Hamish,
I am suprised that your attitude is so anti-intellectual that you labeled my
inquiry into (what should be) a very basic
area of the MoQ as a "bash"... (have I touched a nerve?). Like almost
everyone else on this forum, I seek only to better understand and help
develop the Metaphysics of Quality; not to destroy it
YOU WROTE:
RICK:
> As I understand it, "Emotivism" is a position which holds that in
times of moral
> dilemma, a person will simply do what they feel is the right thing. It is
a perfectly
> coherent and philosophically acceptable stand on morality. The MoQ (of
course) sees
> things a bit differently. In the MoQ, what is moral isn't what we simply
feel to be
> Good, rather morality comes as the result of obedience or disobedience to
certain codes at various levels. >
HAMISH:
> I don't think that this is according to the MoQ. 'The right thing' is
DQ..."
RICK:
Huh??? LILA was written partially in response to the reaction of the
"Richard Rigel"s of the world who felt that ZMM was ethically relativistic.
If 'whatever I feel is the right thing' is DQ (as you seem to be saying)
and DQ is the most moral 'thing' there is, then whatever I feel is the right
thing is the most moral thing there is.... Maybe you'd like to rethink this
one.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
>
> RICK:
> Pirsig claims that the MoQ's various codes and levels give us the
ability to deduce moral issues with greater precision than before.
>
HAMISH:
Yes. Pirsig is arguing that *his* MoQ describes experience better than SOM.
RICK:
No, this is Pirsig arguing that *his* MoQ interprets Moral issues more
clearly than SOM.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
HAMISH:
> inorganic & Family = 0 : where the '&' is being used to indicate 'has
relevance to'.
> I think that we can agree on the relevance of Family to the inorganic
level.
> Arguments against I would really like to know about!
>
> biological & Family = ? : I'm not sure. A lot of geneticists argue that
the 'concept'
> [= biological predilection to similar gened entities?] of kinship is
favorable [=
> liable to be propagated] aspect of Darwinian evolution. I guess that in
MoQ would say
> that this is proto-society being created as an aspect of dynamic
biological quality
> but being ultimately superior to it. Why superior? Yes I think that
'Lila' employs
> post-hoc arguments for this. I think that they are post-hoc because they
are/Pirisg
> is trying to justify intellect vs. society, but I would like to get back
to this
> later.
>
> social & Family =? again I'm not sure. Without a lot of anthropoly to
call upon, I'll
> neverhteless guess that this is the only form of society within a lot of
primitive
> human cultures [hoping that someone will correct me if I am hopelessly
misinformed].
> If social quality is an abstraction of family to super-family then it uses
and
> overrrides the biological understanding of family to superceed strict
genetic
> equivalence.
>
> intellectual & Family =? I'm not sure about this one because here
everything is in
> flux. 'Is it right to report a member of your family to the police
because they have
> committed murder?' This is an ethical question [intellectual] about as
social problem
> [murder] against a biological condition [preintellectual - possibly
genetically imbued
> - family loyalty]. Ok, as it is a social problem I am willing to take the
flak about
> involving the intellect here - but it is according to MoQ that society
invented
> intellect as a means to help it with its problems hence the ethical
situation is at
> least proto-intellectual.
RICK:
It seems very strange to me that you believe that the relevance of "family"
to the Inorganic is so obvious and yet you're not sure of it's relevance to
the Social level.... Were you, by any chance, raised in an orphanage?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------->
>
HAMISH:
> I don't think that Pirsig is trying to create an encyclopaedia. He's just
trying to lay down some useful hints as to what an encyclopaedia should look
like.
As for the 'family' argument : it's not a guessing game, it's a matter of
seeing the
impact of a concept has at the various levels. If this is a game, it is a
game of
> 'interpretation' >
RICK:
You're right, Pirsig is not trying to create an encyclopedia, he never even
claimed to, and I mentioned this right up front in the topic proposal. As
for "seeing the impact of a concept at various levels"... If anything, this
only confuses the use of the MoQ even more so... How can I EVER make ANY
moral judgments with the MoQ if EVERY pattern can be 'interpreted' to be on
ANY level?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
RICK:
If assigning patterns to levels is simply a matter of personal choice
then why bother with the MoQ at all??? Why not just skip it and make those
moral decisions on directly on the same personal choice???
>
> HAMISH:
> Well, no reason really, it just seems like a better idea to do so.
RICK:
You'll agree that there's no reason to bother with the MoQ when making moral
decisions, but still claim it's better to do so...??? Can you PLEASE
explain that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
RICK:
> It's all Good,
>
> HAMISH:
> I wish.
>
But it really is,
Rick
------- End of forwarded message -------
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:25 BST