dmb,
Weren't you pushing that "DQ degenerates into chaos" just last June 16th?
Marsha
On Aug 2, 2011, at 3:12 PM, david buchanan wrote:
>
>
> 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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