From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jun 09 2004 - 22:10:50 BST
Hi Mark, thanks for the questions and thoughts
>msh says:
>But if your definition of morality is correct, as you say you believe
>it is, then you must believe the cynic is wrong, not just cynical.
>Given your idea of cynicism, "that most people would not
>do what is good," it's hard not to agree. But isn't it more
>realistic to say that most people will do what is good if they know
>what is good? If your definition of good is correct, then all that
>is necessary to know what is good is to look around in your society
>and see what everybody else is doing. No?
That would show what is moral, but good is not the same thing. Moral is
just average, normal behavior, whereas good is like the direction that
people attempt to go, however far they actually get. People don't have to
stop at average behavior, they can continue toward excellent and it won't be
too immorral (though don't be surprised if some see it that way). It isn't
immoral to be better than moral because we all know that we should try
follow the pattern of trying our hardest to achieve what is likely to be
considered good, and in everyone so doing that, and deciding for ourselves
what that is, we arrive at an average that is what is moral. It is not
achieved by aiming directly at it, but only by doing what is expected of us
ON THE WHOLE. Not just aiming for moral, although that is enough to be
moral, it is not enough to escape reproach from those wiser teachers who
attempt to instill character.
>msh asks:
>Ok, I'll think about it. Meantime, do you see any value in Pirsig's
>hierarchy of morality, as developed in Lila?
I don't at all like the idea that "higher level" patterns are "more moral",
and should be preserved or fostered over lower ones. I think it can be used
to support any political argument, and the counter argument. For example,
I would say Communism is an intellectual idea that society can increase
fairness and shelter and feed everyone by controlling social patterns of
accumulated wealth and inheritance and kinship, but Platt will be equally
sure that Communism is social, and kinship is biological, and Freedom is
intellectual, and so he'll arrive at entirely different conclusions, which,
surprise, were probably not very different from the conclusions he started
with (nor would mine be). So, no, not in the way Pirsig developed them.
I see the same levels, though, and see a usefulness to differentiating them.
I just see them as patterns that are *about* other patterns, that repeat
themselves by maintaining patterns but in a different way, using different
mechanisms than patterns of the same level that use other patterns to repeat
themselves. They are the patterns that develop from there being patterns,
but that don't disturb or alter or interact with the patterns, they only
build new patterns with them while allowing the patterns to continue. They
describe the expected things that happen when patterns of the 'lower' level
interact. A pattern of a protein molecule follows its pattern to repeat
itself, but the mechanisms are the same as those of the atoms themselves
that make it up - atomic forces (a case could be made for splitting
inorganic into atomic and chemical) - whereas the patterns of
photosynthesis and "life" don't use the same atomic forces, they just
developed by the way whole bunches of those patterns interacted, which are
completely oblivious to the lower patterns, which just keep going about
their business.
A carbohydrate molecule "knows" when it is being broken down to its
constituents (because it stops being a pattern, and it follows the patterns
of how it should break down) but it doesn't have any idea that it is doing
this inside a biological organism, it doesn't care about that at all, the
inorganic layer is just aware of inorganic patterns and follows them. And
social patterns are what develop when there is interaction on the biological
level, but that aren't themselves biological patterns (thus, eating other
animals I would say are social patterns, not biological, whereas sex I would
say is both biological and social - a remarkable achievement of meiosis -
perhaps all levels have something like meiosis that is partly the next
level). Our biological selves aren't aware that we are in a family, or have
neighbors and rituals, they just take in food in the alimentary canal and
expell it out the other end. But the interactions of biological patterns
might form patterns that become the social level, the patterns describe the
way biological patterns interact. And the expected interactions of social
patterns are intellectual level patterns.
I don't put thinking itself on the intellectual level because it gets
confusing with the role of consciousness in creating all patterns; all
patterns are conscious ideas and thoughts, but they aren't all intellectual
patterns. The intellectual level is made up of patterns that develop when
social patterns interact. When kinship and storing food interact with
sharing and friendship, intellectual patterns like communism and capitalism
form from the expected ways those patterns interact.
>jm:
>Well, not everyone is moral all the time. They may not cheat for any
>number of reasons, maybe they don't believe that it is moral to
>cheat...
>
>msh asks:
>But, using your definition, they would be wrong in thinking cheating
>is immoral. No?
Based on those surveys, yes. Most people cheat, cheating is clearly moral.
>msh says:
>Well, I won't speak for you, or for anyone else. Speaking for
>myself, I am more likely to cheat if I think that doing so will
>produce, for me, a more desirable result. This might be simple
>selfishness, sometimes; but it might also involve a belief that the
>test is rigged to restrict options for certain people. So, if I want
>to renew my driver's license, in order to get to work, feed my
>family, I might cheat on the written exam because I see no
>relationship between knowing whether I should put on my turn signal
>100 or 150 feet before turning, and my proven ability to drive a car,
>safely, for years and years. Whether or not others are cheating is
>irrelevant to me.
You might say it is irrelevant, but I think it isn't, as this sort of
morality operates at a deeper level, on a less self-conscious level than
that. You are describing pragmatic ethics and stuff like that, which is
stuff we think about and make conscious decisions about. But morality
influences our ideas about what is expected of us and is much closer to the
heart than to the head.
>jm asked:
>Do you acknowledge cultural attitudes, or culture in general? How
>does it form, if not from people behaving according to the culture's
>standards?
>
>msh says:
>Of course I do. But I don't believe that one can always determine
>what is right or wrong, good or bad, by cultural reflection alone.
>Do you?
What else is there?
>msh says:
>Ok, thanks for the clarification. From what did the priests'
>realization derive? It can't be from examining the behavior of most
>people in their uncivilized society, can it? In other words, what
>drove the development of the good lie?
People could see that quality of life varied, and they could see which
behaviors helped and which hindered. What their goal was was up to them,
and whoever was most persuasive won.
>msh says:
>Well, it's nice that you think I get it, but I'm not so sure I do.
>Are you among the "most" who think "most" don't understand morality
>and are stupid? If not, then by your own definition, you are
>immoral. No?
I see. I'm immoral in that I have a very different idea of what moral
means, and moral in that I am like most people in believing that no one else
understands morality correctly. I'm a special case though, most people
think it is the common people who are not moral, who need their
enlightenment to be moral, whereas I think it is the elitists who don't use
the term morality correctly, and who don't see that most people are, by
defintinon, always moral.
>msh says:
>I think polls can inspire immoral behavior among people who look to
>the behavior of the majority for guidance on how to behave. Sure.
This is what people do, not just a few weak-minded lemmings, but almost
everyone, save insane psychopaths. Don't think that people live in vacuums.
Given enough time, people get with the programs, no matter how much they
think they act on their own ideas.
>But since I believe the results of polls can be easily pre-
>determined, they can also be used to inspire MORAL behavior among the
>same people, for the same reasons. This is related to the "lie" of
>the good priests.
Well, yes, they always inspire moral behavior. But we need to have higher
aspirations to maintain morality. Inspiring true moral behavior is a step
down the ladder, not up.
>jm:
>Do you agree or disagree that morality is what most people do? (Or,
>more generally, that morality is what we expect?)
>
>msh says:
>I think history is full of examples of large groups of people (entire
>societies, almost) doing things that cannot in any sane way be said
>to be moral. So I think your definition of morality is probably not
>sufficient, as it stands.
The morals changed, and it was a completely different society. If a whole
society had certain mores, those comprised that society's morals. Morals
are expectations. A fire is moral when it burns the house down, however
immoral it may seem.
Johnny
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