Magnus Berg (qmgb@bull.se)
Mon, 23 Mar 1998 18:46:37 +0100
Hi Struan
You said:
> Firstly everything is plainly not emotivism (in the philosophical sense)
> unless you are a convinced emotivist and if you are then what possible use
> can you have for the MoQ? The MoQ is setting itself up as something
> different and this is why it is quite proper for me to point out the
> underlying morality of Pirsig's position. Under an emotivist framework I
> could quite rightly state that inorganic matter has a right to dominate
> humankind because I feel that this is the moral order of things. The only
> way you can argue that I am wrong is to forward a different, non-emotivist
> framework which you can show works better. This is precisely what the MoQ
> seeks to do and precisely where it fails to convince.
You continue with:
> Emotivism is BY DEFINITION the dismissal of metaphysics from the field of
> ethics...
But earlier in your essay, you stated that: "It soon became clear that this
was simply emotivism in disguise". Two very contradictory statements.
The MoQ provides a connection between metaphysics and ethics. Not only a
connection, they are simply the same thing. You can't judge a metaphysics,
any metaphysics, through the eyes of another metaphysics, which I think
you're doing. For that, you would need a meta metaphysics.
Further on in your essay you argue that "modern scientific philosophy" have
abandoned dualist metaphysics and determinism. So, what is this "modern
scientific philosophy"? Does it explain modern physical observations
better than the MoQ?
You say that Pirsig completely misunderstands modern physics... To be
polite, let's just say that everything about modern physics supports the
MoQ.
You claimed to be pained by writing your essay. We're quite willing
to ease that pain if you let us.
Magnus
-- "I'm so full of what is right, I can't see what is good" N. Peart - Rush-- post message - mailto:lilasqd@hkg.com unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
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