Squad,
And the question was: it the MOQ science or emotivism?
But before answering I'd like to go back and look at the context against
which Pirsig wrote Lila. Sorry if I'm covering old ground but it will help
sort things out in my mind.
The full title of the book is "Lila: An Inquiry into Morals". The subject of
morality is not some subtext or appendix to the book; it's absolutely what
the book is all about. Pirsig wrote the book because he was concerned about
what he calls the moral vacuum of our society.
It all stems back to the Enlightenment, which set us on a course away from
superstition and brought great advances in technology through the
application of logic. Reason became the new god, but it failed to find a
rational resolution to moral debates.
In the absence of a rational approach to morals, and because we're reluctant
to return to religion, we've largely resorted to emotivism - ie the claim
that moral judgments are simply expressions of personal preference. As
Struan's essay demonstrates, emotivism has been rejected as unsound
philosophically. Yet, practically, it still retains much of its power
because its alternative - moral reasoning - lacks the necessary fundamental
principles to give it a rational basis. You can condemn a murderer, for
example, based on the principle of the human right to life. While that may
be justified by consensus or tradition, it isn't justified by rationality.
So we're left with emotivism underpinning reason. We can never agree on the
truth or falsehood of values or a moral position because according to
emotivism there are no truths to be had. It is simply a matter of whether or
not one agrees or disagrees, approves or disapproves.
As the intellectual level has become dominant, the world has been redefined
as primarily a collection of rationally connected facts, and anything
outside of this objective world has been reduced to the somewhat unimportant
realm of subjectivity. Much of Lila deals with the problems this has
created: schools focused on exams instead of learning; anthropologists
forcing a scientific structure on human behavior; psychiatrists defining
sanity as social conformity; intellectuals trying to solve inner city
violence without the force of law.
In Alasdair MacIntyre's book "After Virtue", he shows how the environment
has created the certain specific character types. The key type is the
Bureaucratic Manager - the individual whose job it is to arrange the facts
in the most efficient manner possible in order to maximize resources. He's a
morally neutral character, this is the important point. He gets things done
through administration and procedure and he meets pre-specified and
measurable objectives. The other two types are: the Rich Aesthete who
existence is governed by the constant pursuit of pleasures, and the
Therapist, whose task is to keep the whole sorry show on the road. (The
Aesthetes and the Bureaucrats have professional shrinks, while the rest of
us have to make do with Oprah & co to massage away the meaninglessness of
life lived in a secular and materialist mode.)
This is the twentieth century lunacy that Pirsig's talking about. Not that
anyone's suggesting that there aren't people who rise above it, but Lila
attempts a general overview of the ills of the last century and as such I
think it's valid.
His solution is in two parts. The first is to go back to basics and look at
metaphysical assumptions.
When we talk about morals in the MOQ we're talking about a far wider range
of meaning than just the sort of things that bureaucrats leave to the church
to decide. If you accept the subject-object distinction between fact and
value then you're still playing their game, even if you don't agree with
them. But Pirsig traces his philosophy beyond that back to the Greeks,
especially Plato, and to Eastern philosophies, especially Zen.
If you pit reason and emotion against each other, then, in theory, the more
rational a person is, the less emotional they are and vice versa. This is
why Spock and Data are smarter than everyone else. But where is it written
that that must be so? Actually as Roz Picard and others have discovered when
emotions are disconnected in a person (usually as a result of an accident)
the result is not a super-rational being but a severely impaired one.
Patients without emotions behave less rationally, not more so.
But it all begs the question of what emotions are. There are different
categories of them, liking and disliking, fear, anger, love, embarrassment,
shame and on and on. When we decide that they are not truth, we're way back
in subject-object land again. Emotions are considered subjective, therefore
they cannot tell us anything objectively true about reality. But the MOQ
does not accept that subject-object divide as primary therefore the
dismissal of emotions has no basis.
Dynamic Quality is that "sense of betterness" "sheer fun" "manifestations of
luck" (I don't have time to find the page nos, but I'll get them if anyone
wants them). This is the basis on which Pirsig expects us to make moral
judgments and it's right there in the text. Yes, it's very easy to see why
it's been labeled emotivism. Emotivism is morality based on whatever feels
good to you. The MOQ is morality with ultimate reference to Dynamic Quality,
which is what's good.
The difference between emotivism and quality is so subtle and open to all
kinds of abuse that I'm frightened to even attempt it. But this is the point
of the whole MOQ and it has to be brought out. Value is neither subjective
nor objective, but a third category. Morals precede subjects and objects,
they are not contained in either category. We need to shift to that state of
mind when we talk about the MOQ's morals. The idea that someone can be
morally neutral like a bureaucrat is simply impossible in MOQ terms because
every action is a moral action.
The MOQ's moral justification comes from the fact that the individual does
not find the moral answer in herself, and that's where it differs from
Emotivism. Actually it's the opposite of emotivism. (Which is what Hamish
was trying to _point out_, no?) Emotivism sees good as an adjective, the
MOQ sees it as a noun. This is why emotivism has little or no justification,
but the MOQ has a profound justification.
I know it seems like there's no practical difference, but there is. The MOQ
holds that some answers to moral questions are better than others and based
on this comes the imperative that that answer must therefore be found, and
when it is found it will have moral authority. This is what leads us into
the analysis of the static levels.
