From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Thu Jul 14 2005 - 15:40:15 BST
On 11 Jul 2005 at 11:56, Platt Holden wrote:
> Ed
> You best reread Chapter 13. Your comments suggest there is no bound
> to personal pursuit of wealth despite the cost to others or to
> society. The MOQ does support limits on personal wealth when such
> activity becomes a detriment to society.
>
> Pirsig noted:
> Intellect is going its own way, and in doing so is at war with
> society, seeking to subjugate society, to put society under lock
and
> key. An evolutionary morality says it is moral for intellect to do
> so, but it also contains a warning: Just as a society that weakens
> its people's physical health endangers its own stability, so does
an
> intellectual pattern that weakens and destroys the health of its
> social base also endanger[s] its own stability.
>
> Better to say "has endangered." It's already happened. this has
been
> a century of fantastic intellectual growth and fantastic social
> destruction. The only question is how long this process can keep
on.
platt 7-11-05:
I've read the passage you quoted from Chap. 13 several times, and all
of Chap. 13, and have yet to discover where Pirsig says pursuit of
wealth threatens society.
msh 7-14-05:
This is a Platteral Shift. No one has argued that the pursuit of
wealth endangers society. The argument is that when a society
permits the UNLIMITED pursuit of wealth, it "weakens its people's
physical health [and] endangers its own stability." Therefore,
according to the Metaphysics of Quality, society has a moral
obligation to place limits on the accumulation of private wealth.
I believe Ed's response to the Platteral Shift (posted 7-13-05) is
making the same point. It will be interesting to see how the
discussion develops.
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
-- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com "All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind." -- Joseph Conrad MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archives: Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
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