On 9/7/13 12:56 PM, "David Buchanan" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > David Thomas said: > > ...Some time ago, when I first read this book [Jonathan Haidt¹s, ³The > Righteous Mind, Why Good People and Divided by Politics and Religion], in an > exchange with DMB I recommended he read it because I thought it posed serious > scientific challenge to Pirsig¹s MoQ theory. I suspect he did not take my > suggestion or if he did he felt that scientific finding above hit too close to > home. > > > dmb says: > I'm familiar with Haidt, although I haven't read that particular book. Did a > paper on his work a few years ago in grad school and don't see any reason why > it poses a challenge to Pirsig's work. It's been a while but I remember > thinking that his explanations for the differences between conservatives and > liberals pretty well supports what Pirsig says, explains the visceral feelings > behind the clash between social and intellectual values systems. Why do you > think Haidt's work is a challenge to Pirsig? > > > > dmb said: > I think it's an uncanny description of Marsha's attitude, don't you? > > > DT replied: > > > Honestly? I think trying to evaluate a serious biological condition on the > basis of email list posts by even by someone trained and certified to practice > psychology or psychiatry would be irresponsible. By a untrained layperson, > morally repugnant. ... > > dmb says: > What!? You don't see it? Plus it's a wild exaggeration to suggest that I'm > asking for a medical diagnosis.The comments posted in this forum are all we > have to work with. I put Marsha's comments right next to those descriptions. > I think we can honestly evaluate the similarities without pretending to be a > doctor or pretending to offer treatment. (There is no known treatment for > psychopathy.) I realize it's not fun to be criticized but that doesn't make it > morally repugnant or cruel, especially if the criticism is valid. To determine > that, we have to honestly evaluate each other's words and conversational > behavior. > > And if my criticism are valid, then Marsha's behavior and her nihilistic > anti-intellectualism are both morally repugnant. The intellectual level has > virtues and values too, right? That's the highest form of static morality, > right? > My complaints are about Marsha's constant denigration and dismissal of > these values. Again, it might not be pleasant for Marsha but it's not unfair > or cruel. Beyond the bruised egos there is a point and purpose to these > criticisms. > Think about how easy it would be to escape from criticism if all you had to do > was accuse your critic of being too mean, too aggressive, or otherwise having > the wrong tone. In that case, one could refuse to speak to the substance of > any matter for just about any "reason". It's just not a legitimate excuse, not > even when the critic is being a total jerk about it. There is still the > substance of the matter, the actual content of the debate. > > An intellectually honest person does not use their hurt feelings as an excuse > to evade the issues. One can complain about rudeness or whatever and still > speak to the issues involved. > > I think you're just holding a grudge and taking sides for personal reasons. > That's understandable but it's not cool and not fair. > Dave: OK, let me see if I have your version of the MoQ right. Let's say you are a university professor in moral philosophy with tons of published peer reviewed papers and book and have been acclaimed as a leading "intellectual" in your field. I, on the other hand, am a homeless street person who dropped out of school before the eighth grade, but not before being evaluated as having an IQ of 80. I am on my usual rounds wandering through the alleys of Denver digging in the trash for food and aluminum cans. I come upon you standing over a child beating her unmercifully with a club. My moral intuition compels me to act to stop you. When I do, you turn the club towards me and shout, "You fucking bum I'm an intellectual, you have no moral authority to interfere with me unless you can mount an intellectual defense of your actions. I think you're just holding a grudge and taking sides for personal reasons. You're acting like a psychopath." So when Pirsig says: "Now, it should be stated at this point that the Metaphysics of Quality supports this dominance of intellect over society. It says intellect is a higher level of evolution than society; therefore, it is a more moral level than society. It is better for an idea to destroy a society than it is for a society to destroy an idea. But having said this, the Metaphysics of Quality goes on to say that science, the intellectual pattern that has been appointed to take over society, has a defect in it. The defect is that subject-object science has no provision for morals. Subject-object science is only concerned with facts." Based on this should we then discard the recent facts that research in environmental psychology as laid out in Haidt's book? That says: "The first principle of moral psychology is that Intuitions comes first, strategic reasoning second. In support of this principle, I reviewed six areas of research demonstrating that: -Brains evaluate instantly and constantly -Social and political judgments depend heavily on quick intuitive flashes. -Our bodily states sometimes influence our moral judgments. Bad smells and tastes can make people more judgemental. -Psychopaths reason but don¹t feel (and are severely deficient morally) -Babies feel but don¹t reason (and have the beginning of morality) -Affective reactions are in the right place at the right time in the brain.² >From this, and other findings, Haidt developed the Elephant and Rider metaphor to illustrate that roughly 90% of all moral judgments are intuitive, automatic, and the result of little understood subconscious processes, the Elephant. The Rider, the intellect, the conscious process, plays a 10% role, rarely influencing the judgment and when used, it¹s primarily for thinking up reasons (often completely illogical ones) why the judgment is correct. But of course as a budding intellectual, Mr Buchanan is exempt from these biological ³subject-object scientific² facts. So when he compares one¹s thinking to that of a psychopath its merely for the purposes of protecting and preserving intellectual quality. So that if Steven Hawking were to challenge the MoQ¹s conjecture that quarks have a tiny bit of choice, a perfectly valid start to intellectual rebuttal would be to refer to him as, ³that old cripple in a wheel chair.² Uh, Righ...................t. Dave Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
