Hi Akshay, [Akshay] > By the phrase "morality being hard-wired", I presume it means that every > animate being has intricate sense of morality, although the degree to which > it may act in accordance to this morality may vary. Recently, there have > been psychological cases where psychopaths have no sense of morality at > all. Today, in the Times of India, there was a story of an 8-year-old > serial killer who strangled at least 4 six-month-old babies (two among whom > were his cousins). Surely enough, he needed parental guidance to teach him > what is right and what is not right, which he evidently did not have a > history of.
[Platt] I presume by "morality" you are referring to the Judeo-Christian idea of morality expressed in the Ten Commandments and "Love thy neighbor as thyself." However, in Pirsig's metaphysics, there are different levels of morality whose guiding moral principles are as different as night and day and who constantly battle one another for supremacy. At the biological level, for example, killing is perfectly acceptable as the means of survival, even of one's own kind. [Akshay] > That's why I've always opposed letting ethics be a foundation of > metaphysics. There are always exceptional cases. Even Stephen Covey would > agree that each human is born with conscience, taking the "nature" side of > the debate rather than the "nurture" which psychologists maintain. What I > still understand as Quality is simply Experience or Activity, not Goodness, > not Morality. I suppose figuring out a moral order for the universe is > beyond our reach because we are "in the system" (ref. Godel's Theorem and > Hofstadter). We can analyse what's been happening so far > (social/financial/intellectual trends) but to predict patterns with > complete accuracy is impossible, because the fastest and most accurate > "reality engine" is reality itself, not a supercomputer, although > approximate or vague answers can be obtained (broad level answers). While it's true we are in the system we're attempting to describe and thus inevitably blind to some aspects of it, I think it's evolutionary progress to move towards moral principles based on reason rather than depend completely on social authorities to proscribe right and wrong. But, we must always keep in mind that reason alone can easily become rationalizations to protect one's own status, whether that of an "objective, impartial" scientist or a "for the public good" politician. While Dynamic Quality is always ready to move responsive individuals in unpredictable directions, to have a stable foundation for how the world works as provided by metaphysics, especially the MOQ, is better than living in an anarchy of babble where anything goes, depending on who has the loudest voice or the biggest stick. But, I could be wrong. Regards, Platt 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/
