Hi DMB,
> Steve said to dmb: > Harris doesn't think that he is hamstrung in making the case he wants to > make. His next TED talk could not possibly be enhanced by including such > phrases as "the evolution of static patterns toward dynamic Quality." Am I > wrong? > > dmb says: > > Well, your point is not wrong so much as it is ridiculous. Are we really > going to take the term "vocabulary" so literally? Do you honestly think the > purpose of explaining the MOQ to Sam would be forcing him to adopt the terms > "static" and "Dynamic"? Steve: I just assumed that if you wanted to explain the MOQ to someone you would want to start by explaining the first cut of Quality as static/dynamic as preferable to subjective/objective, but I guess that's not what you meant. DMB: > C'mon, Steve. Explaining Pirsig's argument against value-free science would > be a matter of giving Sam some conceptual tools, not just new terms. Steve: But he can already argue against value-free science without proposing a new metaphysics. Harris wrote: "Many people worry that there is something unscientific about making such value judgments. But this split between facts and values is an illusion. Science has always been in the values business. Good science is not the result of scientists abstaining from making value judgments; good science is the result of scientists making their best effort to value principles of reasoning that link their beliefs to reality, through reliable chains of evidence and argument. The very idea of “objective” knowledge (that is, knowledge acquired through careful observation and honest reasoning) has values built into it, as every effort we make to discuss facts depends upon principles that we must first value (e.g. logical consistency, reliance on evidence, parsimony, etc). This is how norms of rational thought are made effective. As far as our understanding of the world is concerned—there are no facts without values." DMB: What if he could open his next TED talk by saying there is a rational, humanistic, evolutionary basis on which to make claims about human values and human flourishing? MOST intellectuals view facts and values as separate. Most educated Americans think that nothing scientific can be said about morals. The audience at those TED talks, for example. I think we ought not underestimate their capacity to take ideas seriously. On the other hand, the levels of static quality could easily be described in ordinary terms that require no explanation. The biological, social and intellectual levels of quality are just things like health, wealth and truth. These basic hierarchies have already been well established in developmental psychology. Steve: Good point. I think it may be possible to explain conflicts of types of values and give clarity to moral conflict by talking about biological vs. social values and social vs. intellectual values. This is a tool for making sense of conflict that Harris does not currently have which may perhaps be articulated without appeal to undefined Quality and dynamic static first cuts and the like. For Harris, the reason people disagree about values is because liberal intellectuals do not think they exist and religious conservatives think that they come from religious texts. We will come to agree about values only when we agree that morals are about the well being of conscious creatures capable of experiencing happiness and suffering and when science better understands such states of consciousness and the states of the world that give rise them. One unsolved problem in defining well-being that seems particularly intractable is the question of group versus individual well-being which may be better understood in terms of the conflicting social-intellectual and biological-social moral codes. So perhaps this is an area where Pirsigians can offer intellectual tools. 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/md/archives.html
