Dear Marco,
Thank you for checking 26/11 18:49 +0100 my vocabulary. It's the
non-English-speakers who are of most helpful in this respect, it
seems. (-:
A thread with my name in the subject-line seems too much honor,
so I change the subject again, if you don't mind.
I apparently misused "deontology". I suspected something like
that. It seemed to fit better to what I meant than Matt's 31/5
11:21 -0700 "axiology", but I can do without. However FOLDOP
names it ("meta-ethics" it seems), the third part of my MoQ
contains answers to the question: 'How can we know what we should
do?'.
I agree with Pirsig that the 'ultimate nature of reality' is
value, and that the universe is a moral order. That only explains
our behavior however (our behavior is part of patterns of
values), it is not enough to motivate our actions. To the extent
that we have a choice of action (we are neither determined nor
fully free), we have a choice between different patterns of value
to conform to. Thus even a MoQ should be separated from the
question "what should I do". We behave according to the value we
(hope to or apparently) experience in what we do. (I wouldn't say
that we create value.) To the extent that we have a choice
between different (static) patterns of values (as context for
making this value conscious), the question "what should I do" is
still unanswered, as is the previous question "How can we know
what we should do?".
I have no problems with FOLDOP's definitions of "morality" and
"ethics". For me too "morality" is first order and "ethics" is
second order (derived from reflection upon morality). You
misunderstood me if I seemed to disagree on that. I meant to
emphasize that the distinction between "morality" and "ethics" is
not "more concrete, more everyday" versus "more general, more
abstract": "ethics" includes "applied ethics" and "morality"
includes very large scale patterns of value that can only be
grasped at a high level of abstraction.
Summarizing my MoQ: we experience (epistemology) quality
(ontology) and seek Meaning (meta-ethics).
Summarizing Pirsig's MoQ: we experience quality and only history
will show whether we chose to be a savior or a degenerate. In
other words: Pirsig's answer to "How can we know what we should
do?" is "You can't". He literally says in chapter 17 of "Lila":
"you can't really say whether a specific change is evolutionary
at the time it occurs".
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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