>===== Original Message From moq_discuss@moq.org =====
ERIN
>What about when the person wants to die, such as letting the prisoner commit
>suicide if he rather be dead then a life of imprisonment
>
>RICK
>Pirsig says it is generally immoral for society to kill a criminal because
>he still a potential source of ideas. Even a prisoner who wants to die is a
>potential source of ideas. I can't think of any reason it would be any more
>moral for him to kill himself (and destroy a source of ideas) than it would
>be for society to do so.
ERIN: I am not sure if I get this idea thing--maybe this is hasty conclusion
since we don't have a clear view of the intellectual level? what about the
freedom/rights of the individual to evaluate the quality and choose. If he is
in a situation in which he is not able to live in dignity do you think that
the degradation is necessary in case some ideas come to mind?
>ERIN
>or assisted suicide in terminally ill patients who are suffering.
>
>RICK
>I think Pirsig would give the same answer again. That is, barring a real
>threat to the social structure itself, it is immoral to prematurely end, or
>possibly even fail to preserve, any potential source of ideas (there may be
>interesting implications for abortion politics here).
>
ERIN:
In his foreward he mentions a few interesting things...
1) After Chris died he mentioned that he was going on living more out of habit
then anything else. (not for preservation of any ideas)
2)He considered aborition of Nell.
(until this dissociation occurred the potential ideas of Nell didn't seem to
be a concern)
PIRSIG:
"In any event, it was not many months later that my wife conceived,
unexpectedly. After careful discussion we decided it was not something that
should continue. I’m in my fifties. I didn’t want to go through any more
child-raising experiences. I’d seen enough. So we came to our conclusion and
made the necessary medical appointment.
"Then something very strange happened. I’ll never forget it. As we went over
the whole decision in detail one last time, there was a kind of dissociation,
as though my wife started to recede while we sat there talking. We were
looking at each other, talking normally, but it was like those photographs of
a rocket just after launching where you see two stages start to separate from
each other in space. You think you’re together and then suddenly you see that
you’re not together anymore.
"I said, 'Wait. Stop. Something’s wrong.' What it was, was unknown, but it was
intense and I didn’t want it to continue. It was a really frightening thing,
which has since become clearer. It was the larger pattern of Chris, making
itself known at last. We reversed our decision, and now realize what a
catastrophe it would have been for us if we hadn’t.
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