Hi Struan:
Please forgive my ignorance, but when you write things like "On a meta-
ethical level there is no difficulty in non-naturalism being seen either way
while on a normative ethical level I fail to see the advantage" I confess to
having no idea what "normative ethical level" means.
Likewise your phrase "--and I think an element of inverted prescriptivism
might come in handy at some point," my understanding of "prescriptivism
" is zilch.
Result: I'm not exactly sure what you're driving at in your quest to square
the MoQ with the Moore's naturalistic fallacy, if indeed that’s your goal.
But let me hazard a guess that whatever is bothering you may have
something to do with the inherent paradox in the MoQ that stems from the
fact that Pirsig has to assume a subject-object world in denying a subject-
object world because the language he must use is subject-object based.
Thus when he says that Quality can't be defined he has, within the
conditions and habits of subject-object language, defined it. So
throughout the MoQ you get this constant simultaneous dualistic interplay
between the non-naturalistic and naturalistic.
In a similar vein, as Vitzhum has pointed out, empiricism (meaning
sensations of the physical world) and evaluation (meaning sensation of
the good) occur simultaneously, although the two are treated as separate
and distinct phenomena in common parlance.
As Jack Nicholson would say, “Your language can't handle co-existence.”
I suspect, Struan, that this is either a) something you've already
processed and dismissed as irrelevant or b) miles away from what you’re
really asking about. But, at the risk of being considered a complete
dunce, I send it along for whatever it's worth and welcome your critique.
Platt
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