I really don't have time for this, but I can't resist jumping in for just an instant on this topic.
-----Krimel, Friday, June 01, 2007 19:48----- I have always been a bit troubled by the idea that it is better for an idea to kill a society than visa versa. What if it is a really bad idea? ----- If it's a bad idea, then let the pragmatic test of empirical verification kill it. The point is not to let social convention suppress it before it gets a fair hearing against the acid test of Quality. A society that doesn't allow the intellectual value of empiricism *should* and *will* be taken down by bad ideas. ------David M, Fri 2007-06-01 16:27----- Well bad stuff happens, Pirsig does not comment on this much. I'd say that the MOQ does allow for lower levels destroying higher ones for their own low level values, eg rock and bugs versus society and intellectuals. Also I think the higher levels have greater freedom to do what they want with the lower levels. Hence,humans can destroy eco systems for their values and ignore dependencies. ------ & -----Krimel, Friday, June 01, 2007 19:48----- Not bad, but here is a troublesome thought. It is one thing for Pirsig to say that it is better for a doctor to kill a germ that to let the germ kill a man. But is that a license to kill? Is it moral for humans to kill of whole species? Especially when the choice to commit specicide is more a matter of human convenience than survival. ------ Pirsig lays out the relevant logic in Chapter 13 of *Lila* right after the doctor/germ example: "An evolutionary morality says it is moral for intellect to [dominate society], but it also contains a warning: Just as a society that weakens its people's physical health endangers its own stability, so does an intellectual pattern that weakens and destroys the health of its social base also endanger its own stability." To generalize: It's immoral for a higher level to destroy a lower level when doing so threatens its own stability, since each higher level *depends* on the lower level for its existence. I'd argue that this rule should be phrased inversely, making it much more prescriptive: Each level should dominate/control a lower level *only* to the extent that it needs to achieve its own maximum potentiality. That is, the greatest morality is achieved when each level has the greatest degrees of freedom possible (to respond to DQ). 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
