From: phyllis bergiel (neilfl@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue May 27 2003 - 23:53:33 BST
Hi Matt and Steve:
Hope you don't mind back tracking a bit here, I haven't been online for
sometime, but after reading this thread thru to today, this exchange
coincided with something I have been thinking about.
> Steve said perceptively:
> When you use deciding between a Pepsi and a Coke as an example to disprove
> your arbitrary relativism you prove the point. Moral decisions seem to be
> just a matter of taste to you. Some people like chocolate, others like to
> sacrifice virgins to the volcano god.
>
> Matt:
> Well, it doesn't prove your point, but it does strike up your insight.
Following a Humean line, moral decisions are a "matter of taste."
Pragmatists don't make a discrete, metaphysical distinction in kind between
morals and taste, between morality and prudence. They put them on a
continuum. When deliberating over wh
> at kind of soda we should drink, nobody's life is on the line. The
distinction is a pragmatic one between taste and morality: tastes are
uncontroversial, it doesn't matter if no one agrees; morals are
controversial because it does matter if no one agrees, or rather, if people
do disagree. And, after all, some people have better taste than others.
> As I see it, Pirsig makes this exact point with Quality. In Pirsig's
philosophy, morality is the same as matters of taste because Quality is made
ubiquitous. But this also means that matters of taste are the same as
morality. The equal sign goes both ways.
>
I've long been intrigued by a character in Louis Bromfield's novels named
Lily Shane. Set in the Edwardian/Victorian era (one won a Pulitzer in 1927)
Lily is a rich woman who has a child out of wedlock and a different lover
after. She is rich and the epitome of elegance. It is said of her that
"Her taste was perfect, so her morals didn't matter."
My interpretation of this in light of the MOQ, is that this is a version of
arete. A development of character that enables one to act in ways that
maximize dynamic quality gains while minimizing degenerative experiments.
It includes the harmonization of all dyanmic gains and static patterns.
This means that intellectual development is not necessary to make those
gains; i.e. a morality based on reasoned argument is not required to be
moral, but an instinctual sensitivity in sorting experience is.
So, Matt I disagree with your definition of taste as being about things that
are inconsequential. Taste is innate, based on feeling. Twentieth first
century humans feel that taste is therefore only to be trusted in trivial
matters. But taste can be moral too (did you already cover this in your
vegetarian sense discussion sorry, missed that, if so?) In other words,
squeamishness, taste can lead on eto be a vegetarian in practice long before
the moral argument makes one vegan in principle.
Phyllis
Opinions?
Phyllis
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