===== Original Message from Platt Holden <moq_discuss@moq.org> at 6/14/00
9:05 am
>Hi Struan:
>
>You wrote:
>
>“Morality is entirely concerned with the goodness or badness of human
>behavior.”
>
>You sound like Rigel. Of him Pirsig wrote:
>
>“To answer him you have to go all the way back to fundamental meanings of
>what is meant by morality, and in this culture there aren’t any fundamental
>meanings of morality. There are only old traditional social and religious
>meanings and these don’t have any real intellectual base. They’re just
>traditions.”
>
>Just as Einstein redefined time and space, Pirsig broadened the meaning of
>morality to give it a firmer intellectual base. His new definition includes both
>the “utility” good of 2+2=4 (intellectual value pattern) and the “moral” good of
>helping an old lady across the street (social pattern of value).
>
>“Morality is not a simple set of rules. It's a very complex struggle of
>conflicting patterns of values. This conflict is the residue of evolution.. As new
>patterns evolve they come into conflict with old ones. Each stage of evolution
>creates in its wake a wash of problems. It's out of this struggle between
>conflicting static patterns that the concepts of good and evil arise.”
>
>Contrary to your opinion, this new definition can contribute much to debates
>about social morality as demonstrated by many examples in “Lila” including
>the story of the brujo and (my favorite) Pirsig’s analysis of 60’s Hippies.
>
>Reading your post of 13 June reminded me of this passage from “Lila”--
>
>“Like the stuff Rigel was throwing at him this morning, the old Victorian
>morality. That was entirely within that one code—the social code. Phaedrus
>thought that code was good enough as far as it went, but it really didn't go
>anywhere. It didn't know its origins and it didn't know its own destinations,
>and not knowing them it had to be exactly what it was: hopelessly static,
>hopelessly stupid, a form of evil in itself.”
>
>If you want to limit morality to the social domain like Rigel, fine. I think
>Pirsig’s expanded version is better, i.e., closer to the moral value of truth. Far
>from being “deeply flawed” as you claim, the MoQ frees morality from its
>hopelessly static definition and, once freed, gives us an entirely new view of
>reality.
>
>Platt
>
>
>
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===== Comments by john.lawton@sjhsyr.org (John Lawton) at 6/14/00 11:12 am
It strikes me that Quality (Morality) in ZAMM is an ontological dimension
rather than ethical or epistemological. Therefore it doesn't reduce in
representational thought as any species of Good. However in Lila the
splitting into dynamic and static categories creates serious problems.
Static and dynamic imply at least a temporal dimension if not also spatial.
How are we to think change or stasis without a space-time container or
baseline? Further, Quality is supposedly prior (temporal terms?) to objects
and subjects. And logically transcendant of space-time which defines, at
least in part, what we mean by objects and subjects. So I think the real
difficulties lie in how to think of time in relation to all of the above.
Dogen's notion of being-time may be a clue. At any rate the point of access,
I beleive, is ontological and therefore metaphysical, where the ethical
issues are resolved. Or not, as in this case.
John
END
John C. Lawton
Computer Support Specialist
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