Hey Marco,
Good to hear from you....
>
> RICK
> > But I
> > believe his ultimate point is that the morality of an individual
execution
> > depends on the level of threat a criminal poses to the social structure,
> > which in turn depends on the stability of that social structure.
>
MARCO
> Well, not the morality, I'd say, just a tendency: a less stable social
> structure tends to be less moral towards its citizens.
RICK
I don't think so. I think a less stable society has less options. If the
choice for a society is execution of criminals or self-destruction, the
society would be justified in the executions.
MARCO
This is true for
> capital punishment as well as for the other human rights. Curbing human
> rights is an immoral shortcut to stability.
RICK
Right. It's immoral as a SHORTCUT. But not if it's the only path. Don't
confuse acting out of convenience with acting out of necessity.
> 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.
MARCO
> Suicide is not a society killing a source of ideas. It is an idea killing
> its own source.
RICK
No. A human personality is a social pattern (remember Marco, in the MOQ
'society' is contra-biology, not contra-individual.
> > RICK
> > ... 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).
>
MARCO
> But again it is not society that performs abortion. It is the free choice
of
> the mother.
RICK
Again, the mother is social pattern, not an intellectual one. Her choice to
eliminate a potential source of ideas is no more moral than if it were made
the society at large.
MARCO
Let's remember that when abortion was formally banned, it was
> nevertheless committed. And it's a fact that legal abortion kills less
than
> illegal abortion.
RICK
But this is an argument about practicality, not morality.
MARCO
I think it is immoral to destroy a "source of ideas", unless the
> pregnancy is a risk for the mother herself.
RICK
And what if only one could be saved? Would it be more moral to save the
baby at the mother's expense? Or the mother at the baby's expense?
MARCO
The question is "when" is it
> possible to talk of "source of ideas"? Fetus? Embryo?
RICK
This argument usually centers around when it is possible to talk about a
'pre-born' as being "alive". But don't think that anyone would argue that a
fetus isn't a POTENTIAL life, or a POTENTIAL source of ideas. For our
purposes, it's the latter that is controlling. A fetus is potential source
of ideas, so Intellect won't let it be morally destroyed unless it (somehow)
constitutes a direct threat to the social structure.
MARCO
Following this line it
> comes out that even sexual abstinence is immoral!
RICK
No. The MOQ doesn't say it's immoral to fail to bring into being new
sources of Intellect. Only to destroy them.
thanks for the comments,
rick
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:58 BST