Hi Ham
I'm glad that you came out against what I have been saying and agreed
with Mark because I think this illustrates how far Mark has moved away
from Pirsigs MoQ - moved to a point where what he says is completely at
odds with a Quality based reality - i.e. Quality = DQ + SQ etc. as per
Pirsig - and why it puts him in a position where what he says has little
value in terms of the metaphysics that the majority here understand.
Cheers
Horse
On 05/12/2010 06:38, Ham Priday wrote:
On 12/04/2010, 4.49 PM, Horse wrote to Mark:
Rape and murder are defined at the social and/or intellectual level
and refer to specific acts of a biological nature. Just because
animals don't have concepts of rape and murder when they have sex and
kill doesn't mean that certain acts of sex and killing by humans are
not rape or murder. ,,,
[Mark responds]:
My point is that rape and murder do not exist at the biological level,
they are social constructs. Let's take the animal world for example
(bacteria are a little more difficult). There is no rape or murder at
this level unless we want to anthropomorphize it. As such, the
biological level is not predisposed to rape and murder, the social
level is. This is an important distinction. Each level creates it's
own reality.
I think Mark's assessment of morality as "a social construct" is correct.
What human behavior is not an "act of a biological nature"?
Cannibalism is a biological act. Robbing a bank is a biological act.
Even legislating laws against rape and murder is a biological act. I
fail to see how compartmentalizing human activity into "biological",
"social" and "intellectual" levels makes the result more or less moral
than the act itself. Society is the adjudicator of morality, and
society is a collection of like-minded human beings. Animals collect
into flocks, packs, gaggles, herds, hives, etc., not law-abiding
"societies"; so animals do not have morality other than what is
instinctual for the preservation of the species.
Now, one can argue that the urge to copulate has a biological basis,
as does the need to satisfy hunger by eating, whereas the desire to
rob a bank is motivated by monetary greed and thus is more
"intellectual in nature". But this does not affect the morality of the
act perpetrated as adjudged by society. The concept of a universal
moral standard to which evolution subscribes has no empirical or
metaphysical basis. If it did, neither nature nor mankind would
exhibit "immorality", and we would not be having this discussion.
In my opinion,
Ham
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