Re: MD: MOQ Where's the matter gone?

From: Johannes Volmert (jvolmert@student.uni-kassel.de)
Date: Fri Jan 16 2004 - 21:59:09 GMT

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    Hi Bo, Platt and Matt,

    I've found a passage (second half, p.183; chp. 13; Lila, paperback) in
    which a similar sentence is used. It refers to the germ-example and
    makes a statement that has to be seen in the written context, IMO.
    The named sentence is in the last paragraph of the quotation.

    Regards, JoVo

    Paul Turner schrieb:

    >Bo said:
    >"What is true everywhere and always" is what Pirsig means by a
    >metaphysics in the opening chapters of LILA
    >
    >Paul:
    >Where does he say that?
    >
    Ref.:

    Pirsig:

    "What is today conventionally called "morality" covers only one of these
    sets of moral codes, the social-biological code. In a subject-object
    metaphysics this single social-biological code is considered to be a
    minor, "subjective," physically nonexistent part of the universe. But in
    the Metaphysics of Quality all these sets of morals, plus an­other
    Dynamic morality, are not only real, they are the whole thing.

    In general, given a choice of two courses to follow and all other things
    being equal, that choice which is more Dynamic, that is, at a higher
    level of evolution, is more moral. An example of this is the statement
    that, "It's more moral for a doctor to kill a germ than to allow the
    germ to kill his patient." The germ wants to live. The patient wants to
    live. But the patient has moral prece­dence because he's at a higher
    level of evolution.

    Taken by itself that seems obvious enough. But what's not so obvious is
    that, given a value-centered Metaphysics of Quality, 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, a moral pattern of
    reality as real as H2O. We're at last dealing with morals on the basis
    of reason. We can now deduce codes based on evolution that analyze moral
    arguments with greater precision than before."

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