Hello everyone
Platt Holden wrote:
> So what moral compass do you go by? What moral compass will
> you teach your children to follow? And how will you justify it?
> Those are the questions we must address if, like Pirsig, we want to
> inquire into morals.
Hi Platt
It seems to me that since Pirsig's MOQ states that Universe is
fundamentally moral and value-centered
there is no need for justification. Must we continually justify our
moral actions when all actions are moral?
> Platt:
> Personally, I like Pirsig’s moral compass which is backed by a
> logical metaphysics whose assumptions make sense to me. It
> says, among other things, that the reason you don’t kill someone
> (other than in self-defense) is not because you are innately
> concerned with his welfare, or because killing him if universalized
> would wipe you out too, or because God says you shouldn’t do it,
> but because that individual is a unique source of ideas which are
> sacred. Why sacred? Because only ideas can advance mankind to
> a higher evolutionary level. Killing is wrong because you might kill a
> Bill Gates.
Platt, I do not believe ideas alone will advance humankind to higher
evolutionary
levels and in fact may end up destroying humanity. Ideas that work to
better all humanity, YES! Universe is innately concerned with our
welfare and
as we are of this same moral fiber, we also are innately concerned with
welfare of Universe
whether we come to this [intellectual] realization or not. Killing is
wrong because only a living being can respond to Dynamic Quality whence
ideas spring.
> Platt:
> And that’s just for starters of a moral compass based on the MOQ.
> Unfortunately, I fear it will suffer the fate of philosophies before it,
> not only as Jonathan says because of it’s complexity and invitation
> to varying interpretation, but because its fails to produce an
> emotional as well as a cerebral response. In the MOQ, a mother’s
> sacrifice for her child or a father’s loyalty to the tribe are
> categorized as mere biological functions. I’m afraid a morality that
> denies a high position to fundamental feelings will never catch on. “I
> feel your pain” strikes a deep responsive chord in the human
> breast, but apparently not in Pirsig’s. And perhaps that’s the crux
> of Jonathan’s objection.
Platt, but what of aretê? Who can read that passage Pirsig quotes from
The
Iliad and call shining Hector's sacrifice a biological function? I
disagree that Pirsig's MOQ denies a high position to fundamental
feelings. Pirsig's fundamental "stuff" is Quality, experience, feelings.
A subject/object based metaphysics denies feelings as real if they are
not identifiable and defined. Not Pirsig's MOQ, at least in my
interpretation of it.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Dan
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