Hi Ian, (Matt), all,

Ian:
> You said ... responding to Matt about dmb's earlier response ...
> (I agree Matt's contribution was spot on ... and dmb's response to you
> was pretty much mine.)

Steve:
Does that mean that you now understand that I did not mean to imply
that modifiability is the same as morality nor that responding
positively to punishment exhausts modifiability?

Steve previously:
>> What remains to be articulated is how the MOQ levels might shed some
>> light on the issue of moral responsibility and prudence versus moral
>> behavior ....


Ian:
> If prudence is judged as behaviour in response to socially engineered
> punishments, then clearly there IS a prudence / morality distinction.
> A very important one, the one dmb made, but it's not an absolute one.
> Prudence can be based on the whole gamut or patterns of value - and
> where the patterns of value are your morality, then the prudence vs
> morality distinction effectively vanishes.

Steve:
(I don't understand what you mean in that last claim.)

I would say that what Kant distinguished as prudence in MOQ terms is
not the absence of true morality as Kant saw it. It amounts to
following social patterns as a response to biologically defined
quality rather than as a response to socially defined quality(due to
society imposing biological consequences for defiance of social
norms). But I am far from an expert on Kant.

Perhaps someone can articulate what Kant meant by this distinction?


Ian:
> For me the "moral responsibility" angle comes from participation (DQ)
> in the whole pattern of patterns, where we come to"identify" with the
> rights and wrongs of murder - not from some rationalised calculation
> rules derived from them. The latter are pragmatic only in the
> utilitarian "efficiency" sense of the workings of an "ordered" society
> - not everyone can learn all of life's lessons first-hand before DQ
> offers them opportunities to err. The social rules are  layer well
> above - orthogonal to - the actual morality.


Steve:
I don't see how you parenthetical addition of DQ applies. Rocks and
trees and atoms respond to DQ but are not thought of as morally
responsible entities as humans are. I have proposed that the
difference is not "free will" as this capacity but rather the capacity
to participate in social and intellectual patterns which distinguishes
us morally responsible humans from non-morally responsible rocks,
trees, and atoms.

Best,
Steve
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