> [Platt] > You mean that a natural phenomena like a tornado that destroyed a > tree is immoral? What moral choice does the tree have? > > [Arlo] > Within the inorganic level, the inorganic patterns of the tornado are > behaving morally. It is only from the vantage of the MOQ that we pass > judgement and say that its immoral for inorganic patterns to dominate > biological patterns. But this immorality is placed, according the > MOQ, at the conflict between the inorganic and biological levels. And > so we can say that for the tree, although it is incapable of > expressing this in abstract thought, it is "immoral" for the tornado > to destroy it. But for the tornado, from its vantage point on the > inorganic level, it is behaving perfectly in a perfect moral fashion.
Apparently from the vantage point of the inorganic and biological levels their patterns can do no wrong. Is that true for the higher levels as well? > To get more detailed, we can say that it is not immoral for the tree > not to move away, since it is physically incapable of doing such. > However, it would be immoral for a wolf to allow itself to be > destroyed by the tornado. In the same way it is immoral for social > patterns to be destroyed by biological patterns, or intellectual > patterns to be destroyed by social patterns. > > Immorality occurs at the border between levels, as a result of > conflict between the levels, and it is a reflection of the values as > articulated by a MOQ vantage point. There is no "immorality" within > the levels, as the very definition of patterns within a level are > patterns of morals. Doesn't Pirsig suggest there's also a scale of morality within a level? For example, consider his view of humans eating steak: "An evolutionary morality, on the other hand, would say it's scientifically immoral for everyone because animals are at a higher level of evolution, that is, more Dynamic, than are grains and fruits and vegetables." (Lila 13) I presume Pirsig considers grains, fruits, vegetables and animals all within the biological level. I would also guess that he would consider a chimp more Dynamic than clam. 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/
