Dave On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 10:47 AM, david <[email protected]> wrote: > There is an interesting article about human rights and the limits of > materialism linked below. I think some of Dworkin's ideas are similar to > Pirsig's and he had very impressive credentials as a legal philosopher. As > you'll see in the article, he did well at Harvard, was a Rhodes Scholar at > Oxford, did Harvard Law School, was a professor at Yale, Oxford, New York > University and University College London. He finished "Religion Without God", > his last book, about a year ago - just before he died.
Dan: Thank you so much for the book recommendation. It fits in well with what I've been working on lately and it also reminds me a bit of some of Freud's work, especially these essays (and you gotta love the cover art): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004OR1TUU/ref=oh_d__o01_details_o01__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Freud claimed there are three great thought systems at work in the world: animism, religion, and science. Animism came first and is the most encompassing. Even today our mythos has its roots there. Religion arose from animism, or rather, as Freud put it, animism provided the necessary prerequisites for religion. These three thought systems appear similar to the four levels of the MOQ in that they are discrete and yet continuous. >dmb: > I was thinking about the human rights aspect of the MOQ as I read about > Dworkin's work.... > > Pirsig describes the history of the 20th century as an extended conflict > between "programs for intellectual control over society" and reactionary > forces with "a program for the social control of intellect." This history, > according to the MOQ, "is explained by a conflict of levels of evolution." > > This conflict between levels is not a conflict between society and the > individual (As John and other conservatives have suggested). It is a conflict > between two kinds of society. Just as an individual can be dominated by > social values (Richard Rigel). a whole society can be dominated by social > values (Victorians, neoVictorians, fascists). The same idea applies to > intellectual values; a person or a whole society can be dominated by > intellectual values. Pirsig points to human rights as a prime example of the > intellectual values that should be in charge or the whole society. Like the > other "programs for intellectual control over society," these rights are very > much about the values which are supposed to guide whole governments and > nations. And so, according to the MOQ, "a culture that supports the dominance > of intellectual values over social values is absolutely superior to one that > does not." > > > "...In a subject-object understanding of the world these terms have no > meaning. There is no such thing as "human rights." There is no such thing as > moral reasonableness. There are subjects and objects and nothing else. > ..This soup of sentiments about logically nonexistent entities can be > straightened out by the Metaphysics of Quality. It says that what is meant by > "human rights" is usually the moral code of intellect-vs-society, the moral > right of intellect to be free of social control. Freedom of speech; freedom > of assembly, of travel; trial by jury; habeas corpus; government by > consent--these "human rights" are all intellect-vs-society issues. According > to the Metaphysics of Quality these "human rights" have not just a > sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are essential to > the evolution of a higher level of life from a lower level of life. They are > for real." > > > Check it out; this guy is saying something very similar to Pirsig, at least > on this topic. Dan: Yes, I agree. Lots of similarities so far as human rights. >dmb: > http://www.thenation.com/article/178330/beyond-naturalism-ronald-dworkin?page=full# > > "Dworkin still wants to call his attitude "religious" because, although he > does not believe in the existence of God, he "accepts the full, independent > reality of value" and hence rejects the naturalistic view that nothing is > real except what is revealed by the natural sciences or psychology." > > Ronald Dworkin's 1977 book, Taking Rights Seriously, "established him as one > of the essential figures, along with Robert Nozick and John Rawls, in the > modern revival of liberal political philosophy". > "Any account of the law must of course include rights, indispensable elements > of the complex network of permissions, claims, duties, warrants and > exemptions by which laws knit individual actors together into political > communities. But do rights have their existence only because of the existence > of formal, enacted law? This is not what Dworkin thinks; things go in the > other direction, he argues. For Dworkin, rights are fundamental and give the > law its moral framework. Indeed, he claimed (though for most people > unpersuasively) that they give the law its very identity as law. Rights, he > says in a typically vivid phrase, are 'trumps'." Thanks again, Dave. I ordered the Kindle version of Religion Without God and I'll be reading it tonight. Dan http://www.danglover.com 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
