From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Apr 01 2003 - 21:46:00 BST
Dear Steve & Johnny,
Steve wrote 1 Apr 2003 10:44:23 -0500:
'It may be possible to derive some rules of thumb based on the idea of
following DQ. For example, I think Wim uses a rule of thumb that to
respond to a situation violently is not the best response. I also remember
that he said that he wouldn't rule out violence in all cases because to rule
any behavior out would be to close himself off to DQ.'
That's indeed my rule of thumb. I don't expect to ever be 'called' to use
violence if I follow DQ. But I can be wrong. 'Expectation' is only a pattern
in past experience.
I wonder if (consciously) 'deriving rules of thumb from experience of
following DQ' isn't the essence of the intellectual level. That may be how
intellectual patterns of value get 'static': by following the rule of thumb
instead of following DQ directly.
Johnny wrote 1 Apr 2003 19:18:32 +0000 (leaving aside his inaccurate account
of other people's positions):
'a person should try to be moral, in the sense of doing what most people
would do. That ... is really the definition of morality. ... ethics is not
the ontological substance of reality, morality is. I think a moral
philosophy ought to be in agreement and harmony with ontology, not in
opposition to it.'
Ethics describes what people SHOULD do and morality describes what people
WOULD (can be expected to) do?! Maybe.
Anyway, this 'ontological substance of reality', that which we can know
(only experience of value, according to the empiricism the MoQ subscribes to
according to the beginning of chapter 8 of 'Lila'), is indeed identified by
Pirsig with morality (end of chapter 7). It is (according to Pirsig) not
only experience of static patterns of value, or static quality however. The
WHOLE of 'Quality is morality' and after the first metaphysical cut of this
Quality/morality you don't only have static patterns of value (applied to
people: that which they can be expected to do) but also Dynamic Quality.
Dynamic Quality is morality too! People can be expected to deviate from prev
ious patterns every now and then.
In chapter 13 of 'Lila' Pirsig uses 'evolutionary morality' as a synonym for
his MoQ. According to Pirsig it is 'scientifically immoral for everyone to
eat the flesh of animals', adding that 'the moral force of this injunction
is not so great because the levels of evolution [of animals on the one hand
and of grains and fruits and vegetables on the other hand] are closer
together than the doctor's patient and the germ'.
The MoQ sanctions deviant behavior in the name of 'evolution' towards DQ.
So yes, a person should try to be moral, by balancing following the highest
available static patterns of value (and not falling back on lower,
degenerate, ones) and following Dynamic Quality whenever a contribution to
evolution is possible.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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