Hi there. This is my first post; I've been subbed for about a week. Pretty
interesting stuff, so far, although I've stepped into the middle of quite a
few discussions that aren't easy to follow. I'll do my best to live up to
the quality of the posts I've read so far.
I read ZMM about three years ago and am currently reading Lila (I'm at the
place where Lila begins to descend into madness, I suppose - her last scene
seemed completely schizophrenic to me). The dynamic/static quality division
makes sense and does explain quite a bit, but there are definitely points
where Pirsig argues oddly. Case in point: Pirsig makes the following
deduction about the morality of capital punishment....
Murder is immoral, being the consumption of biological quality by inorganic
quality (i.e. a higher order by a lower order).
Capital punishment is on one leve the consumption of biological quality by
social quality, but the murderer also contains intellectual quality and thus
capital punishment is immoral.
I have several objections. First, Phaedrus himself claims that Lila (for
example) has biological quality but not social quality. This appears to
imply that she also lacks intellectual quality. Does this mean she could be
capitally punished morally? I suspect not, but then how does Pirsig's
argument work in this case? Second, if the murderer has demonstrated a
pattern of killing, then his own acts also destroy intellectual quality and
his destruction could be viewed as a preservation of intellectual quality
(or at least the potential for such). Does this make capital punishment in
this case moral?
Note, please, that my own views on capital punishment are not entirely
clear - I don't intend to argue that it is *moral*. I simply don't
understand Pirsig's case for their clear immorality.
- James
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