David, Struan, Phillip,
Good intersting points all round. I've something to say about Struan's
question about morality. Phillip first.
PHILIP: Is your position that dynamic quality is antecendent to such
concepts as self-awareness and free-will?
ELEPHANT: Yes. Determinism too.
PHILIP: If so, it seems that the "quality" is not at issue, but the
"dynamic" is. What differentiates dynamic from static (the continuum is
here, if it is a continuum), in such a way that makes the dynamic so
elusive? Understanding of static quality I see as a somewhat less formidable
task.
ELEPHANT: I don't think that the dynamic is elusive (yes it's here), just
that it eludes linguistic expression. It's all around us, and what's all
around us is fundamentally unlike data, or the contents of theories, or the
structure of grammar. Some people think that this means poetry takes us
nearer. Myself, I think the distinction is (in a different context) like
Wittgenstein's between what can only be shown and what can be said. Our
lives show the fundamental experienced reality of dynamic quality, but that
is not the same as expressing that reality. In contrast the dependant
reality (dependant on the dynamic) of static quality is expressable.
PHILLIP: From a behavioral position, static quality as a series of movie
frames makes sense in that those events(environment-behavior
interactions-frames) in the past, impact, or occassions, those events in the
present, and predict those events in the future, given the history of the
organism (film). This is the idea of the operant. Static quality becomes
much more linear, much more objective and definable, as in the sequence of
frames or enviornment-behavior interactions.
So static quality "can be self-awareness." Self-knowledge/self-talk of where
I am at a given time is occassioned by the reinforcement history and
schedule on which the self-talk is controlled. It is dynamic quality that
"can't be self aware," because self-aware is an outgrowth of it. Static
quality is an outgrowth of dynamic quality. It is not as simple as
dynamic-subjective:static-objective, but the static-objective side of the
equation is much easier to examplify.
ELEPHANT: Well it is true that the reason that prevents the universe of
dynamic quality from being self-aware does not prevent the universe (or a
part thereof) of static quality from being self-aware. These are different
topics, and we must treat them differently. But it seems that there is a
very good reason why static quality cannot be self-aware, and that is that
static quality is quality as an attribute of objects. Objects require
subjects, and even (grammatically) presuppose a distinction between the
subject and the object. Once you enter the level of subjects and objects,
consciousness must always be located in the subject and not in the object,
since that is precisely what the concept of a subject involves. Moreover as
an attribute of an object, static quality is dependant upon an attribution:
that is to say, agency always lies outside the static quality object. That
agency is standardly what we give the name 'consciousness' to, and with good
reason. Simply exchanging or processing static patterns is not
consciousness, it is computation. Consciousness involves the experiencing
of dynamic quality, and the creative generation of static patterns is one
reponse to that experience. Something that is essentially the product of
conscious activity cannot at the same time be the generator of that product.
There's Detroit, and then there's cars. Autocity it maybe, a large metal
object with four wheels it is not.
PHILLIP WROTE: I too would like to thank David, and those responses that
followed, for the return to the high quality posts that seem to be missing
in recent strands of dialog.
ELEPHANT: Yes, Struan raises a good point about Morality. I'm not sure that
I'm able to answer him to his satisfaction, because the answer I give is one
I've expanded upon before, and that didn't seem to satisfy.
STRUAN WROTE: To the point though, and I merely wonder how precisely one
retains morality if one loses the self? It seems to me that if your model of
the moq pertains, the answer to Pirsig's inquiry into morals is simply that
there is no such thing, unless one reduces the good of morality to the much
more mundane good of what I ate for breakfast this morning, or the 'quality'
way planets orbit around the sun. But, of course, morality is much more than
that. It is about individuals, and groups of individuals, being
*responsible* for their actions *in the world*. One of my oldest objections,
yet still without a coherent answer.
ELEPHANT: In the past I have contrasted two conceptions of Morality, the one
consisting of commands upon the individual from outside him, and the other
consisting of the right kind of enlightened pursuit of Quality within the
individual. At this point, the best way of specifying and defending
Pirsig's location within this schema would be by citing the nearest analogy
I can think of. Buddhism appears to be in both camps at once, and I think
that if we can get an idea of how that little trick might be performed, we
will have a pretty good picture of Pirsig's position. Or, alteast, one way
of making sense of it. Because on the one hand, Buddhism doesn't come
across as a normative moral philosophy in the way that deontology or
utilitarianism are. To a lot of people, there seems to be in Buddhism both
a 'wishy-washy' lack of absolutes and a 'self-indulgent' focus on the
spiritual needs of the individual. The focus of eastern religions seems to
be on 'enlightenment', rather than 'obeying the law', whether that law be
divine, moral, or social. This has alot to do with Buddhism's attraction
for soixante-huitards, and, in turn, a lot to do with the antagonism towards
it in some quarters. But there's a paradox here, or atleast an incongruity
which ought to make us look again. Because while for many the primary
appeal of the Buddhist approach to morality seems to it's being aimed at
'self-development' in a similar fashion to the virtue ethics of the greeks,
at the same time Buddhists will tell you that the enlightened are the least
selfish and the least self-obsessed, the most other-centered: ie those most
likely to ennact the moral 'law' for pure and disinterested reasons. So
this is a moral vision which seems to be *both* in the 'appeal to demands of
the self' and in the 'appeal to the demands of the other' opposing schools
of Morality. How can this be accounted for? Maybe most think that it
simply can't be accounted for. Analogously, most people, plus Struan, would
say that a philosophical investigation of our own personal pusuit of Quality
can have nothing to do with the moral force of our responsibilities towards
other people and soceity as a whole. I think that veiw is wrong and I'll
try to explain why.
