At 09:14 PM 5/5/2008, you wrote:
Platt, Krimel, Arlo and All --
[Platt, to Krimel]:
Pirsig proposes a universal moral order. Postmodernists
propose moral relativism.
[Platt, reconfirming to Arlo]:
Both true, a universal moral "order" that "orders" things according to
their "relative" morality in layers.
A far cry from postmodernism where it's all relative.
Yes, Platt, but on page p.317 of LILA, Pirsig says:
"Morals have no objective reality. You can look
through a microscope or telescope or
oscilloscope for the rest of your life and you
will never find a single moral. There aren't
any there. They are all in your head."
Greetings Ham,
If morals are all in my head, morality is what
is good for me. In other words, it's relative to the observing subject.
Maybe it's relative to the connection between the
patterns which comprise the observing subject and
the patterns being observed. Everything is connected to everything.
By what ontological principle, then,.does the
author posit morality as the order of the
universe? Is he saying that individuals are
programmed by the universe to prefer certain
values? If so, we are predetermined (by nature
or genetics) to live out our lives in a
prescribed way, which means man is not a free agent.
There would be no free agent when Social level
patterns are at the reigns. Freedom develops with Intellectual patterns.
Or, is he saying that Reality, as Quality,
has a moral conscience of its own that
determines the course of evolution? This would
suggest a teleological principle akin to Divine
Authority. In either case, individual behavior
is made subordinate to universal law, karma, or a "higher source".
It is that Quality _is_ morality, not _has_ a
moral conscience. I remember reading Edington's
"sermon". I remember agreeing with much that he
wrote. But being a moral relativist, to me,
means that we are individuals that are
_different_, ever-changing collection of
overlapping, interrelated, inorganic, biological,
social and intellectual, static patterns of
value. The "moral" is "relative" to the difference.
Marsha
I'm no postmodernist, either, but I happen to be
a moral relativist. As a believer in an
absolute primary source, I find myself in the
awkward position of having to defend moral
relativity against objectivists who are holding
out for a "Higher Authority". I call your
attention to these paragraphs from Steve
Edington's "Confessions of a Moral Relativist".
(Edington is a Unitarian minister.)
"The assumption being made about morality and
codes of moral behavior here is that they are
ultimately rooted in some source beyond human
experience or human construction. It could be
either in a Deity, however conceived; or in what
our Enlightenment ancestors-Thomas Jefferson, for example-called 'Natural Law.'
"This is a common, and quite understandable,
assumption. What parent, for example, has not
said, at some point of exasperation, to his or
her child after running out of offering
explanations for a parental command: "Because I
said so, and that's all the reason you
need!" ...There may be debate over just who or
what this "I" is that is "saying so" but the
idea that Morality (with a capital 'M')
ultimately derives from a fixed source that is
beyond us is a commonly held one. And there are
those who firmly hold that to question, or to
deviate from, such an idea is to teeter on the
precipice of a very dangerous chasm called 'moral relativism'.
"Well, teetering or not, I'd like to make the
case, the positive case, for moral relativism
today, with my underlying point being that it is
really the only kind of morality there is. A
related point is that it is the reality of moral
relativism that calls us, as human beings, to
moral responsibility and moral decision making.
"...Since my concept of God is really that of a
Life Force or of a Power within Ourselves
similar to what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the
'Spark of the Divine' he felt resided in the
souls of all people, then I believe we have this
power within ourselves to draw upon as we make
our moral choices and as we take responsibility for them."
My point, of course, is that "moral decision
making" is precisely what human beings are put
on earth to do. My "evidence" is that man is
the only creature endowed with the
value-sensibility to discriminate good from bad
in a moral context. In other words, man has the
power of his own authority, which is why I
object to Morality or Value preferences being attributed to a higher authority.
I submit that if the primary source--whether it
be God, DQ or Essence--were to control the
conduct of mankind or grant him "special
favors", there could be no such thing as an
autonomous agent, which in my philosophy is the
'raison d'être' and core morality of man's existence.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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