Hey Zach,
> ZACH
> I think that in order to fully understand what the MOQ would say about
this
> is to look at Bundy himself. He has quality because he is a person that is
a
> source of ideas. I think you must identify the types of ideas that a
person
> like Bundy would have and if these ideas are of any quality.
RICK
The MOQ doesn't make these kind of judgments at this level Zach. As a
metaphysical basis for human rights the MOQ seeks only to preserve as many
ideas as possible, letting history sort out the better from the worse and
the Dynamic from the degenerative....
PIRSIG
What makes killing him immoral is that a criminal is not just a
biological organism. He is not even just a defective unit of society.
WHENEVER (emphasis added) you kill a human being you are killing a source of
thought too. A human being is a collection of ideas, and these ideas take
moral precedence over a society. Ideas are patterns of value. They are at
a higher level of evolution than social patterns of value....
And beyond that is an even more compelling reason: societies and
thoughts and principles themselves are no more than sets of static patterns.
These patterns can't by themselves perceive or adjust to Dynamic Quality.
Only a living being can do that. The strongest moral argument against
capital punishment is that it weakens a society's Dynamic capability- its
capability for change and evolution. It's not the "nice" guys who bring
about real social change. "Nice" guys look nice because they're conforming.
It's the "bad", who only look nice a hundred years later, that are the real
Dynamic force in social evolution.... (LILA p185)
ZACH
Further, I feel
> you must look at the possible situations that may arise if you were to let
> someone like Bundy (Or Manson comes to mind) live and continue to output
the
> ideas that this type of person would have. Incarceration may limit but
does
> not extinguish freedom of speech and so these ideas of which Bundy is the
> source may pose a problem to the rest of society.
RICK
This inquiry would go towards the assessment of whether society can
successfully protect itself through incarceration of the criminal. I'll
agree with you that there are likely cases where incarceration won't be
enough.
ZACH
I don't think you can
> state that because one is the source of ideas that their death would be
> immoral.
RICK
Pirsig does.
rick
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