From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Thu Jun 10 2004 - 01:35:41 BST
Hi Johnny, thanks for taking some time with this...
On 9 Jun 2004 at 21:10, johnny moral wrote:
>msh says:
>If your definition of good is correct, then all that is necessary to
>know what is good is to look around in your society and see what
>everybody else is doing. No?
That would show what is moral, but good is not the same thing. Moral
is just average, normal behavior, whereas good is like the direction
that people attempt to go, however far they actually get.
msh says:
Well, then we're just playing word games, I'm afraid, and may be
wasting one another's time. In the MoQ, at the social level, "moral
behavior" means "good behavior," or "excellent behavior" or even "DQ
inspired behavior." If all you mean by "moral" is "normal" or
"average" or "what most people do," then, in most of this exchange,
we're just talking past one another.
>msh asks:
>Ok, I'll think about it. Meantime, do you see any value in Pirsig's
>hierarchy of morality, as developed in Lila?
jm:
I don't at all like the idea that "higher level" patterns are "more
moral", and should be preserved or fostered over lower ones. I think
it can be used to support any political argument, and the counter
argument.
msh says:
I'm not sure I disagree here. But I'm interested in exploring the
possibility that the MoQ, or some variation of it, can be used not
just as a "playing field" but a playing field with some rules that
might serve as a kind of guide toward the "best" behavior. Which is
why I'm interested in the "MOQ and Moral Evolution" thread.
jm:
For example, I would say Communism is an intellectual idea
that society can increase fairness and shelter and feed everyone by
controlling social patterns of accumulated wealth and inheritance and
kinship, but Platt will be equally sure that Communism is social, and
kinship is biological, and Freedom is intellectual, and so he'll
arrive at entirely different conclusions, which, surprise, were
probably not very different from the conclusions he started with (nor
would mine be). So, no, not in the way Pirsig developed them.
msh says:
I agree that your example demonstrates what you say, as is usually
the case when any of us offer examples to support our positions. But
how about if instead of talking about "Capitalism" and "Some
alternative ism" as IDEAS, we talk about what effects these ideas
have, on real people, when they are implemented at the social level?
I bet we could find very real "MOQ-moral" differences between the
two. And in this sense I've not given up on the MoQ, or some
variant, as a useful, moral metaphysics.
jm:
I see the same levels, though, and see a usefulness to
differentiating them. ,,,
A carbohydrate molecule "knows" when it is being broken down to its
constituents ...
I don't put thinking itself on the intellectual level because it gets
confusing ...
msh says:
Your next three paragraphs, elided above, make for interesting
reading, but I don't see described in them the "usefulness" you speak
of in the first. This I would be very interested in. Can you
elaborate?
msh said:
>...Whether or not others are cheating is
>irrelevant to me.
jm:
You might say it is irrelevant, but I think it isn't, as this sort of
morality operates at a deeper level, on a less self-conscious level
than that.
msh says:
As this imparts to yourself a better understanding of what I do and
why, than I myself have, I don't see how I can reply.
>jm asked:
>Do you acknowledge cultural attitudes, or culture in general? How
>does it form, if not from people behaving according to the culture's
>standards?
>
>msh says:
>Of course I do. But I don't believe that one can always determine
>what is right or wrong, good or bad, by cultural reflection alone.
Do
>you?
jm:
What else is there?
msh says:
Dynamic Quality.
>msh says:
>Ok, thanks for the clarification. From what did the priests'
>realization derive? It can't be from examining the behavior of most
>people in their uncivilized society, can it? In other words, what
>drove the development of the good lie?
jm:
People could see that quality of life varied, and they could see
which behaviors helped and which hindered. What their goal was was
up to them, and whoever was most persuasive won.
msh says:
But what caused the quality of life to vary? Why were some behaviors
helpful and some not? That is, why were some "better" some not?
Anyway, I think this point, and all the rest from here down, is just
us talking past one another, as I suggested in my first comment. But
lemme go one more...
>msh says:
>Well, it's nice that you think I get it, but I'm not so sure I do.
>Are you among the "most" who think "most" don't understand morality
>and are stupid? If not, then by your own definition, you are
>immoral. No?
I see. I'm immoral in that I have a very different idea of what
moral means, and moral in that I am like most people in believing
that no one else understands morality correctly. I'm a special case
though, most people think it is the common people who are not moral,
who need their enlightenment to be moral, whereas I think it is the
elitists who don't use the term morality correctly, and who don't see
that most people are, by defintinon, always moral.
msh says:
Yeah. Talking past... Thanks, Johnny...
msh
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