Greetings,
Ed, I enjoyed your posting. Bubbling under with antipathy yet trying to fake politeness. Shame about
the content though, with a bit more thought we might have had a decent conversation.
ED:
>A concern: Struan, you are suggesting that morality is confined to aspects
>of behavior and thereby restrict any evolution in the understanding of what
>morality is and how it can be viewed.
No. Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise, Ed. This is simply bad logic. Understanding of
morality can evolve quite happily, indeed more happily, when the correct definitions are used. (see
later on for elaboration)
>Great concern: Yes, Pirsig has set forth a manner of viewing morality so
>that one can discern the morality of an activity, just as one can discern
>the morality of 2x2 equalling 4. It is not a "reduction" process, it is a
>greater model that Pirsig introduced that enables a synthesis between the
>good of utility and the good of morality (as you use this). The goodness is
>working at different levels; helping an old woman across the street is
>assisting at the level of society, making for a better neighborhood. The
>goodness of 2x2=4 is at the level of idea; that it works has been of benefit
>in how we apply our thoughts to particular problems. I might add that the
>patterns of arithmetic have a beauty inherent within beyond pure utility.
>You may wish to read ZAMM to help clarify the synthesis for yourelf. You
>seem disconnected.
Well, let us ignore this for the moment. If you think I don't actually understand the position and
need educating upon it then you gravely underestimate my argument.
>
>You suggest this reduction advocates an "irredeemably amoral metaphysical
>position." What do you mean by that! Your terms are loose and your logic is
>weak. I'm not sure how not recognising "anything beyond functional uses of
>the term 'good'" (if such were true) could cause a metaphysics to be
>"irredeemably amoral."
Your inability to unpack my statement for yourself is no reflection upon my logic or use of
terminology, Ed. Let me make it simple and direct. If you don't recognise anything other than
functional uses of the term 'good' then, a priori, you do not recognise moral uses of the term,
'good.' If you do not recognise moral uses of the term, 'good,' then your metaphysics is without
morals and thus amoral. The argument that 'not recognising "anything beyond functional uses of the
term 'good'" (if such were true) could cause a metaphysics to be irredeemably amoral."' is thus
indubitably true and fairly obvious. If you weren't sure, I trust you are now.
ED:
>Eeeeeks: Struan, such unbecomming language for a scholar.
Hey, bollox to your Victorian sensibilities and screw you for pigeon-holing scholars.
ED:
>I'll tell you,
(Please do)
>2+2=4 is indeed a moral assertion, as is 2x2=4. They tend to have greater
>appeal than saying 2+2=5 or 2x2=5 (I wouldn't say these are "bad" answers,
>however).
The act of asserting it may be, but the content of the assertion isn't. You wouldn't say that they
are bad answers because you have a simplistic and restricted notion of what good is. Clearly, in
most contexts, 2 + 2 = 5 is a bad answer. This is such an obvious truth that I would be astounded if
anybody reading this were to disagree (then again?).
>All moral bases are castles in the sand - just as the axioms of
>mathematics; Godel showed that for any logical system, there are always
>theorems that cannot be proven by the axioms within that system.
Again, your conclusion is not supported by your premises and so your argument is weak. All moral
bases are not logical systems (emotivism, intuitionism - to name just two) and so not all moral
systems are necessarily castles in the sand.
ED:
>Nonetheless, the MOQ does provide a model within which one can assess (or at
>least contextualize) the relative morality of various activities. I doubt I
>could substantiate the logical basis for this MOQ, and I doubt you could do
>the same for any system.
I could. Utilitarianism is totally logical and follows consistently from its premise. Or is that you
misunderstand the term 'logical'?
ED:
>But at least the MOQ provides a broad and
>consistent manner in which activities can be assessed; this is more than I
>can say for any other system I have come across.
Then you haven't looked very hard. Again Utilitarianism is a broad and consistent. You and I may or
may not agree with it, but it is certainly a broad and consistent ethical position. Most other
systems of ethics fulfil that criteria in the same way.
>Far removed from your
>suggestion that "MoQ has nothing whatsoever to contribute to debates about
>morality," I assert that the MOQ has and will make profound contributions to
>debates about morality.
Assert what you like.
ED:
>Fix your tie.
I don't wear one.
ED:
>P.S. You got the syllogism wrong. It goes like this:
>p156 "The Metaphysics of Quality says that if moral judgments are
>essentially assertions of value and if value is the fundamental ground-stuff
>of the world, then moral judgments are the fundamental ground-stuff of the
>world."
Ed, wake up. I'm trying really hard not to be sarcastic here, but you will notice that I subtly -
small type I know, but it is there nontheless - put my name on the quotation, not Pirsig's. As the
author, I am telling you that I got it right and, as I wrote it, I think you can quite safely take
my word for it that it is right. As those who have read Lila will see straight away, it is alluding
to, and using the same structure of argument as, Pirsig's comments upon evolution towards the end of
chapter 11.
Oh yes. The bit I ignored. Perhaps you would be good enough to look at my initial posting and ponder
over just what it was I was refuting. Note very carefully that I wrote, "At issue here is not my
objection to Pirsig re-inventing definitions of perfectly good words." I am not against evolving
understanding. I am against obfuscation. It seems obvious to me that the goodness (or badness) of a
bird's nest is of a fundamentally different order to the goodness (or badness) of me returning a
lost £5 note to its owner. I realise that you disagree and I realise why you disagree. This does not
change the fact that you have blurred a very useful and important boundary for no gain and you are
wrong to do so.
Enough from me, I'm bored.
Struan
------------------------------------------
Struan Hellier
< mailto:struan@clara.co.uk>
"If you say that everything is moral then that means morality is everything, which reduces to
everything is everything, which means nothing."
(Struan that is STRUAN, you know, the guy who wrote this, the author, who based it on an argument by
Pirsig and therefore wrote at the end - after Pirsig. I checked every word with STRUAN himself and
he agree that this is what he meant to write, so there it is in its correct and unadulterated form)
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