MFs
In response to point 6.1:
6.1 Pirsig's explanation of free will is flawed because in order to have
free will you must have a subject, or else who's "will" is it that is free?
The offending passage from Lila is below:
* * * * *
A third puzzle illuminated by the Metaphysics of Quality is the ancient "free will vs.
determinism controversy." Determinism is the philosophic doctrine that man, like all
other objects in the universe, follows fixed scientific laws, and does so without
exception. Free will is the philosophic doctrine that man makes choices independent of
the atoms of his body.
This battle has been a very long and very loud one because an abandonment of either
position has devastating logical consequences. 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.
On the other hand, if the determinists let go of their position it would seem to deny
the truth of science. If one adheres to a traditional scientific metaphysics of
substance, the philosophy of determinism is an inescapable corollary. If "everything"
is included in the class of "substance and its properties," and if "substance and its
properties" is included in the class of "things that always follow laws," and if
"people" are included in the class "everything," then it is an airtight logical
conclusion that people always follow the laws of substance.
To be sure, it doesn't seem as though people blindly follow the laws of substance in
everything they do, but within a Deterministic explanation that is just another one of
those illusions that science is forever exposing. All the social sciences, including
anthropology, were founded on the bedrock metaphysical belief that these physical
cause-and-effect laws of human behavior exist. Moral laws, if they can be said to
exist at all, are merely an artificial social code that has nothing to do with the
real nature of the world. A "moral" person acts conventionally, "watches out for the
cops," "keeps his nose clean," and nothing more.
In the Metaphysics of Quality this dilemma doesn't come up. To the extent that one's
behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without choice. But to the
extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free.
* * * * *
What Pirsig ends up implying in this passage, sort of, is that when we behave
dynamically we have free will and when we behave statically we are determined. The
trouble is if we have free will when we are dynamic then we must be subjects when we
are dynamic ... But then again, that isn't exactly what he says; he actually just says
our behavior is "free" when it's dynamic. Which must be right because "free" is one of
the synonyms for "dynamic". So all he's really said is that there are problems with
free will and with determinism, so let's just say that when we're dynamic we're
dynamic and when we're static we're static.
At best this is just tautology, at worst it's a fudge because he's not responding to
the question that's being asked. He says the dilemma doesn't come up, without saying
why it doesn't come up. Then he plays with the word "free". He detaches it from the
word "will" and attaches it to "behavior". But the question isn't: is "my behavior
free". The question is: "is my will free". "Will" is the key word here. The question
�do we have will?�, is completely different from the question �do we have behavior?�
Obviously humans have behavior. The ancient free will question concerns whether or not
we ourselves initiate that behavior.
To answer the question as it could have been answered, I'd have said that "do I have
free will?" is a subject-object question. In other words, the question actually says:
"do I-the-subject have free will?" So the answer in MOQ terms should simply be: the
question can't be answered because the MOQ doesn't accept the assumption of the
Subject. (or to be precise, the MOQ sees "I-the-subject" as an intellectual concept,
nothing more). Merely as a matter of having an internally consistent metaphysics, the
MOQ can't dismiss the Subject as an "impossible fiction", and at the same time say
that the Subject has the potential for free will, even if it is only under dynamic
circumstances. And if there's no Subject there's no free will.
This might seem like a disastrous conclusion, but it isn't really because under the
MOQ both free will and cause and effect are still intellectual truths. For the
intellectual purposes of law and science they are good truths, and we should adhere to
them.
It seems to me that the MOQ may be able to answer the free will question after all,
but it bothers me that Pirsig didn't do it.
Diana
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
