From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Mar 12 2003 - 23:05:37 GMT
Hey Platt,
Thanks for your interesting responses. I've carved this post into two
parts, just for clarity (which I know how you love)...
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I. Family, Marriage and Homosexuality
I believe that I understand many of the points you are making but I'm
still unclear at why you are opposed to gay marriage. I suspect that there
may a greater issue looming behind our discussion.
As I read you (and please correct me if i've misrepresented your
thoughts), you're saying that it takes a man and a woman to "naturally" make
a baby and that babies are ideally raised by their natural parents. You
believe this pattern is valuable and that it must be encouraged by society
in order to secure its own survival.
What I don't understand is why you believe that allowing gay marriages
would weaken this pattern. Especially given that you don't see anything
intrinsically immoral about homosexuality and you agree that when the
natural parents aren't available to raise the baby, an adoptive homosexual
couple is a viable option. I'm curious as to what you believe the legal
status of homosexual couples has to do with heterosexual mating habits? Do
you believe that less heterosexuals would choose to get married and raise
children if homosexuals were also allowed to marry?
It seems to me that the only way your thoughts about encouraging the
patterns of heterosexual coupling are related to the topic of gay marriage
is if you think that reserving the legal status of marriage to heterosexuals
is some kind of "incentive" to making them marry and raise children. That
is, you think that if gay marriage were not illegal, some people who
otherwise would have been heterosexual would instead choose to marry members
of the same sex.
This leads me to inquire whether you believe that homosexuality is the
product of nature or nurture. Or in MoQ terms, do you believe homosexuality
a biological pattern or a social pattern?
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II. The Principle of Human Equality
PLATT
> The context for Pirsig's statement about equality was slavery. I have no
> idea if he meant to exempt homosexuals, senior citizens, aliens,
> intellectuals, whatever.
RICK
To be perfectly clear, the context for Pirsig's statement about equality
was whether or not it is scientifically moral for society to kill a human
being (see Lila ch13 p184-185). He first tackles the question in the
context of a clash between biology (brigands) and society, telling us that
society is justified in killing said brigands for its own protection because
the society is a higher form of evolution.
Next, he tackles the same question in the context of a clash between two
societies (the North and the South). In this scenario, there are no
biological "brigands", both the North and South are full-blown societies.
Now Pirsig tells us that the North would have had no moral justification for
destroying another society (South) except for the fact that the (North)
respected the principle of human equality, which is a higher form of
evolution than a nation, and the other society (South) didn't. Slavery,
offered in this context, is an example of one way to violate this principle,
but Pirsig gives us no reason to believe he meant to limit the principle to
slavery.
As for whether or not he meant to exempt homosexuals, senior citizens,
aliens, intellectuals, red-headed-lefties, albinos with green-eyes, etc...
You don't think Pirsig meant that it would have been okay if the south
enslaved homosexuals... do you?
PLATT
Do you think, for example, that the principle of
> human equality demands that everyone in the world should have the
> same income?
RICK
No I do not. I've always thought of Pirsig's 'Principle of human
equality' as being relatively coextensive with the U.S. Constitution's 14th
amendment guarantee to Equal Protection under the law. This reading makes
sense in light of the fact that Pirsig mentions his principle while
discussing the Civil War. The 14th amendment was introduced by the
Reconstruction Congress after the war, it was one of the amendments that was
supposed to make sure it never happened again.
Personally, I think Pirsig's 'principle of human equality', like
Justice or Quality itself, is difficult to precisely define. However, if I
had to take my best shot at it, I think it's something like: The rights of
all law abiding people should be as similar as the notion of ordered liberty
allows.
thanks,
rick
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