From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed May 07 2003 - 16:42:50 BST
Hi Johnny:
>
> I think the word "morality" more consicely conveys the idea of a set of
> shared patterns than "reality" does, which implies an "objective reality"
> and doesn't highlight the role of human understanding.
"Objective reality" or a reality that is independent of living beings
(H.O.I.E. or Hypothesis of Independent Existence) is rejected by the
MoQ, not to mention quantum physics.
> Experience goes
> even further along that scale, implying a totally subjective reality that
> doesn't highlight the shared nature of morality and the interdependency of
> humans.
Experience is universal. So morality (as defined by Pirsig) is universally
shared. Interdependency is secondary to the primary reality of
experience.
> Morality sits right in the middle of the scale of subjectivity and
> objectivity, connotation-wise. It is closest to "the Tao", which Buddhism
> calls "the middle way", and is how CS Lewis chose to refer to morality so
> as to not confuse the reader with the readers or author's "own" morality or
> specific culture.
Morality in the MoQ is not restricted as in common parlance to how
humans out to dutifully behave in mind or body, either the "middle way"
or "outside the box." Pirsig "frees" morality from that stale old static
pattern.
> And it's pretty sly of you to temper my satisfaction by also adding "value"
> to the list at the same time, which is perhaps the most benign word in the
> entire language. You really want to resist letting morality get any
> recognition, don't you?
Morality as you like to define it is a set of social patterns that varies
from culture to culture. Exceptions to your claim of "universal" moral
social patterns such as adultery are easily found. Morality as Pirsig
defines it includes but transcends social patterns.
> I guess as a libertarian, you don't want to imply
> that people have a right to care about what other people do as long as they
> let other people alone to do their own thing also, so you resist using the
> word used to mean a shared morality that is synonomous with objective
> reality.
People can do whatever they want so long as they don't harm or
threaten harm to others. "Caring" feeds the ego and gives rise to
victimology. Our "shared morality" is that we all live in a sea of values.
Platt
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