From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 21:14:30 BST
Hi Platt,
more from same old post
>To recognize that different cultures have different standards of social
>morality is not to be a relativist. Relativists assert that we must honor
>and respect the morals of all cultures alike, even though we may judge
>their morals to be terribly wrong. That's what "diversity," a very popular
>term on the left, is all about. Under the rubric of diversity we are
>supposed to tolerate all forms of social behavior. Fortunately, we now
>have the MoQ to explain rationally why headhunting and socialism are
>wrong and shouldn't be tolerated. As for not using coercion, heed the
>words of Pirsig:
>
>"The ideal of a harmonious society in which everyone without coercion
>cooperates happily with everyone else for the mutual good of all is a
>devastating fiction."
I think headhunters and socialists would be able to use the MoQ to explain
why they are right. They'd merely say that there is great Dynamic Quality
to changing stale capitalism, headhunting is Art or a Mystical Experience
that if you've never experienced being beheaded then you can't knock, etc,
etc. OK, extreme case, but you get my point. The reason we don't tolerate
headhunting is because we consider it immoral. Case closed, we don't have
to justify it. What good would that do if everyone's going to run for their
guns and tanks anyhow? And what is so "devestating" about believing that
peaceful solutions of cooperation and mutual good are possible? Before we
run for the tanks, we should (it is moral to, expected of us to) try to
convince the headhunters and socialists using whatever elements of our
culture we have in common, so that the change is not imposed from outside
but becomes a natural evolution of their own culture.
>You ignore the distinctions in kinds of morality that the MoQ describes.
>There's one kind at the inorganic level, another at the biological level,
>another at the social, and another at the intellectual. These four moral
>forces, each with different powers and goals, are constantly fighting
>each other for dominance. These forces are competing within each of us
>all the time. "Lila's battle is everybody's battle, you know?" (29)
>
> > Social morality, because it is stale and old, need
> > not be followed, but the rest of morality, well that's different. >
>They are the same.
>
>No, the rest of morality is not the same, as explained above.
Lila chap 12 (my emphasis)
"The Metaphysics of Quality says that if value is the fundemental
ground-stuff of the world, then moral judgements are the fundemental
ground-stuff of the world. It says that even at the most fundamental level
of the universe, static patterns of value and moral judgements ARE
IDENTICAL. The "Laws of Nature" are moral laws. Of course it sounds
peculiar at first and awkward and unnecessary to say that hydrogen and
oxygen form water because it is moral to do so. But it is no less peculiar
and awkward and unnecessary than to say chemistry professors smoke pipes and
go to movies because irresistable cause-and-effect forces of the cosmos
force them to do it. ..."
The forces that cause the professor to smoke a pipe are moral laws, he has
no choice but to do what seems "better" to him, just as the atoms have no
choice but to do what seems better to them. And morality dictates what
seems better, it is impossible for someone not to go with their strongest
affections (Edwards's term) at the moment of choosing. This is the relation
of "affections" to "effects" - affections effect. A person's affections do
not form randomly, they are shaped and educated by morality to like what
morality says they should like. We have just as much choice over our
affections as a hydrogen atom does over its.
> > It is wrong to redefine social morality as what people
> > prudently, rationally, ought to do, divorcing it from the patterns
> > of what people actually do. This is why what people actually do
> > is important, because their actions create morality, and morality is >
>what causes people to do what they do.
>
>I don't know how many people are involved in your definition of "people."
>But what two or three people do, like get drunk every Saturday night,
>does not a standard of social morality make. What people should do is
>follow their individual, innate sense of Quality, recognizing that
>sometimes what feels good biologically, like being in a gang assaulting
>schoolmates, destroys the upper levels that makes human beings
>human.
How many people depends on the universality of whatever action is being
contemplated. If you are wondering how you should format some Java code,
you look to your subset of Java coders and ask what would most of them do?
That would be moral. (Not necessarily prudently best, but moral). If you
are wondering what you should do when you find a wallet on the street, you
don't just look to other Java coders, because finding a wallet is much more
universal. At the same time, you don't look to some distant culture either,
you look to the collection of other people likely to be in your shoes.
>What people should do is
>follow their individual, innate sense of Quality
Yes, absolutely. And their "innate sense of quality" is hopefully in line
with ours, as it was formed in you by shared static patterns.
Johnny
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