> Hi Ham,
> Steve quotes Pirsig: > >> "When they call it freedom, that's not right. 'Freedom' doesn't mean >> anything. Freedom's just an escape from something negative. The real >> reason it's so hallowed is that when people talk about it they mean >> Dynamic Quality." > > Ham (previously): >> If Freedom doesn't mean anything, then "the social-intellectual >> moral code which describes how societies have come to agree that >> the intellectual level should be free from social control", as you >> defined it for Platt, doesn't mean anything either. > > Steve: >> In the above I was referring to freedom as the absence of social >> control. I think that in Pirsig's quote, when he says that freedom >> doesn't mean anything, he is saying that freedom usually refers to >> the absence of something else. It is usually just a negation, but it >> is >> also used as a positive goal. When it is used in this way it refers >> to DQ. > Ham: > It is man's freedom that allows him to set up the moral code of > behavior you > call "social control". Steve: I wasn't talking about man's freedom. I was talking about intellectual patterns being free of social control which is to say that intellectual patterns should be evaluated in terms of intellectual quality rather than social quality. In the past intellectual patterns were not as free as they are now. (Faith is one area where it still seems to be commonly accepted that intellectual patterns do not need to be evaluated in terms of intellectual quality.) Ham: > Human morality is not a cosmic law built into the > universe, nor is man predestined to be a moral creature. Morality is > the > product of individuals reasoning together to establish rules of > conduct by > which they can live in harmony with each other. Civilization would > never > have come about if man could not sense the value of peaceful > coexistence or > possess the intelligence to implement a social system that would > ensure it. > In a free society, the people determine how they want to be governed, > including the rights they are to enjoy as free citizens. Steve: I agree with the above so long as what you mean by morality is social quality. As you know in the MOQ morality has a broader usage than you would prefer. > Steve (previously): >> These "rights" have evolved and continue to evolve as societies >> come to better understand how they can facilitate evolution >> towards DQ. >> >> Rights are usually used to say how individuals are free from >> government control. Ham: > America's founders said that all men are endowed with the "unalienable" > right to Life, Liberty (i.e., Freedom), and the pursuit of Happiness. > They > recognized these values as innate to man (i.e., endowed by their > Creator) > before drafting the constitutional laws that would insure them. Steve: I'm not sure if you are disagreeing here or what. > Ham (previously): >> By Freedom I mean the autonomy of man whereby an >> individual can choose his/her values and act in accordance >> with his/her sensibility. > > Steve: >> This is absurd. People don't choose their values. Could you >> will yourself to prefer chocolate if you actually prefer vanilla? >> Such freedom of preference or freedom of belief doesn't exist. Ham: > Preference for a food, color, or type of music reflects the value > sensibility developed over an individual's lifetime. Such values tend > to > change as the individual becomes more discriminating in his tastes. > How can > you assert that freedom of preference or belief doesn't exist? If > "social > control" dictates your preferences, I'm sorry for you. Were you not > free to > adopt the MoQ as your belief system? Or was that, too, dictated by > social > control? Steve: To say that you are free to believe is to say that no one can force you to believe what you don't believe. If you had said that I could agree. But you said that man has the autonomy to *choose* his beliefs and values. Beliefs and values aren't chosen. Try this: choose to value something you don't value or choose to believe something you don't already believe, and then I might believe that you have this autonomy. I certainly don't. I wish I had a taste for olives. I've really tried to like them but I can't. "Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." --Alice in Wonderland > Steve: >> In the MOQ intellectual value is aesthetic and moral. >> >> Again, such freedom doesn't exist. You can't choose to believe >> something that you aren't already convinced of. IN the MOQ >> I think the choice you are talking about is aesthetic preference. Ham: > How do you define "intellectual value" other than as something of > value to > you? Steve: Intellectual value is like truth, a species of good--that which is good to believe. 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/
