Hi dmb,
> dmb said to Steve: > .., if you can't see how causality precludes moral responsibility then there > are many, many explanations available for your edification and amusement. > Nobody has to take my word for it. > > > Steve: > > No, I don't take your word for it, but you've given me nothing more than that. > > dmb says [quoting Pirsig]: > Determinism is the philosophic doctrine that man, like all other objects in > the universe, follows fixed scientific laws, and does so without exception. Steve: I have always held that Pirsig denies the determinism horn of the old supposed dilemma. Pirsig: >Free Will is the philosophic doctrine that man makes choices independent of >the atoms of his body. This battle has been a very long and very loud one >because an abandonment of either position has devastating logical >consequences. If the belief in free will is abandoned, morality must seemingly >also be abandoned under SOM. Steve: Did you notice the important preposition "under SOM." If free will is abandoned UNDER SOM, it seems morality must be abandoned. He does NOT say, as you say he does, that this is true for the MOQ. Note you also quoted him saying, "In the MOQ this dilemma doesn't come up." The whole free will/determinism issue is a non-issue for the MOQ., since, "The "Laws of Nature' are moral laws." > Steve said to dmb: > If causality is understood in MOQ terms as a stable pattern of preference, > then obviously causality is no threat to moral responsibility. > dmb says: > As you can see from Pirsig's explanation, cause and effect relations are > law-like and that's what precludes moral responsibility. Steve: Yes, he says this is true "under SOM." He does NOT say this is true in the MOQ unpacking of causality. dmb: The laws of cause and effect preclude any freedom or choice. So we can't righty understand causality AS a pattern of preferences no matter how stable. That's just not what the word "cause" means. Steve: And yet I do it anyway as Pirsig says we can... Steve quotes Pirsig: In the Metaphysics of Quality "causation" is a metaphysical term that can be replaced by "value". To say that "A causes B" or to say that "B values precondition A" is to say the same thing. > Steve: > > To my knowledge Pirsig never talks about responsibility, but he does talk > about freedom. In fact in his preface to ZAMM he describes freedom as merely > a negative and therefore a lousy goal, and he describes ZAMM itself as > offering a positive alternative to freedom that can serve as a positive goal, > namely Quality. > > dmb says: > > In the passage above Pirsig says that abandoning free will is to abandon > morality. Steve: He says that that is true, "under SOM." UNless you have any evidence to the contrary, he does NOT say that free will is needed for morality in the MOQ. dmb: Determinism, which is predicated on causality, says that man is not free to choose and therefore cannot be held responsible. I have quoted the dictionary, Charlene the James scholar and now Pirsig on this point. (We simply cannot have an intelligent conversation on the topic unless and until the you use the central terms properly.) Steve: I've denied that the MOQ supports determinism all along. You keep thinking that it's either free will or determinism while the MOQ says, "mu." > Steve said: > You see? The freedom you think I am undermining is something that Pirsig > thinks is a negative rather than THEE foundation for moral responsibility, > and he even hangs his hat on having offered us a positive alternative for > freedom. > > > > dmb says: > The freedom I think you're denying is the freedom to act or not, the freedom > to make choices. Steve: I've said all along that we act on our preferences, we will acts, we make choices, we have desires and intentions. What I have pointed out is that in the MOQ, as Pirsig says, this free will/determinism thing is a non-issue. Deeterminism is denied with a world composed of nothing but value, and it is meaningless to add the word "free" in claiming "free will." We make choices. Sure, but what does it mean to say that your choices are free? They aren't free, they are manifestations of your preferences, and we don't freely choose our preferences. In the MOQ we ARE our preferences, so the MOQ clearly denies both horns of the supposed dilemma. 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
