Marco,
We are far indeed. Oddly, I consider myself a pragmatist as well.
> M
> No path is the only path. There is always the option to change towards DQ.
A
> society defending the status quo killing individuals probably just doesn't
> want to change. An idea, actually, doesn't kill society. It just changes
it.
R
You have to give up on this idea that killing individuls always goes
hand in hand with 'defending the status quo'. Pirsig's very point is that
sometimes killing individuals goes hand in hand with 'defending society
itself'.
Pirsig is talking about a society defending itself against 'common'
criminals. Remember the little village defending itself by killing the
brigands (p184)? They were moral in killing those brigands because a society
is better than no society. That is, when the society as whole was
threatened by the barbarians at the gates it was justified in defending
itself.
Pirsig then extrapolates this same justification to cases when society
as a whole isn't directly threatened by the criminal (cases of common
crime). The caveat is that it's a bit more complex. It's more complex
because typically a society is not threatened by criminals who don't commit
crimes directly against society as a whole (ie crimes like war, treason,
insurrection). That is... Ted Bundy had no chance of taking down America.
But if Ted Bundy were loose in a small isolated village that has no jails or
police forces, it would be justfied in using measures that a more equipped
country wouldn't be justfied in using.
> > RICK
> > No. A human personality is a social pattern (remember Marco, in the MOQ
> > 'society' is contra-biology, not contra-individual.
>
> M
> A human personality is a social pattern? A human personality is
four-level.
R
You exist at four levels but what makes you "MARCO" is social patterns.
M
The idea "I want to die" is an idea. Of course it is not independent of the
> lower levels, nevertheless it is an idea.
R
Of course it is an idea. The point is that the MOQ says it is a (generally)
IMMORAL idea.
> M
> Again, I can't follow this point that the mother is a social pattern. An
> individual choice is an idea.
R
Yes... but it's not always a MORAL choice.
> > 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.
>
> M
> I'm Pragmatist? That's good! This argument was anyway about the social
> options we have. Banning abortion doesn't work.
R
Banning abortion doesn't work, but if it did, the MOQ would say it would be
moral to do so (just for the record, my own view is otherwise).
> > 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.
M
> "Destroying a potential" IS "preventing".
R
Right. You don't have to go out and get some girl pregnant, but if you do,
the MOQ says it would be immoral to abort (all other things being equal, of
course).
M
You have to sketch a borderline,
> or even a cat is a potential source of ideas as in a billion years could
> evolve into something intelligent.
R
Sure why not? Intellect would probably say "Don't kill the cats if you
don't have to...Just in Case."
rick
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