and at which level.
What worries me about a Good/Evil debate is that there is an assumption that there is
ONLY Good or Evil. A person is Good OR Evil. An action is Good OR Evil. Which
brings us right back to the all or nothing view. Good and Evil are present by degree.
Was Joe Stalin ALL evil. Was Gandhi ALL good. No!
The Goodness or Badness is the degree to which Quality is present. This is also the
foundation of Justice and Punishment. The severity of punishment is proportional to the
severity of the crime (in theory!). Each level recognizes that there are degrees of
Quality and the Static/Dynamic and inter-level conflict are of degree and not absolutes.
> I think if we shy away from loudly proclaiming that the Metaphysics of
> Quality is about morality--good and evil, right and wrong--we do
> monumental disservice not only to Pirsig but to ourselves. The MoQ is not
> just another wishy-washy, feel good, Zen-posturing grab bag of New Age
> philogism. It says this is a moral universe, a universe whose fundamental
> being is Quality--"the principle of rightness which gives structure and
> purpose to the evolution all life."
And as with evolution there are degrees of fitness or rightness. This is not a form of
relativism, moral or otherwise, but of context and degree. What you seem to be
saying, and correct me if I misinterpret your view, is that there is only all good OR all
evil.
> To replace the term "evil" with "low value" and "good" with "high value" as
> Horse suggests and Struan concurs may be politically correct in this age
> of moral relativism. But doing so would be like pulling all the teeth from the
> MoQ so that those of us who want to make a strong case for the validity
> of Pirsig's philosophy will be no better off than the rest of the gum-
> flapping theorists.
As I have said I have no intention of literally replacing these terms or of introducing
moral relativism. I also fail to see your reasoning behind pulling the teeth of the MOQ.
Where you have unity instead of conflict how does this weaken the MOQ?
Horse
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