Hi dmb, Horse, Arlo,
> dmb says:
> Yes, I definitely think that Pirsig's comments about "one's behavior" are
> comments about the actions of the self.
Steve:
Perhaps, but this "one" in the MOQ could also refer to a rock, tree,
or atom where selfhood does not come into the picture.
dmb:
But the MOQ does not construe the our moral agency as essentially
rational not does it construe the self as autonomous or proprietary.
As Dan rightly points out, the MOQ's self is not independent of the
context in which he or she exists. Like James and Dewey, Pirsig
rejects the notion that we are fundamentally different from the world
from which we emerged. We are part of the ongoing process of
evolution.
Steve:
Agreed. But you posted a quote on free will from Stanford which says
that free will is not merely the capacity of a _rational_ agent to
choose but some particular _sort_ of that capacity. It is not merely
the ability to choose or even merely the ability to rationally
deliberate but something that is that and still more. Clearly Pirsig
rejects that notion in favor of a much simpler notion of freedom. It
is not something in addition to the ability of a rational agent to
choose. It is something more fundamental.
dmb:
> What I have emphatically denied are the various positions that Steve has
> falsely assigned to me - and there have been many of these false
> attributions. At various points, he has wrongly construed me as advocating
> pre-destination, the existence of divine souls, moral agency as essentially
> rational in nature (Plato, Kant, etc.) and the Cartesian self, just to name a
> few.
Steve:
Bullshit.
dmb:
Steve, on the other hand, simply denies that there is any moral agency
in the MOQ.
Steve:
If Pirsig's philosophy is about anything it is about individuals
making quality decisions. What I deny is that agency is equivalent to
free will. Your quote from Stanford also denies this. Free will is
agency plus something else. It is the something else (depending on
what someone says it is) that I deny.
dmb:
For Steve, apparently, freedom consists in knee-jerk reactions like
jumping off a hot stove or single-celled organism moving away from
sulfuric acid.
Steve:
For Pirsig, freedom is associated with following dynamic quality. His
hot stove analogy gives us one paradigmatic example of what it is like
to follow DQ which is in no way what anyone means by free will.
dmb:
He thinks the MOQ has nothing to say about moral responsibility...
Steve:
Sure it does. It puts those comments in the mouth of Rigel.
dmb:
...and he follows Sam Harris in thinking that people are as morally
culpable as tornados.
Steve:
Neither I nor Sam Harris thinks that.
dmb:
I think that Steve's position is completely ridiculous. Like I keep
trying to explain to him, it's logically incoherent and he has to
misuse all the central terms in order to maintain this nonsense. It
seems me that he has a real hard
> time "interpreting" dictionaries and encyclopedia entries, not to mention
> the MOQ, about which he is not even in the ballpark. If I seem too emphatic,
> it's probably just a result of the frustration that comes from dealing with
> such an incorrigible "thinker".
Steve:
Have you noticed that Horse and Arlo have been saying similar things
on this topic and that Marsha, John, and Ham also see where I am
coming from?
Horse:
What is the difference between an 'autonomous individual self ' and an
'autonomous moral agent'? I'm having a hard time seeing any difference
at all given what's been said so far.
So given my current inability to see where there is an effective
difference in this discussion:
What is it then that has or expresses free will if not an 'autonomous
individual self '.
And if this 'autonomous individual self ' is illusory then the
conventional way of looking at free will is also illusory.
It seems to me that in all the discussions so far there has been a
tendency to fall back to the idea that there is an autonomous moral
agent ('autonomous individual self') who 'has' free will and expresses
that free will by making free and independent moral choices.
This doesn't appear to be the case given many of Pirsigs quotes and references.
The overall impression that I get is that the GOF 'Moral Agent' is
being shoe-horned into the MoQ where it doesn't quite fit!
Arlo:
So the "existential self" would be an illusion fostered by a concept
such as "free will". And that's one reason why I think "free will" is
not as valuable as term as "agency" (keeping in mind that "agency",
like "free will" is also an intellectual pattern of value).
"Agency", I hold, is a term that we can use to describe the range of
potential responses any pattern has to its environment. It can apply
to rocks (very, very, very little agency) and dogs (a greater range of
agency) and humans (the greatest range of agency within a MOQ view).
Whereas "free will" is a term that makes sense only (really) on the
"human" or "self" scale, "agency" can apply across the MOQ hierarchy
in a quite sensible way.
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