From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Wed Apr 09 2003 - 21:34:14 BST
[Part three of www.elizaphanian.v-2-1.net/Eudaimonic-moq.htm]
A 'CHOOSING UNIT'
The ability of an entity to choose is not unique to the fourth level. At
each level the response to DQ is made by some specific unit, which can be
described as the 'individual' unit at that level, whether atom, molecule,
cell, plant, social unit or whatever. The MoQ describes different levels
which respond to different types of value at each level; put differently,
that are regulated by different 'laws'. So the inorganic level is regulated
by the laws of physics, biological by laws of natural selection etc. And the
later levels include the former. In MoQish, the different levels are
dominated by different values - so in the first level the only available
value is that of inorganic processes, in the second level the values relate
to biological flourishing, in the third level the values relate to social
flourishing. At each level there is a marvellous dynamic diversity of
response to those dominant values. Within each level, the 'choosing unit'
exercises dynamic freedom according to its position within the evolved
complex. So, for example, a biological cell develops a new type of cell wall
which gives it an evolutionary advantage over other cells - this is a DQ
innovation describable in the values of biology. Similarly a human being - a
brujo? Moses? - develops a new legal system which allows their society to
flourish more successfully. The DQ innovation of that new legal system is
valuable in terms of its ability to foster social flourishing, so although
it is a human being doing the innovation, the dominant value is social
value. The question for us is what is the dominant value of the fourth
level? What are the values within which DQ provokes a particular choosing
unit to respond? And what is the nature of the choosing unit? (For clearly,
the choosing unit at each level is an 'individual' of some sort or another).
So what is this 'choosing unit'? Talk of individuality can be misleading,
but it centres upon a developed consideration of alternatives, and an
emotional maturity in discriminating between alternatives. It is an emergent
property; it is not 'either/or', it is a matter of more or less. Crucially,
although such an individual may begin within a social structure, and carry
out actions that could be exhaustively understood in social terms, a person
who had achieved some level of eudaimonia could NOT be understood merely as
a part within a whole, or a one amongst the many. The criteria used to
distinguish such an individual changes - and that is the point. To be a
fully functioning individual, in the sense that I have been arguing for, is
actually to be a person in whom eudaimonia has taken root - the ability to
operate at the fourth level is something to be achieved, through training
and education and general moral development; it is not something which just
comes from being a member of the species.
This choosing unit, an autonomous individual is precisely a 'living
narrative' - it is not a fixed and stable entity (in the same way that a
society is an ongoing - living - construction, not wholly static.) As soon
as something becomes wholly static it is blind to DQ and therefore dead. My
point is that the autonomous individual - as a living narrative - is open to
DQ in a way that intellect is not, because the narrative that explicates our
identity is not a purely intellectual narrative. (To describe who I am,
talking about my education would be helpful but it would not be sufficient
on its own) I consider intellect (in the Western sense) to be something of
an anti-DQ death-force, precisely because it seeks a 'closed' and formal
understanding.
I believe that the values of the fourth level - those within which different
actions can static latch, the arena within which DQ can operate - can best
be understood as those values which support full human flourishing -
eudaimonia. Intellectual flourishing is one aspect of that full human
flourishing, but there are areas of human flourishing - most prominently,
art, music, poetry, friendship - which are not reducible to either social
level values or intellectual values. They represent high quality
achievements (and practices) which are not resolvable to either social
quality or logical/scientific quality. They represent the best of humanity -
the highest Quality.
Most of what we truly value in life is not discerned by our intellect (ie by
logic and reason divorced from our emotions, as 'intellect' was defined in
my dictionary quote) but rather by our judgement. Our judgements of value
are what build up the fourth level; indeed, they are the constituent
elements of the fourth level. Hence the concern of 'human rights' (which is
a social pattern of value directed by the fourth level), in order to
preserve those things that are of Quality. Amnesty International does not
exist to preserve the possibility of intellectual innovation; it exists to
save people, because people are valuable, they have quality - and they are
potentially able to judge Quality for themselves.
Again, I think this is something that Pirsig himself articulates in ZMM, not
least when he discovers the Sophists properly, and their teaching that 'man
is the measure of all things', and Pirsig writes, "Quality! Virtue! Dharma!
That is what the Sophists were teaching! not ethical relativism. Not
pristine 'virtue'. But arete. Excellence. Dharma! Before the Church of
Reason. Before substance. Before form. Before mind and matter. Before
dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first teachers of the
Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium they had chosen was that
of rhetoric. He has been doing it right all along." Rhetoric - the
development of the capacity to discern quality - is the pre-eminent
technique for developing autonomous individuals. It seems fitting for this
to be the most notable characteristic of the fourth level.
CRITICISMS OF THIS PROPOSAL
As I see it at the moment, a 'knock down' objection to my claim would take
one of the following forms (this isn't meant to preclude other arguments!!):
1. Pirsig's description of the fourth level as intellect includes
non-rational and non-scientific understandings; that is, Pirsig's account
includes emotional maturity as a constituent part; 'intellect' includes the
human flourishing that I refer to; and therefore my objection is just a
question of semantics, a 'bickering about words'.
2. Human flourishing (eudaimonia) is just a high quality static latch within
the social level; eudaimonic qualities just refer to high quality social
units; eudaimonic values are simply particular types of social value. The
intellect is still at a level above all this. The problems listed earlier
are all solvable.
3. Human flourishing is an epiphenomena and an illusion, it has no intrinsic
Quality. Where it is not an illusion it is the direct experience of DQ.
Needless to say, I don't presently consider these objections to have force,
but I would welcome comments or fully worked out examples of these
objections (or others).
CONCLUSIONS
I think that the MoQ would benefit from greater clarity about how to
characterise the fourth level. As it presently stands, it cannot sustain
rigorous intellectual scrutiny. This paper is an attempt to reformulate the
MoQ, around the idea of 'eudaimonia' as the governing value of the fourth
level, which operates on the 'choosing unit' of the autonomous individual.
I find this conception to have higher quality than the standard account, and
to cohere more with the evidence and my own scale of values. I should
mention that my own scale of values are Christian, and, indeed, I think this
'eudaimonic MoQ' is compatible with a Christian faith. Indeed, it gives a
good account of why certain individuals, the saints, would be surrounded by
haloes - the glow of DQ from those who have been 'born again' into the
fourth level. I think there are also profound compatibilities between this
account and the mystical path - but that is the subject for another paper.
One final comment. Platt Holden has commented that 'eudaimonic MoQ' is not a
particularly catchy description. I think that's true - but my concern here
was clear articulation rather than advertising. However, on reflection -
particularly with regard to the issue of human rights, and their role in
regulating the border between level three and level four values - I think
that this proposal could be nicely characterised as recommending 'An
American MoQ'. For 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' is simply
our modern way of describing the values of eudaimonia - values which I
believe we can hold to be self-evident.
Sam Norton
April 9, 2003
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