On 13 Mar 2002 at 0:33, Zach Fiksel wrote:
> I just joined the message board today. I apologize ahead of time if
> any of my statements involve wrong assumptions to questions that have
> been answered earlier.
Welcome Zach.
Don't worry about questions answered earlier, we never agree on anything
anyway :-)
Ante Scriptum:
I wrote this yesterday evening and only connecting once a day I found this
morning (Thursday) that's reams had been written on the Death Penalty so
this may look out of touch ... but then I usually am.
> "RICK
> Ted Bundy kills people, which is immoral because people are sources of
> ideas. If your society catches Ted Bundy and has a jail to safely lock
> him away in, then that's the moral thing to do. But if your society
> has no secure way to do so, it might have to kill him. Either that or
> risk the consequences of letting him walk around and kill off even
> more sources of ideas."
Rick will know that the capital punishment has been discussed many times
before and that Pirsig's explanation of why there should be no such hasn't
always been understood or acclaimed.
> 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. 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. I don't think you can state
> that because one is the source of ideas that their death would be
> immoral. I think that the MOQ demands that we identify whether or not
> these ideas have quality in the first place.
I agree with most of this Zach - also with your conclusion below - but from a
slightly different angle ....
> I am against capital punishment but not because Ted Bundy is the
> potential source of ideas. On the contrary, the fact that people like
> him can potentially spread ideas that I believe are of poor quality
> would be a reason for me to favour the death penalty over
> incarceration.
...so let me start with some sort of the a beginning. When we ask ...Does
society have the moral right to kill it sounds as if all countries and states are
social-value focussed and that all individuals are representatives of
intellectual value, but this I think is not the case.
As a metaphysics the MOQ propose to cover all of existence and init
everything is Quality - rising levels of good - even the part of reality that SOM
declares outside the moral realm), but its "ethics" only says that the higher
level is better, it is not concerned with INTRA-level affairs. That much said,
Pirsig says that the death penalty issue is an INTER-level conflict; one of
Intellect vs Society social vs intellect and I don't contradict it, only sees it from
another angle.
Earlier - in the "law" thread - the social level came to be called THE LAW, but
as stated in my opening, the Western countries don't mirror Q-social value as
much as intellectual value. I will risk the assertion that those states that do so
are the ones that we condemn most vehemently. For instance, a
fundamentalist Moslem regime may be a great civilizing factor in a backward
region where severe punishment is what is needed to curb the "jungle law"
that otherwise is a much greater evil. But to the Western democracies this is
totally unacceptable because we are profoundly intellect-steeped ....SOM-
steeped in my book.
To conclude: Capital Punishment is wrong ....TO INTELLECT ... because
punishment by definition is a social thing, and intellect doesn't approve of
anything social-value-related ... had it had its way all punishment would have
been abolished!* This goes for all levels, the upper one's purpose is to control
(the values of) the lower. Just one single example: Society's effort to control
biology's sexuality by dress rules for women and then Intellect - to control
Society - encouraging nudity and sexual liberty under its own banner of
freedom.
[*)I would have liked to tell about a silly Norwegian association that pursues
such a goal, but it proves that it just goes for crimes they "approve" of, while
the the political incorrect ones they gladly see burned and the stake.]
IMO this is "Occam" explanation, while the "individual as a source of ideas" is
a bit contrived to say the least. For instance as Zach and Rick points to: a
killer's "ideas" might as well be of how to kill again and of revenge and hatred.
Another demonstration of the futility of the idea-intellect definition.
Always wrong to Intellect .... I say, and being the highest moral ground it has
the last word, but while the Quality Idea is an intellectual creation it is slightly
offset to Intellect from where the value of ALL levels is seen. What this means
for the Death Penalty issue is that given the right circumstances existence
may have to revert to social value's more archaic methods. As in war killing
becomes a duty.
Thanks for reading.
Bo
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