Dear Rog,
You wrote 13/10 12:59 -0400:
"The MOQ fails miserably in dealing with same-level or
relativistic moral
positions. In October of 1998, we spent the entire month in this
forum
addressing the effectiveness of the MOQ to deal with real moral
issues. The
MOQ did not fare well. In fact, by the end of the month, the
absence of
sound arguments in favor of the MOQ's aptitude to REALLY resolve
moral
dilemmas was noticeable ...
IMO relative morality is where many or even most of the
interesting dilemmas
exist. And this is the Achilles heel of the metaphysics."
As I tried to explain to Platt 27/10 22:11 +0200 IMO ALL moral
dilemmas are same-level dilemmas. The idea that say a biological
pattern of values can pull someone in one direction while a
social pattern of values is pulling in the opposite direction
implies a subject, therefore SOM and is consequently not
consistent with MoQ.
That a MoQ fails in resolving moral dilemmas is IMO only to be
expected: it is only a metaphysics, a first theory.
As 3dwavedave wrote 7/7 11:13 -0500:
"The trap that Phaedrus, and many of us, falls into is trying to
immediately apply metaphysical insights to solve to all
philosophical
problems without development of the other philosophical systems."
The philosophical system that has to be development on the basis
of a MoQ before you can resolve moral dilemmas is obviously ...
Q-ethics.
Regarding 11/9 and its aftermath: I agree that Western (social)
patterns of value beating terrorist (social) patterns of value
(for the social level is the primary level on which a war is
fought) would be a moral outcome. A more moral outcome however
would be a dissolving of both competing patterns of value into a
new, higher quality social pattern of value without casualties. I
also agree that such a synergistic solution is not yet in sight.
I agree with Platt that any moral outcome in a conflict between
higher and lower quality social patterns of value (the way I
interpret his "biology" vs. "society" conflicts) needs an
intervention of an intellectual pattern of values ("intellect").
That is what intellectual patterns are for: they make some social
patterns of value more successful than others in their
competition with lower quality social patterns of value. I call
myself a pacifist in the sense that I highly value such
synergistic solutions without casualties, even if I don't always
see them and can't guarantee that my future behavior/choices will
conform to that pacifist intellectual pattern of values.
I know that I am now also falling in the trap of making patterns
of value into subjects "beating", "fighting", "intervening" and
otherwise "acting". Communicating in SOM-language makes that
difficult to avoid. The above can be translated in terms of
conscious experience of evolving patterns that are conformed to
(experienced as static quality) or not conformed to (experienced
as Dynamic Quality) without implying subjects, but is not always
necessary as long as we are conscious of the difference between
SOM and MoQ.
I hope you still love "the socio-economic stuff I write" even
after my 21/10 11:50 +0200 posting. Platt seemed not-amused 24/10
14:36 -0400. I also hope you notice that I am already trying to
translate and revise my views using MoQ concepts. As I have done
a lot of thinking on it and as I developed that thinking before I
read Lila, complete translation and revision is a huge task for
which I have little time (as you will have noticed, given the
time I take to answer your postings).
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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