Hi Jonathan, Platt, Horse, Cntrfrc and ALL,
I post this under a new subjectline because it comprises both the
"Life ain't nothing but ..." and the "Moral Compass"-threads. I hope
it's not overlooked.
Horse's recent post and Platt's answer brings the discussion back
to a more philosophical one. So many words pass eachother
without hearing and the discussion only diverges. Too little trying to
see what it is there's disagreement about. In this post I think to have
some answers.
Jonathan and Horse in their recent posts give two important features
of Morality:
1 THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT / PERSPECTIVE (Jonathan/Horse)
2 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BOTTOM UP-VIEW (Jonathan)
I will only elaborate on the second, since Horse and Platt's discussion is
very vivid and just like Jonathan I disliketoo long posts. I am interested in
what Horse is going to answer to Platt's questions about the absoluteness
of universal morality vs the relativity of answers to moral questions when
made dependent upon context.
2 BOTTOM-UP MORALITY
Cntrfrc has spent a lot of words fighting his disillussion with human kind.
Although understandable, he makes the big mistake of first deciding how
it SHOULD BE and subsequently imposing that on HOW IT IS. I think the
controverse between IT'S LIKE THAT and IT SHOULDN'T BE LIKE THAT
not only is highly present in attitudes towards socio-ethical problems,
but also in the individual lives of people.
It's a very negative viewpoint that has a high risk of leading to bitterness.
Regarding the MoQ, it is of less value, because you discard the value of
the thing THAT IS, whereas under the MoQ every-THING_THAT_IS has value.
Pirsig's whole struggle with Rigel about Lila's Quality is exactly about this!.
Rigel denies Lila's Quality and Pirsig doesn't have a right away answer,
because from the intellectual viewpoint or even social perspective it's hard to see.
When he wants to answer he's trapped in the static perspective of social and
intellectual values Rigel positioned the question in. He needed to 'open his mind'
to 'see' the answer to Rigel's question in the Bottom-up structure of the Morality
within the MoQ.
I found a great quote in ZMM. Sadly, I've got only a Dutch version of the book so
I can't indicate the precise page and you'll have to do with my translation. It's
towards the end of chapter 25 in which Pirsig's talking about achieving peace of
values and political programs:
"I believe that if we want to change (reform) the world and
make it better inhabitable, we will never achieve that by speaking
of [...] programs that are full of things that other should do. I
believe that approach begins at the end and supposes that the
end is the beginning. Polilical programs are important endproducts
of social quality, that can only work if the underlying structure of
social values is good. The social values only are good if the
individual values are good. The place to make the world a better
place is first of all in your own heart, head and hands. Than you
can go on from there."
Beautifull! I underlined every word and marked the piece with about twenty lines on the
left and on the right, when I was nineteen and first read the book.
Dtchgrtngs
Walter
Ps Horse, you write:
> Is it possible to behave morally?
I would make that:
> Is it possible to behave IMmorally? Which (sseing the above) I think gives more
credit to morality under the MoQ
Agreed?
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