Hi Horse, Walter, Ken, Roger, Jonathan and Group: Horse, your recent contributions to the discussion are like a breath of fresh air. I cannot hope to match the depth and breadth of your answers to my questions. You make a good case for �context� as opposed to �contextualism� and define �relativism� in a way that clarifies what makes it different from your context approach to moral issues. Regarding my question about universal moral truths, I thought your example of the doctor letting loose germs on the patient who didn�t want to live was a bit of a stretch, and I�m still a bit befuddled by the subtle distinctions you make between �circumstances,� �context� and �environment.� But these are relatively (-: minor quibbles compared to a major consensus we�ve reached. I can agree wholeheartedly with the following statement from your 21 Dec. post: HORSE: Where the MoQ provides moral principles I accept that these may be universally applicable, but cannot say they are absolute or that they support a position of �universal truth� which is immutable and unchanging. This would surely negate an important part of the MoQ - Dynamic Quality. PLATT: I hope that Jonathan, another who champions the importance of context, will join us in agreeing that MoQ principles apply universally, and that among those principles (subject to change but perhaps as �universal� as the speed of light) is that the basic structure of the world is ethical, not material. HORSE: I�m not saying we don�t have free will but I would prefer that this belief can be shown to be supported by the MoQ and if not what is the alternative. Can we show this to be the case due to our experience? Is there something in a value-based hierarchy such as the MoQ that provides at least a reasonable basis for belief in free will? (Later) Altruism and free will seem to be co- dependent. PLATT: As I argued before, morals and free will go together. You can�t have on without the other. I define free will as the ability to choose between alternative actions. It is freedom of choice that makes morals relevant to our world. Pirsig defines free will as �the philosophic doctrine that man makes choices independent of the atoms of his body.� He further states, �If the belief in free will is abandoned, morality must seemingly also be abandoned under a subject-object metaphysics. If man follows the cause-and-effect laws of substance, then man cannot really CHOOSE between right and wrong.� (Emphasis added) (Lila, Chap 12.) He then cites the ubiquitous nature of choice at all levels of the MoQ, as in the following examples: �The chemistry of life is the chemistry of carbon. What distinguishes all the species of plants and animals is, in the final analysis, differences in the way carbon atoms CHOOSE to bond.� (Chap. 11.) �On the other hand, the shift in cell reproduction from mitosis to meiosis to permit sexual CHOICE and allow huge DNA diversification is a Dynamic advance. (Chap. 11.) �A bacterium gets no CHOICE in what its progeny are going to be, but a queen been gets to select from thousands of drones. That selection is Dynamic. In all sexual selection, Lila CHOOSES, Dynamically, the individual she wants to project into the future.� (Chap. 15.) I agree that the free will assumption as well as other fundamental premises on which we base our beliefs ought to be revealed and examined. But it seems to me the assumption of free will goes hand in hand with the concept of morals, and I would be interested in what �other possibilities� you think there might be. There�s much more in your 21 Dec post deserving of comment, but since I generally agree with most of it, I�d like to move on to your 22 Dec. post to Walter where you state the following: HORSE: >From an MoQ perspective reality is inherently moral so what we have to do now is consider actions and behavior as inherently moral. This now turns things around and we have to look at what is GOOD. Rather than asking �is an action moral� we have to ask �is an action good�. This doesn�t negate the free will question that I have asked but puts it in a different light. Can we CHOOSE to do that which is good? PLATT: Here you make a distinction between the moral and the good which in my view are like free will and morality, that is, they are co-dependent. To be a moral person is to be a good person, to make a moral decisions is to make a good decision, to choose to behave morally is to behave in good way. Pirsig also seems to chain the moral to the good: �From the cells� point of view sex is pure Dynamic Quality, the highest GOOD of all.� (Chap. 15) �The test of what was GOOD, of what had Quality, was no longer �Does it meet society�s approval?� but �Does it meet the approval of the intellect.?�� (Chap. 22.) �We must understand that when a society undermines intellectual freedom for its own purposes it is absolutely morally bad, but when it represses biological freedom for its own purposes it is absolutely morally GOOD.� (Chap. 24.) (Note use of �absolutely� (-:) ��Truth is a species of GOOD.� That was right on. That was exactly what is meant by the Metaphysics of Quality.� Truth is a static intellectual pattern within a larger entity called Quality.� (Chap. 29.) No distinction is made as Walter suggests between Universal Good and static, social morality. Throughout Lila, the words �value,� �quality,� �moral� and �good� are used almost interchangeably, leading me to believe Pirsig treats them as virtually synonymous or at least so closely related that they shouldn�t be imbued with significantly different meanings as you attempt to do in the passage above. (Either that or I misunderstand your point.) Static patterns of morality value are all patterns of good within the moral framework of the MoQ. While there is no distinction in the MoQ between facts and value, there are distinctions between moral levels. What�s good for the biological level is not necessarily good for the social level, what�s good at the social level is not necessarily good for the intellectual level. Pirsig makes it clear that the battles between good and evil are the battles between levels. �It�s out of this struggle between conflicting static patterns that the concepts of good and evil arise.� (Chap. 13.) We can judge the morality of a person�s behavior according to it�s position and effects within the MoQ moral hierarchy. Murder, rape and pillage are biological pleasures that society cannot tolerate. (Killing your grandma with an ax may have quality biologically, but socially it�s very bad indeed.) Censorship is a social good that is bad for intellect. Dishonesty is immoral at all levels (you can�t fool mother nature). Because of the MoQ moral hierarchy it seems to me apparent that even though Pirsig collapses the fact-value dichotomy that this doesn�t mean that all actions the world takes (using whatever instrument it chooses, including you and me) are also moral. It all depends (-: on where the behavior in question occurs in the MOQ hierarchy of goodness and how other levels are affected by it. Can we apply the MoQ hierarchy to moral questions? I used to think so, but now I doubt it because of the wide disparity of views on moral issues expressed on this site, exemplified by the answers to Roger�s moral dilemmas. Preconceptions, emotivism, agendas and varied interpretations seem to stand in the way. But, we�re not totally to blame. I�ve always felt that if someone doesn�t get a message, the author of a message is mostly at fault. In Pirsig�s case, he didn�t give us enough examples of how to apply the MoQ to every day moral problems. Thanks for a most interesting discussion, Horse, Walter and all contributors. I look forward to more along these lines. Platt MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
