On Jun 27, 2011, at 12:55 AM, Ham Priday wrote: > > Hi Marsha, Steve, [Matt quoted] -- > > > > On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 12:09 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> asked: > >> How about neither accepting free will, nor rejecting freewill. > > [Steve replied]: >> I think that is somewhat what Pirsig does in Lila. He raises the issue >> of free will but doesn't accept either horn of the dilemma as >> traditionally posed. But isn't that the same as denying both horns? >> I'm wondering how one does what you say in conversation. Most >> people would probably say that if you don't accept it you reject it. >> But if the question is one of those "do you still beat your wife?" kind >> of questions, you can't answer it directly. You either need to back up >> and reconstruct the problem on different terms or change the subject. >> I think Pirsig kind of does both. He resolves the issue by talking >> about freedom instead of free will since he doesn't want to accept the >> metaphysical premise of an independent agent that could be the >> possessor of this free will. > > Pirsig resolves the issue by rejecting the independent agent that makes free > will arguable. For Pirsig, there is no such issue because he has posited > Quality as the determinant agency. All we humans have to do is align our > "quality patterns" to its evolutionary program. > > I think Matt was getting at the agency problem when he talked about > "responsible actors": > > [Matt on 6/21]: >> For moral reasoning to occur, for us to be able to blame or laud >> certain actions for their occurrence, it seems to me that we need >> to be able to track back the action to an actor ("actor" itself having >> the wide sense of "whatever picks out the thing responsible for the action"). > > How can free will exist without an independent agent? > How can we be morally responsible if our values (and consequent actions) are > predetermined?
Not to be repeating myself, I neither accept the notion of freewill, nor reject it. Same goes with determinism and causation. I accept that these are conventional (static) notions, but not Ultimately real. While living within a conventional culture it seems wise to sustain social and biological patterns whenever necessary for one will be held responsible to that level's "moral" code (laws and punishment. ) > Experiential existence hinges on autonomous value-sensibility. Conventional (static) reality is interdependent and relative; no room for an autonomous entity. > It makes no sense to argue for or against free will unless you acknowledge > that choice is the option of a free agent. And I do not argue for or against the notion of free will. > Valuistically speaking, > Ham Yes, valuistically speaking, Marsha ___ 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
