Hi All
On 22 Dec 99, at 22:40, Platt Holden wrote:
> HORSE:
> From an MoQ perspective reality is inherently moral so what we have to do
> now is consider actions and behavior as inherently moral. This now turns
> things around and we have to look at what is GOOD. Rather than asking ‘is
> an action moral’ we have to ask “is an action good”. This doesn’t negate the
> free will question that I have asked but puts it in a different light. Can we
> CHOOSE to do that which is good?
>
> PLATT:
> Here you make a distinction between the moral and the good which in my
> view are like free will and morality, that is, they are co-dependent. To be a
> moral person is to be a good person, to make a moral decisions is to make
> a good decision, to choose to behave morally is to behave in good way.
> Pirsig also seems to chain the moral to the good:
The point I'm making here is that from the MoQ perspective, what exists is moral - this
appears to be a basic axiom of the MoQ, but what is Good is not identical to what exists.
The Good is some form of judgement of the betterness within or between patterns of value.
What is moral from a traditional point of view consists of social moral values but from an
MoQ point of view this is no longer the case.
> No distinction is made as Walter suggests between Universal Good and
> static, social morality. Throughout Lila, the words “value,” “quality,” “moral”
> and “good” are used almost interchangeably, leading me to believe Pirsig
> treats them as virtually synonymous or at least so closely related that they
> shouldn’t be imbued with significantly different meanings as you attempt to
> do in the passage above. (Either that or I misunderstand your point.) Static
> patterns of morality value are all patterns of good within the moral framework
> of the MoQ.
But the MoQ is quite specific that reality is a moral ordering based upon static patterns of
value and Dynamic Value. Truth - which is static intellectual pattern of values - is a sub-
species of Good and there are many truths.These truths are real but not necessarily equally
good. We determine their betterness in a number of ways. So again, within MoQ moral/real
is not the same as Good.
> While there is no distinction in the MoQ between facts and value, there are
> distinctions between moral levels. What’s good for the biological level is not
> necessarily good for the social level, what’s good at the social level is not
> necessarily good for the intellectual level. Pirsig makes it clear that the
> battles between good and evil are the battles between levels. “It’s out of this
> struggle between conflicting static patterns that the concepts of good and
> evil arise.” (Chap. 13.)
So the determinance of what is good or not good is not the same as the static patterns of
Value which effectively constitute what is real and thus what is moral. This is the point I have
been trying to make. What emerges from a conflict between (or within) levels is not, of
necessity, Good.
Good is a judgement of some form - whether Intellectual, Social etc. is debateable, but is
not an exact equivalent of Moral (= Reality). This is not the same as saying that they are
unconnected, in fact quite the reverse. What links Morality and Good is Dynamic Value.
> Because of the MoQ moral hierarchy it seems to me apparent that even
> though Pirsig collapses the fact-value dichotomy that this doesn’t mean that
> all actions the world takes (using whatever instrument it chooses, including
> you and me) are also moral. It all depends (-: on where the behavior in
> question occurs in the MOQ hierarchy of goodness and how other levels are
> affected by it.
>From the MoQ axiom that Quality = Value = Morality and that reality is composed of
patterns of Value it would seem that reality IS and MUST BE moral. But from what you say
above you seem to agree with me that not everything is GOOD -or at least not all things are
equally good?
> Can we apply the MoQ hierarchy to moral questions? I used to think so, but
> now I doubt it because of the wide disparity of views on moral issues
> expressed on this site, exemplified by the answers to Roger’s moral
> dilemmas. Preconceptions, emotivism, agendas and varied interpretations
> seem to stand in the way. But, we’re not totally to blame. I’ve always felt that
> if someone doesn’t get a message, the author of a message is mostly at
> fault. In Pirsig’s case, he didn’t give us enough examples of how to apply the
> MoQ to every day moral problems.
But the disparity is with what we see as Good and NOT what is Moral - at least not from the
MoQ perspective.
Horse
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