From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed May 14 2003 - 00:09:32 BST
Hi Platt,
I turned the page to chapter 13 to where Pirsig changed from "they are
identical" to they "have almost nothing to do with" each other and the
paragraph about how "there are many" moral systems. So before you turn the
page to there, let me address that.
What I was maintaining (and what Pirsig says in chap 12) is that all
patterns (of any system) have an identical desire to exist and at any level
the morality of maintaining the pattern is the same. And it is always
immoral to break a pattern, but patterns are broken all the time when
stronger patterns use them to do their pattern. We call it moral when we
consider the winning pattern to be "better" or more dynamic than the pattern
that is destroyed, that's all fine with me. The pattern of Carbon Dioxide
is broken when a plant breathes, but a plant is at a higher level, so we
call it better, absolutley, scientifically moral for a plant to do that.
But to say that the pattern of Carbon Dioxide is bad, it is stale and
out-moded and ought to be trashed, is obviously not moral. Plants need
Carbon Dioxide. They aren't breaking the pattern because they don't like
it, or don't like inorganic patterns in general, they are breaking the
patterns because they use CO2 and live off of CO2. Luckily for them, there
are other biological and inorganic patterns that create more CO2, but if
there weren't, plants would die and maybe something else would come along
that didn't need CO2, or maybe not.
At the end of 13 Pirsig makes this point:
"Intellect is not an extension of society any more than society is an
extension of biology. Intellect is going its own way, and in doing so is at
war with society, seeking to subjugate society, to put society under lock
and key. An evolutionary morality says it is moral for intellect to do so,
but it also contains a warning: Just as a society that weakens its people's
physical health endangers its own stability, so does an intellectual pattern
that weakens and destroys the health of its social base also endanger its
own stability."
So, I think it follows that the higher patterns have to strengthen, not
weaken, the lower patterns. They build upon them and make use of the
mechanisms within them, hopefully in such a way that is renewable and
doesn't deplete the lower pattern. So saying that social codes are
different and don't need to be followed weakens not just the social level
but morality in general, including higher patterns.
Johnny
>From: "johnny moral" <johnnymoral@hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>Subject: Re: MD What's the difference?
>Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 20:14:30 +0000
>
>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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