dmb said:
...These are not simply alternative points of view. These positions have been
maintained in the face of evidence that would and should convince any
reasonable person. As I see it, these people have proven that they are not
reasonable.
Tim replied:
If I can speak casually for just a sec, I think you will find that you and I
are pretty close vis-a-vis 'reasonable'. If I can speak with total formality
for a sec: what is 'reasonable'? In between, if we lean towards one extreme,
you will be hard pressed to find one reasonable person out of... how many would
you say? One out of every million? I don't know. ...
dmb says:
As I understand it, the MOQ says we are morally obliged to be reasonable. From
Lila, Chp. 24:
"What passed for morality within this crowd was a kind of vague, amorphous soup
of sentiments known as "human rights." You were also supposed to be
"reasonable." What these terms really meant was never spelled out in any way
that Phaedrus had ever heard. You were just supposed to cheer for them.
"He knew now that the reason nobody ever spelled them out was nobody ever
could. In a subject-object understanding of the world these terms have no
meaning. There is no such thing as "human rights." There is no such thing as
moral reasonableness. There are subjects and objects and nothing else.
"This soup of sentiments about logically nonexistent entities can be
straightened out by the Metaphysics of Quality. It says that what is meant by
"human rights" is usually the moral code of intellect-vs. -society, the moral
right of intellect to be free of social control. Freedom of speech; freedom of
assembly, of travel; trial by jury; habeas corpus; government by consent—these
"human rights" are all intellect-vs.-society issues. According to the
Metaphysics of Quality these "human rights" have not just a sentimental basis,
but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are essential to the evolution of a
higher level of life from a lower level of life. They are for real."
To be unreasonable is to be immoral. It doesn't mean you're a murderer or an
adulterer. Reasonableness is an intellectual level value and that's why it's so
crucial in a philosophical discussion group, which is obviously an intellectual
activity. If you want to participate in intellectual practices, you need to
have a decent respect for intellectual values like precision, clarity, and the
ability to discern what's reasonable and what isn't.
I think it's interesting that William James conceived of truth as analogous to
health and wealth. I like that formulation because it maps onto Pirsig's static
levels so well. Health is biological excellence, wealth is social level
excellence and truth is intellectual level excellence. So when Pirsig agrees
with James's notion that truth is a species of the good, he means truth is
what's intellectually good. All three of these concepts are going to resist
exact definitions and their precise meaning will depend on the context in which
they exist, but does anyone think that health, wealth and truth are meaningless
standards? I sure hope not. I think most people would be quite happy to have
all three. Health and wealth are goals you'll have to strive for on your own,
in real life. But this forum is a good place to talk about what's true and what
isn't. Being reasonable simply means that you can be persuaded by reason, by
evidence, by an argument that makes sense. It's not a very fancy idea. I think
it's usually pretty obvious when someone is being unreasonable.
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