Re: MD The narrator

From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Thu Sep 25 2003 - 18:35:28 BST

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    Matt

    You're right that this is a very key passage because
    it is hard for a pragmatist to swallow. But is it not a very
    historical statement? It implies we should see nature as an
    achievement, and therefore tey would are justified in valuing
    one of its more difficult achievements over one of its less so.
    In that sense it implies it took more time and effort to achieve.
    This is a very in-history form of valuation, it says for all time in
    the sense that what has now passed cannot be changed, we are
    pretty certain what is the more complex and in some sense higher form
    of being. Mind you there might always be the revision that we latter
    discover that bugs are some kind of 3d manifestation of a super-complex
    40 dimension being, but I guess this is almost absurd. I assume you are
    happy to take anti-biotics, how does a pragmatist currently justify the
    death of the bugs?

    Thanks
    DM

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
    To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
    Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 10:00 PM
    Subject: Re: MD The narrator

    David,

    David said:
    in what way is Lila supporting ahistoricality?

    Matt:
    The line that gets my panties in a bunch is

    "It is absolutely, scientifically moral for a doctor to prefer the patient.
    This is not just an arbitrary social convention that should apply to some
    doctors but not to all doctors, or to some cultures but not all cultures. It
    ’s true for all people at all times, now and forever...." (Lila, 183)

    I ripped it from my essay so I can't give a chapter number (since many of
    our copies have different pagenation) nor can I provide much context at the
    moment.

    I'm not convinced that its simply a serious and disturbing bout of overkill
    or that Pirsig had the flu that day and simply missed that part when
    editing. I'm not quite sure how to read that passage in a fashion other
    than as endorsing ahistoricality. I'm truly puzzled why a pragmatist would
    say something like this. Which is why I don't think Pirsig is full-time
    pragmatist.

    Matt

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