From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Jan 06 2005 - 15:26:27 GMT
Hi Ham,
> Since your mention of the "principle of rightness", someone here (you
> perhaps?) quoted it from an MOQ source as "[Quality is] the principle of
> 'rightness' which gives structure and purpose to the evolution of all life
> and to the evolving understanding of the universe which life has created."
> Thus, if your speaking on behalf of MOQ, it appears that the principle is
> already built into the structiure. (At least that's what it sounds like
> --I've never been very good at MOQ-speak.) In that case, one should be
> moral "automatically" which, again, would remove one's freedom.
I think the principle of rightness (which I quoted from Pirsig's book,
"Lila") is as much built into the structure of the evolution of life as
your Essence is, or at least as I understand Essence to be. Correct me if
Essence stands apart from the universe's structure.
As for being moral "automatically," we all are by making minute by minute
unspoken decisions that "this is better than that" and in so doing
expressing our "freedom to choose" (at least in a non-totalitarian
society) at every turn. (Taking away one's freedom to choose is why I'm so
adamant against coercive government intruding in our lives. But, that's
another story.)
I know you don't buy the Pirsigian premise that morality is pervasive
throughout the universe, preferring instead to stick with the common (but
restrictive) meaning of morality as involving human behavior in a social
setting. What Pirsig has done is free morality from the bounds of society
and, by applying it to all aspects of experience, explaining what makes
the world go around better than do our current scientific and/or religious
paradigms, answering in a way that makes sense such conundrums as "Why
survive?"
Either you buy it or you don't, and I gather you don't. But for me it
shifted my entire outlook and freed me from swallowing everything the
gods of science claim to know, like Dawkins' "It's all in your genes."
Regards,
Platt
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