Doug Renselle (renselle@on-net.net)
Thu, 23 Oct 1997 05:04:48 +0100
Hi! Hugo and TLS,
(Now I feel just like the Pillsbury Dough-Boy! :-) Or ough($)-Boy.
Thanks for a new truth, Hugo. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I
just had to share my feelings...)
Hugo Fjelsted Alroe wrote:
>
> Dough wrote:
> >Five codes of morality bottom-up, quoting Pirsig on page 345 of the
> >Bantum paperback:
> >
> >"The Metaphysics of Quality says there are not just two codes of
> morals,
> >there are actually five:
> >
> >Code1 - inorganic-chaotic,
> >Code2 - biological-inorganic,
> >Code3 - social-biological,
> >Code4 - intellectual-social, and
> >Code5 - Dynamic-static.
> >
> >"This last, the Dynamic-static code, says what's good in life isn't
> >defined by society or intellect or biology. What's good is freedom
> from
> >domination by any static pattern, but that freedom doesn't have to be
> >obtained by the destruction of the patterns themselves."
>
> The way I see it, Pirsig uses 'moral' in an unusual way here (not that
> I
> mind but just to be clear on what we are talking about) where the
> common
> sense of moral is closely connected to the concept of free will. We
> don't
> hold people morally responsible for actions they did not do out of
> free
> willing, whether it is due to war, insanity, self defense, etc. Just
> like
> we don't hold the cat morally responsible for killing the mouse.
>
> The way Pirsig use moral (and value) is obviously different, perhaps
> more
> like the discussions of 'The Good' in ancient Greece and later in
> theology.
> In Greece they used the concept 'arete', which does not really
> translate
> well to english, it is often translated by virtue but it means
> something
> more like full-ness and functionality, 'to fill ones place' (da:
> fylde);
> the arete of a hammer is its ability to fulfill its function as a
> hammer,
> the arete of a warrier is to be a 'proper warrier', filling the role
> and
> life of a warrier. While obviously having to do with value, arete is
> not
> very similar to the present day moral of good and bad.
>
> The wikings had a similar conception of moral, the good people filling
> their place in life and society and the not-good (value-less) people
> not
> living a full life, being shallow existences. Hence the wikings would
> value
> the well-done killing in the heat of the moment, because it was
> well-done,
> even if there were no cause to kill. (This does not mean such a
> need-less
> kill did not cause them trouble - fees had to be paid or a feud might
> arise.) Kirkegaard similarly distinguished between the proper (or
> true) and
> non-proper existence (da: egentlig og u-egentlig eksistens), where
> proper
> existence is living by the will of one self while non-proper existence
> is
> living by the conventions of society.
>
> Is there a connection between arete and full-ness and the higher value
> of
> higher levels in MoQ? If one takes a very broad view on what evolution
> is
> about, then the evergrowing filling of places, the ongoing
> simultaneous
> creation and filling of 'roles' or 'niches' could be an apropriate
> picture,
> the becoming of levels being a step into a new possibility-space of
> existence. (And incidentally, I believe this nothingness, this empty
> possibility-space, is the very potency or dynamis which causes
> evolution.)
> Given this evolutionary picture, the morally good (in Pirsigs sense)
> of
> higher levels is that they increase the 'space to fill' of existence,
> and
> hence the world would in a sense be less rich without them. This then,
> given that the very existence of higher levels is conditioned on the
> constraining or limiting of the possibilities of the already existing,
> is
> this what Pirsig calls a moral code?
>
> Perhaps someone can offer a quote or commentary to cast more light on
> this?
>
> Regards
> Hugo
>
Hugo,
I found this in Lila which seems to answer unambiguously:
"Because Quality is morality. Make no mistake about it. They're
identical. And if Quality is the primary reality of the world then that
means morality is also the primary reality of the world. The world is
primarily a moral order. But it's a moral order that neither Rigel nor
the posing Victorians had ever, in their wildest dreams, thought about
or heard about." Page 111 of Bantum paperback.
Thanks Hugo.
Mtty,
Doug Renselle.
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