The point is that both Buddhism and MOQ are primarily ontologies, an account
of what exists. The moral conclusions that they draw, both with regard to
'self-development' and with regard to 'responsibilities' are supposed to be
grounded in that account of what exists. Theirs is a Metaphysics as a guide
to Morals. In particular, both MOQ and Buddhism take the view that the
claim that 'I' refers to a substantial subject is just false. This is a
position also adopted by the Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe
(recently deceased) in her philosophical theology, and which is also a theme
of work by her Oxford contemporary Iris Murdoch. The notion that subjects
and objects are in some way illusory is a key foundation of the moral
attitude which Buddhism takes towards subjects, towards the ego (as it is in
the thought of Anscombe and Murdoch). Egos are things which get in the way
of the real if we are too attached to them: subjects can obscure dynamic
quality just as objects can, just insofar as they are treated as objects.
So compassion towards others, and obeyance of the moral laws requiring that
we behave with due respect towards others, acknowledging our
responsibilities, is seen as an essential part of spiritual training. The
emphasis on self-development can mislead, because the self is to be
'developed' out of itself. If someone claims to be enlightened, but goes
around bullying and asserting his wishes over those of others, then he is
transparently a liar. He is bound up in attachment to self, which is an
illusion. So there is a way in which a morality, which is also a
metaphysics, can appear to be in both the virtue ethics camp and the
deontological camp at the same time, without paradox. To pursue Quality
itself begins with valuing our responsibilities above ourselves.
The difficulty with this explanation, from Struan's point of veiw, would no
doubt be this: that it is difficult to understand how subjects are 'in some
way' illusory but at the same time real enough to be what we have
responsibility towards. I have previously cited a short article on this
matter: http://www.buddsoc.org.uk/world_s.htm . I think that paper puts
things better than I can, and when I read that paper I have the impression
of a writer who has been able to put some of this thinking into practice,
which is more than I can say for myself.
To begin with we ought to value the claims of the other, just in terms of
their day to day material demands, higher than our own: this being one
available means to disciple and countermand our own greed.
Beyond this, we might be in a position to positively help that other person
in practical ways to remove such things as prevent their coming to an
appreciation of the Good. That is to a large extent what Phaedrus wants to
do for Lila - though he doesn't succeed.
But in both cases it can be argued that the reality of the other is a
remnant and counterpart of ones attachement to self, and that such an
attitude means that self-appointed spiritual guardians like Phaedrus are not
really worried about Lila but about their own salvation. True morality,
Struan might conceivably say, begins with responsibility towards the other,
not towards some absract 'truth'. I recognise and anticipate the complaint.
But at this point it seems to me that this has become an argument over words
merely. There is a certain logic to keeping the word 'morality' always and
only for actions and reasoning directed first at the other, and then only
second at the truth, or Good, or Quality, or God or whatever. That's just
fine: you can define your terms how you like. But it seems to me that if
you define 'morality' like that, then morality becomes a perfect set of
absolutes existing in someother realm, and having no connection with the
lives that real people actually lead, and the desires and fulfillments that
they actually pusue. It is a joy for a Platonist, like myself, to be able
to lay this pragmatist charge justly against someone else, and it is a
strong point which Struan should answer. Because we do use the word 'moral'
and the concept 'morally good' to describe ordinary people and actions: it
is not reserved for the canon of saints. Ordinary moral goodness is a kind
of selfless devotion to some truth, but in human beings this devotion mostly
takes the form of some struggle with confused and mistaken self-images. It
may be thought that there are those who have no difficulty in this area, and
are able to have some clear and distinct image of themeselves and others and
the (contractual?) obligations between them. I doubt this. Such a
situation sounds to me like the certainty of the unexamined life. Mere
habit, convention: not morality.
I am aware as I write this of how theological and missionary the idea of
morality being ultimately based on a pursuit of the Truth or the Good
sounds, but we should not forget how much this kind of thinking has been a
practical force for good in our soceities over the years: translating the
Bible into English, teaching people to write, the introduction of
sewerage... A great deal of the impetus for these things came from people
who recognised that bread (education, health,) comes before morality and
religion, and that morality and religion were sufficiently valuable goals to
justify the means, however irksome the dominant classes found this in other
respects. Teaching people to read is bloody dangerous. Likewise
translating the bible into English. Likewise making the poor healthier and
stronger. One thinks of 'muscular christianity' amongst the Victorians, and
of liberation theology in south america today. To be liberated is to see
the truth, but you find it hard to do that if your government is useless and
corrupt and you are dying of cholera.
Elephant
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