Steve said to dmb:
You have asserted that would need to drop the notions of blameworthiness and
praiseworthiness if we drop the term "free will." But consider, where do
Poincare's ideas come from? Certainly not his conscious willing of them. It is
not _will_ that makes him praiseworthy as a thinker. Likewise it is not "free
will" that makes bad behavior reprehensible. We simply do not need this concept
to talk about morality.
dmb says:
This is another point that you are pressing against overwhelming evidence.
Pirsig makes the linkage between free will and moral responsibility, the
Stanford encyclopedia makes this linkage, the dictionary makes this linkage and
this linkage is logically necessary, as I've tried to explain several times.
The Stanford encyclopedia on Free Will:"It would be misleading to specify a
strict definition of free will since in the philosophical work devoted to this
notion there is probably no single concept of it. For the most part, what
philosophers working on this issue have been hunting for, maybe not
exclusively, but centrally, is a feature of agency that is NECESSARY FOR
PERSONS TO BE MORALLY RESPONSIBLE for their conduct."
My computer's dictionary says, determinism is "the doctrine that all events,
including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the
will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human
beings have no free will and CANNOT BE HELD MORALLY RESPONSIBLE for their
actions."
dmb said to Steve:
If I follow your reasoning, you're saying that DQ is pre-intellectual,
therefore the MOQ's version of human freedom is an unconscious freedom that
couldn't possibly involve anything like a conscious, deliberate choice. Is that
about right? ...I think you are compartmentalizing DQ and sq so that never the
twain shall meet. There's just freedom on the DQ side, but it's a special,
mystical freedom over which we have no control, and then we are controlled on
the static side entirely because it is the static. This mischaracterizes the
relation between DQ and sq in a very big way, I think, and it leaves us with a
totally meaningless version of freedom.
Steve:
But Pirsig said there are two distinct aspects of the freedom situation. We
agree that to the extent that we follow DQ there is freedom, to the extent we
follow sq there is constraint.
dmb says:
You are answering criticism that says you are compartmentalizing DQ and sq and
your reply is to say they are distinct aspects? But saying they are distinct is
just another way to say they are in separate compartments. You've not replied
to the criticism, Steve. All you did was re-assert the objectionable assertion
using a slightly different term. Sorry, but that does not count as a argument
even by the loosest standards.
Steve said:
What people are seeking in their hope that science and philosophy can support
the concept of free will is not freedom in the DQ sense at all but rather
control. They want to be able to say that it is "I" who is in charge. This "I"
refers to the conscious self, which again, is not the part of the self that is
associated with DQ which is pre-conceptual awareness. It is the good that comes
before being conscious of the locus of goodness to the extent that we can make
conscious choices about it.
dmb says:
Pre-conceptual does not mean unconscious. Pre-intellectual does not mean that
either. Where did you get that idea that the capacity to respond to DQ is
unconscious? Do you have ANY evidence for that view and how could that possibly
work? The students who learned to see Quality in writing weren't unconscious.
The motorcycle mechanic who follows DQ has not lost his mind. The MOQ does not
deny the existence of conscious self. It denies the Cartesian self, the subject
as a metaphysical substance or entity. To deny the existence of ANY KIND of
conscious self would be ridiculous because denying it entails employment of the
very thing you're denying. In other words, it's logically incoherent.
Steve said:
Again, this sort of "forget yourself" experience is not what is sought in the
usual hope that science or philosophy can find some room for "free will." What
is sought is a way for the self to be in control rather than a chaining of
oneself to a free master. This "forget yourself" grooving is indeed a sort of
freedom, but it is not what anyone means by free will because the
self-conscious willing is completely missing from the picture.
dmb says:
Again, you are only saying that the MOQ differs from the usual stance. Yes, of
course it does. We all understand that. Yes, human agency is conceived
differently in the MOQ. Nobody says otherwise so your often repeated point is
beside the point. We're talking about free will according to Pirsig. Period.
What's that? You want to make that point again anyway? Okay, but I don't see
how it helps anything.
Steve said:
... It isn't what anybody I ever talked to means by free will. You can apply
the term in this "when I say 'cat' what I mean is 'dog'" sort of way, but in
doing so, you are bound to be misunderstood and therefore sneaking free will as
the freedom of a conscious chooser in the back door. This is no better than the
common attempt to sneak God into the MOQ as a word for Quality which annoys you
so much (and annoys me too).
dmb says:
Yes, it's more than just annoying when people try to sneak theism into the MOQ.
But it's also true that Quality and "God" are equal terms if those terms are
taken a certain way. Only a true mystic can make this equation, Pirsig says. In
the same way, it would be more than annoying to sneak the Cartesian self back
into the MOQ but nobody is doing that. AND it's also true that the MOQ does
have a conception of the self and that self is free and controlled to some
extent. And so what if nobody you ever talked to thought about free will from a
MOQ perspective? You are talking to me about the MOQ, obviously. Why does it
matter what non-MOQers think, especially since they are not here and you are
not debating them. What relevance could they have to my criticisms of your take
on the MOQ?
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