Hi Ham, >You wrote to Marsha: >> As I've said before, reason is just a word for intellectual quality.
I said that, not Ron. Ham: >This is the kind of definition that keeps Pirsig's quality unfathomable to >less dogmatic followers like myself. It's one thing to say that a properly >reasoned conclusion is logical, >well-founded, and justifiable within a logical framework. In the sense that >it serves as a ground of explanation for a premise, it is good and "has >quality". But one's reasoning can also be flawed, in which case the >conclusion is false, unsupported, and of "low quality". Steve: I agree. I'm not sure what the problem is. I'm just saying that "reasonable" is a term we use for beliefs or rationales for belief that are good in the intellectual way. Unreasonable is a term we use for low quality when we are talking about intellectual patterns. Ham: >As I see it, reason is an intellectual process whereby empirical evidence is >organized in a cogent way that leads to a rational conclusion. A rational >conclusion, by the way, does not express an "absolute truth"; it is only >reasonable by virtue of the intellect's propensity to accept the logic of a >proposition whose premises are consistent. Logic is a product of the >intellect, and the assumption that the universe must conform to the >principles of human intellection is itself flawed. Steve: That all sounds good to me. I don't think that there is anything here that opposes what the MOQ says. Ham: >To assert that "reason" and "intellectual quality" are synonymous muddies >the waters and distorts the meaning of both terms. By Pirsig's equation, >Quality = Morality. Now you're telling us that Quality = Intellect. Steve: I didn't mean to imply that Quality = intellect. Intellect is one way that we've come to categorize experience. But Pirsig does extend the idea of morality into intellect which you have a probloem with. A value of truth makes 2+1=4 not as good as 2+2=4. Prisig says that this intellectual good/bad is no different from the social good/bad that we usually think of when we think of morality. Pirsig says, value is value. Intellectual and social are different ways of categorizing patterns of preferences, but the value is the same. Preference is preference. When Pirsig says that the universe is a moral order, it is the same as saying that there is no such thing as morality in the way it is usually thought of as a set of social constructs.Whatever we mean by "value" when we talk about morality is the same thing as when we talk about the value of true over false. Since there is no difference, we can either drop the word morality or apply it to all levels. Ham: >I've >been saying for a long time that quality and goodness (normative morality) >are relative to individual experience and his/her perception of the world, >and that this kind of valuation is what we're all about. The cognizant >creature is an autonomous agent of value (call it "quality" if you must). Steve: Here is where you really part company with the MOQ. The MOQ says that this cognizant creature is an unknown without Quality, so Quality comes first. You suppose that the individual comes first. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just saying that the MOQ has a different premise. Regards, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
