Steve said:
He [Pirsig] defines free will as "the philosophic doctrine that man makes
choices independent of the atoms of his body." I contend that "free will" can't
merely be the capacity to make choices and have preferences. Otherwise
philosophers would have regarded animals as having free will since they exhibit
preferences and make choices.
dmb says:
Free will can't be what Pirsig says it is because philosophers disagree about
animals having free will?
But Pirsig is disagreeing with those philosophers on purpose. Why should his
reformulation have to answer to their definition of free will (as something
that is uniquely human) when that is the very thing he's disagreeing about?
In the paragraphs immediately following his reformulation, Pirsig says:
"...even at the most fundamental level of the universe, static patterns of
values and moral judgements are identical. The 'Laws of Nature' are moral laws.
OF COURSE IT SOUNDS PECULIAR AT FIRST [precisely BECAUSE it DIFFERS from those
philosophers you mention!] and awkward and unnecessary to say that hydrogen and
oxygen form water because it is moral to do so. But it is no less peculiar and
awkward and unnecessary than to say chemistry professors smoke pipes and go to
movies because irresistible cause-and-effect forces of the cosmos force them to
do it. IN THE PAST the LOGIC HAS BEEN that if chemistry professors are composed
exclusively of atoms and if atoms follow only the laws of cause and effect,
then chemistry professors must follow the laws of cause and effect too. But his
logic can be applied in A REVERSE DIRECTION. We can just as easily deduce the
morality of atoms from the observation that chemistry professor are, in
general, moral. If chemistry professors EXERCISE CHO
ICE, and chemistry professors are composed exclusively of atoms, then it
follows that ATOMS MUST EXERCISE CHOICE TOO."
dmb resumes:
As I see it, your contention is that Pirsig's reformulation can't be what he
says it is because it disagrees with the view he's rejecting. You want his view
to answer to the view he is rejecting. Come on. Think about it. That's like
saying we can't convert to the metric system because it doesn't use imperial
measuring units. That's like saying electric cars cannot work because they lack
a gas tank. In that sense, I think your objection misses the point of
converting to a better system, which is to get rid of the old, to reject what
philosophers usually regard as correct.
Steve said:
But there remains a problem with equating free will with the capacity to follow
dynamic quality. It isn't that following dynamic quality isn't free. It is by
definition. The problem is that following DQ is at least not always
intentional. It is not necessarily a matter of will (a voluntary act
accompanied by a felt intention) at all. ...If getting off the stove is
following DQ and if there was no conscious decision to get off the stove, then
it was not a voluntary act. It was not a willing. So it would seem to be a
serious error to call it free will when it doesn't involve will.
dmb says:
It only seems like an error because you are using "will" to mean what Pirsig
does not mean by it, as explained above. By insisting that "will" means an
intentional conscious decision, it cannot be applied to anything except the
rational deliberations of human beings. But, as you just saw, that is not what
Pirsig is saying. "When inorganic patterns of reality create life the MOQ
postulates that they have done so because it's 'better' and that this
definition of 'betterness' - THIS BEGINNING RESPONSE TO DYNAMIC QUALITY - is an
elementary unit of ethics upon which all right and wrong can be based." In the
reformulation, of course, he says one's behavior is free to the extent that one
follows DQ. A few paragraphs later we see that even inorganic patterns are
following DQ, are doing things because it's better. Interestingly, this is the
reason that Pirsig himself gives for writing his books, because it seemed
better than not writing them. In the MOQ, then, this freedom is not uniq
uely human. It extends from particles to Peterson and Pirsig. Not just life,
he says, but EVERYTHING is involved in this ethical activity. The definition of
free will that you keep injecting simply makes no sense in this context. It
makes no sense to ask the MOQ's reformulation to accommodate the old
formulation.
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