************** ROGER CONCURS THAT THE FUNDAMENTAL DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN MOORE, AYER AND PIRSIG IS IN THEIR BASE METAPHYSICAL ASSUMPTIONS, BUT HE SUSPECTS THAT WE MAY HAVE AN EMOTIVE ASSUMPTION IN OUR MIDST. HE OFFERS ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THIS CHARGE AND CLARIFIES CONCERNS WITH THE MOQ'S MORAL HIERARCHY. **************** Hi Roger Moore and Ayer seem to fall into the logical positivist school of philosophy and it is worth noting that Phdrus once studied under Frege, also a logical positivist and a member of the Vienna Circle. I am not really qualified to comment one way or another on naturalistic fallacy so I will skip the first 2 parts of your post and move right into part 3: Roger: 3) THE EMOTIVE PROBLEM -- The challenge we face on the emotive issue isn't that morality is dismissed, it is that we might be guilty of emotive assumptions in our system. The MOQ is a metaphysics -- an intellectual pattern. As such, statements of feelings are not sufficient. To base a metaphysics on emotive arguments would be intellectually unsound. The area where I am concerned the MOQ may be guilty of emotivism arises with Pirsig's statement that DQ is superior to sq -- that dynamic freedom is better than static patterns. What support does Pirsig give for this assumption? I can find none. Can anyone else? Is this not an emotive statement? It would be one thing if he only stated that reality can be divided into DQ and sq. Or if he only pointed out that the course of evolution has indeed been toward dynamic advance. But he doesn't stop there. He states that "In general, given a choice between two courses to follow and all other things being equal, that choice which is more Dynamic, that is, at a higher level of evolution, is more moral." PLOP! There it is! The emotive assumption of the MOQ. Or is it????? Dan: In order to attempt an answer to your question regarding the "goodness" of Dynamic Quality over static quality, it may be helpful to go back to Robert Pirsig's original thesis concerning Native American contributions to American democracy. While Pirsig makes mention of William James Sidis and his 800 page book on the history of the Americas from the Native American point of view, there is very much more written on this topic; particularly interesting to me is this book called Forgotten Founders by Bruce E. Johansen, available to read online at: http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FF.html ...where we read in Chapter 5: "As with many scientific debates through the ages, the emotional exchanges between Europeans and Americans over the degeneracy theories reflected the political and social conflicts of the age. In the writings of Franklin there seems to be an emerging awareness of a distinctive American habit of mind, a sense that these transplanted Europeans, himself included, were becoming something not inferior to Europeans, but something very different." "Something very different" refers to the Dynamic exchange of ideas taking place on a new continent. Most Europeans arriving on the shores of this great new land considered themselves above the savages they encountered for the sense of values the Native Americans lived by were in total contrast to the values in Europe at the time. However, as the new immigrants became "Americanized" this point of view began to change, dramatically. Johansen quotes Ben Franklin: "The Care and Labour of providing for Artificial and Fashionable Wants, the sight of so many rich wallowing in Superfluous plenty, whereby so many are kept poor and distressed for Want, the Insolence of Office . . . and restraints of Custom, all contrive to disgust them [Indians] with what we call civil Society." (Benjamin Franklin) Ben Franklin, being close to 70 years old at the time, deferred the writing of the Declaration of Independence to Thomas Jefferson, who at age 33 had doubts as to his ability to accomplish such a task. However, both men acknowledged their debt to the Native Americans: Jefferson wrote to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787: "The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro' the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, our very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. . . . I am convinced that those societies [as the Indians] which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments." Johansen states: "The Indian in Jefferson's mind (as in Franklin's) served as a metaphor for liberty. " Now, back to the 21st century and Roger's emotive problem: "What support does Pirsig give for this assumption? I can find none. Can anyone else?" This assumption is grounded in our American system of democracy and it seems a bit of a shame to me that Pirsig did not further pursue his thesis, for it seems our system of "grass root government" existed on this continent for hundreds and thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of years before the Europeans began arriving in the 15 and 1600s. If you want proof of Pirsig's statement, look no further than your local town meeting or newspaper. Pirsig is not making an emotive statement at all, in my estimation. Roger: 4) THE LOGICAL SOLUTION? The only possible logical loophole that I can think of to dispel the charge of emotivism on this issue is if we establish that DQ and morality and reality are just three different terms for the same thing. (note I did this at the beginning of this post.) If DQ = reality = morality, then it would be correct to state that more DQ is more moral. The range of potential experience IS the range of morality. Do note that if we substitute Quality for DQ we get Quality = reality = morality. This does not lead to the conclusion that dynamic is better than static. Does Pirsig ever explicitly state this argument? Does he offer any other justification for his 'Dynamic is better' assertion? Is my argument sound? What problems do you see with it? Dan: When we are young, we perceive Dynamic Quality all around us but when we grow up and begin intellectualizing about "it" we lose our perceptions and become grounded in conceptions, losing our freedom. Dynamic Quality cannot be conceived, only perceived. Just as soon as conceptions enter into the picture, Dynamic Quality becomes something else, something static and rigid, like the old European monarchies existing in luxury at the expense of the masses. Dynamic Quality must be kept concept-free while morality is a concept. They cannot be equal, in my estimation. We are perceivers of Dynamic Quality and conceivers of static quality. Perception arises very mysteriously, spontaneously, while conception requires the foundation of social and intellectual patterns of value; that which is is static quality. The more we try and understand Dynamic Quality the further away we get from "it". To get closer to Dynamic Quality one must let go of ALL static patterns of value. The question then becomes: Can we attain an enlightened state and still be part of the world as we know it? Enlightenment arises when one is engaged in right practice, so the old adage "practice makes perfect" only applies when such practice is right. By constantly evaluating the preconditioned environment in which we find ourselves at any time in a Dynamic fashion, (i.e. without prior judgments) life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is achieved. Roger: 5) CAN WE "NOW DEDUCE CODES BASED ON EVOLUTION THAT ANALYZE MORAL ARGUMENTS WITH GREATER PRECISION THAN EVER BEFORE"? 6) IN CONCLUSION Pirsig mentioned to us a while back that the MOQ is only 2% complete. I suggest that it is up to us to start working on filling in all the missing pieces. The above critique sounds harsh, but I think the MOQ is the basic metaphysical foundation which we can and should build upon. Dan: I share many of your concerns in parts 5 and 6 regarding Pirsig's MOQ but I am content (at this time) to just be pursuing happiness by traveling as Dynamic a path as I may. Just what does that really mean though? Something different for us all, I suspect. For me, it means going where I am called upon to go, with my full attention focused on whatever it is I happen to be doing at any moment, for each of my actions, no matter how seemingly insignificant they may be, will with certainty lead to my death. Therefore I strive to know exactly what it is I am doing at all times, and why, then just do it without regard to the eventual outcome, which I already know will be anyhow. The pursuit of happiness does not mean the accumulation of property and lots of money, nor does it mean being mirthful all the time. It simply means freedom from want. And that's about as Dynamic as it gets. Thanks for your great post, Roger. Best wishes, Dan ------- End of forwarded message ------- MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
