Hi Platt, Kevin, everyone,
Platt Holden <pholden5@earthlink.net> wrote on
Tue, 2 March 1999 00:57
>Hi Jonathan and Group:
>
>Jonathan, I took your advice and read your "Causality" essay. I looked
>and looked but couldn't find a single reference to collective
responsibility.
That's because the essay wasn't specifically about collective
responsibility. It was about new properties which emerge in complex
systems. Collective behaviour is an emergent property of individual
behaviour and just as there is individual responsbility, there must also
be collective responsibility. Somehow Platt, I assumed you would see
this without me having to spell it out.
>Further, I can find no reference to collective responsibility in the
writings
>of Robert Pirsig. In fact, in LILA, words like "duty" and
"responsibility"
>are conspicuous by their absence, rather telling for a treatise on
morality
>don't you think?
IMO that's because Pirsig unites all these terms under the heading of
quality, or
"arete". As Kevin wrote:-
<<<Many philosophers and politicians will use many terms to label
"social
quality." One of these is collective responsibility. In Lila, one may
search in vain to find many moral labels. But if we examine the
concepts,
not much remains absent on an axiological level.>>>
Platt, I always feel that you treat Pirsig's novels as instruction
manuals.
I regard them as very poor manuals, but recognise them as excellent and
thought-provoking works.
>
>My impression is that Pirsig is pretty much a loner who is not out to
>change the world or impose obligations on others. Just let him ride his
>motorcycle, sail his boat and write metaphysics.
I believe that you underestimate him. He may be a loner, and may be
withdrawn, but his aim is deadly.
>The trouble begins when
>moralists of any stripe or agenda, invoking duty and responsibility to
>some higher entity such as the public good, start to forcefully
initiate
>compliance with their views on those who disagree with them.
What about a higher entity like "intellectual good"? Phaedrus was the
one writing a lecturing about quality an morality. That's why Rigel
attacked him.
>Obviously I've missed something important. If you'll refer me to where
>Pirsig cites "collective responsibility" in LILA or elsewhere as being
one
>of the higher values I'd appreciate it. As I recall, he was fairly
critical of
>the Victorian brand of social duty.
Maybe I'm just dumb, but I consider collective responsibility as an
obligatory part of social value. Pirsig defended the idea of social
duty, but rejected the Victorian interpretation of it.
I suspect that Platt's problem stems from the fact that we only really
know our own individual consciousness. We can speculate on the
existence of a collective consciousness, but as individuals cannot
"know" it in the same way. I discussed this before in my "3 vs. 4
levels" post of 15th December 1998.
A final thought - Pirsig describes New York City as a giant, and we
should consider whether this giant is a sentient entity which acts
consciously (and responsibly?), or just an unconscious incomprehensible
mess. If we opt for the latter, then the giant has no responsibility, no
morals and no value.
Jonathan
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