At 10:40 PM -0500 12/22/99, Platt Holden wrote:
>
>PLATT:
>As I argued before, morals and free will go together. You can’t have on
>without the other.
I'll go you one further. Intellect itself and free will go together. You
can't have one without the other. Why isn't a computer conscious? Because
it can't choose. If rocks could choose from different paths to quality,
they would be said to "be consious".
>
>I define free will as the ability to choose between alternative actions.
>It is
>freedom of choice that makes morals relevant to our world.
Yup. And "the ability to choose" always means a mind, right?
>Can we apply the MoQ hierarchy to moral questions? I used to think so, but
>now I doubt it because of the wide disparity of views on moral issues
>expressed on this site, exemplified by the answers to Roger’s moral
>dilemmas.
Why doesn't that just convince you of the efficiency of the MoQ, that it's
a tool that can be used in so many different ways?
>Preconceptions, emotivism, agendas and varied interpretations
>seem to stand in the way. But, we’re not totally to blame. I’ve always
>felt >that
>if someone doesn’t get a message, the author of a message is mostly at
>fault.
I don't quite agree. Communicating the word is always an equal opportunity
relationship. The listener can easily ignore the speaker's meaning if
there are emotive reasons to reject a certain train of thought. Words are
such fragile things and easily broken in the hearers mind from the original
meaning of the author - it isn't the author's fault.
>In Pirsig’s case, he didn’t give us enough examples of how to apply the
>MoQ to every day moral problems.
He simply gave a framework to find the answers. What more is needed? Just
one thing: Participation in the process. Using the tools of the MoQ. If
you find that a moral question hasn't been adequately answered, then
explain the dilemma's problems yourself more plainly. Saying that a
multitude of answers proves none of them right is rather facile. Which one
comes the closest? What part of what answers reveals the underlying moral
question involved? It's not enough that we have a method for analyzing
moral issues - it does take effort to apply the tool.
And a reiteration: a diversity of opinions doesn't mean that none of them
are right. Your refutation of the MoQ falls very, very flat on its face.
jc
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