Hi Struan:
You wrote:
> Platt and Jonathan. This is what I meant to say. At the end of chapter 12,
> Pirsig tells us that the moq combines 'science and ethics . . . . into a
> single system'. Presumably that system is no less scientific than science
> and no less ethical than ethics. If this is so, it is entirely reasonable of
> me to conclude that Pirsig sees the resolution of all ethical dilemmas to be
> absolutely scientific and all scientific study as ethical. So, although I
> was lazy in misrepresenting Pirsig by saying he wrote what he did not, and
> so a full apology was entirely appropriate, the thrust of my argument
> remains.
The statement you refer to is preceded by several paragraphs
which make it clear that what Pirsig means by “science” in this
context is the part of experience that science studies—“the
fundamental ground-stuff of the world,” the “Laws of Nature,”
“atoms,” “electrons,” etc. Prior to the MOQ, these activities within
the domain of science were never considered to be ethical in
nature because ethics only applied to interpersonal relations. The
claim Pirsig makes is that ethics (moral conduct) applies not only
to such relations but also to physical phenomena that science
investigates, thus breaking down the walls normally dividing these
realms and combining them into one overall “system.”
I think it’s a stretch to conclude that “Pirsig sees the resolution of
all ethical dilemmas to be absolutely scientific,” meaning I
presume that the scientific methods of measurement, experiment
and mathematical modeling can be used to settle moral issues.
Integration into a “single system” simply means that moral forces
formerly thought to affect interpersonal relationships alone
actually operate at ALL levels of the universe--physical, biological,
social and intellectual. To make your point I think you’ve
erroneously conflated HOW science studies with WHAT science
studies. Here is the relevant text preceding the quotation at issue
so members can make their own determination of its meaning:
“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.
“It says that even at the most fundamental level of the universe,
static patterns of value and moral judgment are identical. The
"Laws of Nature" are moral laws. Of course it sounds peculiar at
first and awkward and unnecessary to say that hydrogen and
oxygen form water because it is moral to do so. But it is no less
peculiar and awkward and unnecessary than to say chemistry
professors smoke pipes and go to movies because irresistible
cause-and-effect forces of the cosmos force them to do it. In the
past the logic has been that if chemistry professors are
composed exclusively of atoms and if atoms follow only the law of
cause and effect, then chemistry professors must follow the laws
of cause and effect too. But this logic can be applied in a reverse
direction. We can just as easily deduce the morality of atoms from
the observation that chemistry professors are, in general, moral. If
chemistry professors exercise choice, and chemistry professors
are composed exclusively of atoms, then it follows that atoms
must exercise choice too. The difference between these two
points of view is philosophic, not scientific. The question of
whether an electron does a certain thing because it has to or
because it wants to is completely irrelevant to the data of what the
electron does.
“So what Phaedrus was saying was that not just life, but
everything, is an ethical activity. It is nothing else. When inorganic
patterns of reality create life the Metaphysics of Quality postulates
that they've done so because it's "better" and that this definition of
"betterness"—this beginning response to Dynamic Quality—is an
elementary unit of ethics upon which all right and wrong can be
based.
“When this understanding first broke through in Phaedrus's mind,
that ethics and science had suddenly been integrated into a
single system, he became so manic he couldn't think of anything
else for days.”
Platt
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