Hi Jonathan
> First let me first say how sad I was to read your post.
Then maybe you understand how I feel every time someone tries
to reorganize the static levels. It doesn't help pointing out that
you're only reorganizing the moral scale, because according to the MoQ,
morality and reality are the same thing. I've said it over and over again
and Pirsig is very clear on this in Lila. I also think it's the only thing,
at least the most important thing, that separates the MoQ from emotivism.
> >> ***Intellectual freedom from social responsibility is immoral. ***
> >...nor that.
>
>
> So Magnus, you have no problems about carrying out grotesque medical
> experiments on (willing) victims or condemned prisoners?
I wouldn't call that intellectual freedom, but since you mention it,
I think a world in which such experiments are possible are more moral
than a world in which it isn't, because the former is more dynamic.
However, I also think such experiments are futile, since they probably
come from a wish to perfect humans one way or another. And this perfection
process would converge humanity into an increasingly static state. It
smells elitism and racism all over, no thanks.
> Who says Lila has more than biological value? To me the sanctity of
> human life applies to every living person. It applies to the aged, the
> young, the mute, the blind, the crippled, the paralyzed, the "simple"
> ...
> Their lives are valued just because they are ALIVE. That's a
> biological
> classification.
The sanctity of human life comes from the intellectual patterns and DQ of
each
person, not the biological patterns. You value a person more than a grizzly
right? But biologically, the grizzly bear is far superior to any human.
And aliveness is a somewhat mute argument to me. I don't consider life to
be equal to biological, I thought you knew that by now. Maybe I've read too
many of Isaac Asimov's robot novels, but if you ask me, the rest of the
world
have read too few. In them, especially "The positronic man", he asks the
question: What is so fu...ndamentally special about humans and what does it
take to be one?
> Magnus, I have a very deep aversion to any person or philosophy that
> rejects this fundamental ethical value.
I don't reject it, I just reject it as a fundamental (i.e. primary) value.
I see it more as a side effect of other, more fundamental, values.
> Your post makes me sad and disappointed .
There's really no need, when it comes down to specifics, I bet you and I
would come up with very similar ethical rules. We just have different ways
to get there. Take the medical experiments above for example, you think it's
a fundamental value that human life is not to tamper with, I think the
primary concern in this case is the dynamics of the human race, but it comes
out the same.
> No, Magnus. Your post convinces me that it is IMPERATIVE that
> we discuss
> morality first.
And since I think Morality = Reality = Quality, we just did that when we
discussed the four levels the other month.
Magnus
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