Hi Ron,
Steve quotes Pirsig:
"I’ve concluded that the biggest improvement I could make in the
MOQ would be to block the
notion that the MOQ claims to be a quick fix for every moral
problem in the universe. I have never seen it that way. The image
in my mind as I wrote it was of a large football field that gave
meaning to the game by telling you who was on the 20-yard line but
did not decide which team would win. That was the point of the two
opposing arguments over the death penalty described in Lila.That
was the point of the equilibrium between static and Dynamic
Quality. Both are moral arguments. Both can claim the MOQ for
support. Just as two sides can go before the U.S. Supreme Court and
both claim constitutionality, so two sides can use the MOQ, but
that does not mean that either the Constitution or the MOQ is a
meaningless set of ideas. Our whole judicial system rests on the
presumption that more than one set of conclusions about individual
cases can be drawn within a given set of moral rules. The MOQ makes
the same presumption."
Steve:
The above is only relativism if you believe in essences like The
Moral Law or if you have bought into the philosophical promise of
discovering an eternal foundation for our moral arguments. If you
haven't, then I don't think you'd want to use the word relativism
at all unless you encounter someone who takes the self-defeating
position that nothing is better or worse than anything else.
Ron:
The above is relativism if one believs that the supreme court never
makes a ruling, but it does,
given the many truths, it makes a decision based on the value of
those truths.
the idea of many truths does not mean that there is no truth, only
differing contexts of which it applies.
I believe it is relativism if one believes that a value decision
may not be arrived at.
I think there is quite a difference between eternal foundationalism
and having the
ability to make value judgements.
Steve:
The Supreme Court makes a ruling, but the Constitution itself does
not make a ruling. The MOQ doesn't offer us a trans-cultural
Archimedean point from which to pass final judgement.
There are some extremely easy cases like a doctor preferring his
patient over a germ that get clear MOQ support. But then we already
knew how to decide those cases. It doesn't help us decide the ones
that we actually debate about, but it does give us a way of
understanding the debate as a conflict of types of values rather than
between heroes and villians. That understanding will prevent us from
demonizing our opponents in debate and hopefully help us make better
decisions favoring dynamic progress where possible while preserving
any important static latching without which dynamic progress would be
impossible.
Best,
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/