A couple of people pointed out that the purpose of the MOQ is to destroy
intellectualism. I think they're referring to the idea of the MOQ as a giant
koan, ie an apparently intellectual question which actually has no possible
answer (eg what is the sound of one hand clapping). Well perhaps it is, but
to dismiss the intellectual analysis of morality on this basis is to
misunderstand the purpose of a koan. The purpose is that you are supposed to
try and solve it. Even when you know it's a koan you are still supposed to
analyze it. In fact, the harder you try the better.
So the moral problems of our society still have to be solved. There will be
no walking away or going to sit up a tree until the answer pops out your
back passage. And this is why Pirsig also paid attention to the static
patterns and the evolution of morality in his four levels - inorganic,
biological, social and intellectual.
It's not a new subject round here. We've talked in the past about morality
(issues like capital punishment, abortion and Clinton's indiscretions come
to mind). It's been discussed at great length, but I've yet to see anyone
post a really foolproof argument based on Pirsig's hierarchy. There are
always too many ifs and buts, and we are always hindered by the lack of
complete knowledge of facts in any situation. For example destroying a
source of thought may be wrong, but the money and resources used to keep a
murderer alive could alternatively be used to save the lives of other
people, who are also sources of thought. Also, we seem better at judging
historical issues such as the holocaust, rather than the sort of things that
we ourselves have to face - like my mother's horror at my piercings and
tattoos.
I don't mean to start these threads again, just to point out that we've
never come to complete agreement on any of them and if the MOQ was
rigorously rational then we should have. After all we can all agree that two
apples plus one apple is three apples.
Horse has made the point that we can't expect precision judgments at this
stage, nor perhaps ever. We should approach it as a rational hierarchy that
we're developing and working towards. Rick is concerned that this is just an
excuse.
I think Rick's concerns are very justified, a skilled debater could take the
four-levels-plus-Dynamic-Quality system and spin it to fit two conflicting
points of view with equal persuasiveness. I can't help thinking of Picket
Fences, Ally McBeal etc - where the formula for many episodes is to take a
moral question that seems to have an obvious answer, then through argument,
rhetoric and games convince the audience that actually the obvious answer is
not moral after all.
On the other hand, the fact that the MOQ isn't precise doesn't mean it isn't
useful. Medicine isn't precise either. Doctors are the first to admit that
the effect of treatments on the human body may be different in different
people, for reasons that are not fully understood. They certainly don't have
the power to solve every problem, nor do they agree with each other on every
diagnosis or treatment. But would anyone claim that medicine is not a
science?
I suppose the difference is that with medicine you can, at least some of the
time, measure the outcome - the patient regains health, so the treatment
must have been correct. Thus knowledge is acquired and the next patient with
the same symptoms can be treated more effectively. So we can see that even
though it's not a complete science, it is one that is continually improving
through systematic research and analysis.
With the MOQ it's difficult to see how such a process could happen. The
feedback is usually too unclear to judge. Clinton might have destroyed the
moral fabric of the USA or he might not have - you can take your choice but
there's no way of measuring it. Also, the outcome of Clinton's actions does
not make them moral - deception is still wrong regardless of whether or not
you get caught.
Yet when I look at the issues described in Lila and Pirsig's solutions to
them based on his hierarchy, it does seem to me that he's got something
here, even though I agree he overstates it somewhat. The MOQ does help shed
light on moral issues. It doesn't make them as simple as counting apples but
it does help. When you understand the social-intellectual-dynamic conflict
it's easier to see the forces at play in schools focused on exams instead of
learning - parents pushing for good results so their kids can get degrees
from prestigious colleges. It's partly social and also partly intellectual -
exam results are measurable and therefore objective, but it ignores the
dynamic development of the individual, which can only be achieved through
genuine education. Anthropologists forcing a scientific structure on human
behavior is a result of the intellectual level declaring everything else
subordinate to it, perhaps also by the social desire of social scientists to
have the same status as physicians and chemists. Psychiatrists define
sanity as social conformity because they are part of that society as well.
Intellectuals try to solve inner city violence without the force of law
because they haven't considered the social level. I know you could spin them
in other ways, but I'm not convinced that all ways will be equally convincing
nor that this means there is never any use to be gained from the system.
As to how this can be developed, well, just by doing what we're doing now.
Dynamic quality is found through the attentive pursuit of perfection in
static patterns (chp 30). We need to research these questions, and
continually study, think, experiment and, yes refer back to Pirsig if
necessary, and challenge our conculsions, and challenge Pirsig. Dillon's
posts have been summing it all up well. And with small steps maybe we'll get
somewhere.
So, anyway, that's how I see it.
Rick wrote:
>Well, I have been doing some thinking lately. Pirsig tells us that LILA
>was designed from a system of cards on which he collected, organized
>and refined his thoughts. I believe we can safely assume that the bulk of
>the MoQ was developed on these cards. It occured to me that at some
>point in this development there must have been topic cards with headings
>that
>read INORGANIC, BIOLOGICAL, SOCIOLOGICAL, INTELLECTUAL and some
>with GENERAL THOUGHTS on the levels. Logically speaking, if we work
>backwards from the material in LILA there's no reason we shouldn't be
>able to
>reasonably "reconstruct" these categories.
> All we do is post some initial "cards" and add to them each time we
>find something new... Each one is just a sentance or two with a page
>number credited, we could use LILA and the SODV paper as sources and
>group the quotes by their relevance to one of the respective levels. The
>final results could linked off of the MoQ.Org site for all to see.
I think this is a really good idea and it would be easy to set up a couple
of webpages like this. And, are you also volunteering to be the cardmaster?
Diana
------- End of forwarded message -------
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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