DMB TRIES TO RESPOND TO ROGER WITHOUT GETTING TOO FAR FROM THE "COMPASS"
DEBATE.
> ROGER:
> When and where did I render the MOQ mute and obsolete? I praised it as
> a
> method....no? ( I really like DLT's foundation analogy too)
>
> BUT PREVIOUSLY ROGER HAD WRITTEN
> I think the efforts to define a moral compass or apply it to real
> world
> solutions seems caught in the static truth trap. The problem with
> solving the moral dilemma is that to define the dilemma we first
> objectify it and build static models of it. We then apply some static
>
> solution to a static problem.
>
[David Buchanan] Generally speaking, the problem you describe
above is vauge and confusing. You use the word "static" as if it meant
stale, old, dead or no longer valid. The MOQ says that static patterns
of quality exist on four different levels of reality, but you've
apparently mushed them all together. Also I think that escape from "the
static truth trap" is about creativity, mysticism and DQ itself. Static
patterns of intellectual quality are something every philosophy has to
take seriously, just as every athlete must concern himself with
biological quality. Your description of the problems with solving moral
problems seems so slippery as to futile. Which is why I had written....
> DAVID B:
> How can you think that Pirsig's "inquiry into
> morals" comes to the conclusion that we can not solve moral dilemmas?
> How can a description of a completely moral universe leave us in such
> a
> mysterious moral vaccuum. We could go round and round about the
> nuts-n-bolts and debate fine points for the rest of time, but the fact
> remains that you vision of the MOQ doesn't seem to work as a
> explanatory
> tool.
>
> ROGER:
> We can solve moral dilemmas, but our solutions are to be viewed
> dynamically.
> Our map and our best path across the terrain change as the dynamic
> universe
> changes around and with us. What moral vacuum is it that I have left
> you in?
> Are you sure I was the one driving? (Be sure to read yesterday's
> whole
> post.
>
> AND IN THE SAME SPIRIT ROGER HAD WRITTEN...
> The MOQ approach is to continuously redefine and undefine the
> problem. Approach it from a thousands directions and apply a
> thousand and one solutions. Test these, retest. Redefine the
> problem. Keep what works, throw out what doesn't. Every once in a
> while try out what already proved unsuccessful and see if the
> problem has now given you new opportunities to try new twists on
> the old. And tomorrow, as you wake, intuit whether value has been
> maximized. You will find it hasn't, so it is time to start anew.
>
[David Buchanan] These last two paragraphs are also very very
slippery. Our answers "have to be viewed dynamically"? The terrain
changes as we move through it? The dynamic universe changes around us?
Start anew every morning? See, there is nothing solid or certain or sure
in your vision of the MOQ. Its all so vauge and slippery.
> DAVID B:
> In spite of your invocations of pragmatism, that solipsitic dog
> don't hunt. Its not that I don't love you anymore. We just disagree.
>
> ROGER:
> What solipsistic dog? What is it about my use of that Pirsig quote
> that you
> disagree with? Please respond to me, or the quote, not to labels,
> especially
> ones which don't reflect my views. You are arguing with yourself,
> David. You
> and Platt are calling me something that I disagree with and not even
> looking
> beyond your static models. It's frustrating.
>
[David Buchanan] I characterize your view as solipsism because
you seem to think that the four levels of static patterns of quality are
stale perceptions rather than the world we live in. I think
"quasi-mystical nihilism" is fairly accurate alternative label for your
views. But this is not about name-calling. This is not an attempt to
undermine your authority by way of insult. I use those labels so that
you'll know how I'm reading your posts. That is honestly what I see.
Static doesn't mean "unfresh". Dynamic doesn't mean "new and
fresh". Static patterns are the structure of realty, DQ is the
evolutionary process behind that structure. The blurring of distinctions
between the various kinds of static quality, and between sq and DQ
itself, only creates an MOQ that is so vauge that it becomes
meaningless.
At the beginning of chapter 13, Pirsig had described the
easiest moral dilemma, the conflict between the germs and the human
patient. And then he writes...
"...the patient has moral precedence because he's at a higher
level of evolution.
Taken by itself that seems obvious enough. But what's not
so obvious is that, given a value-centered MOQ, it is ABSOLUTELY,
SCIENTIFICALLY MORAL for a doctor to prefer the patient. This is not
just some arbitrary social converntion... It's true for ALL PEOPLE at
all times, NOW and FOREVER, a moral pattern of reality is as real as
H2O. At last we're dealing with morals ON THE BASIS OF REASON. We can
now deduce codes based on evolution that ANALYZE MORAL ARGUEMENTS with
GREATER PRECISION than before."
See, Roger? Pirsig clearly aims for a moral code that is
scientific, based on reason, and precise. Intuition, Dynamic Quality and
a constantly shifting landscape simply isn't useful in analyzing moral
problems. A moral pattern of reality, which "is real as H2O", has to be
properly accurately understood, not just guessed at until tommorrow
comes. (I can see how Platt might get the impression that your vision
leads to moral relativism. Don't take it as some kind of dishonesty. I
mean, its not an unreasonable conclusion.)
Pirsig sites a small flurry of moral questions, and even answers
the question of Lila herself, and writes...
"It was tempting to take all the moral conflicts of the world
and, one by one, see how they fit this kind of analysis, but Phaedrus
realized that if he statred to get into that he would never finish.
Wherever he looked, whatever examples can to mind, he always seemed to
be able to lay them out within this framework, and the nature of the
conflicts usually seemed to be clearer when he did so... Evolutionary
morality just splits the whole question open like a watermelon."
Obviously, Pirsig is saying that every moral question can be
cleared up by using his method of analysis. The MOQ is very far from
slippery and vauge.
DMB
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