[MD] Is Quality a Value?

[Ham Priday]

Hi Platt --

I asked why you thought freedom was "the only perceived good", because I
know that Beauty has a high value for you.  Your answer made me realize that
your concept of Freedom, like Value, extends to the insentient world beyond
individual awareness.

> Freedom allows for the coalescence of elements into
> units that reflect Beauty, like the freedom of a composer
> to use a combination of notes to create a
> beautiful symphony.

Again, you and Pirsig seem to be squeezing subjective consciousness out of
the picture, as if all that mattered was the order of the cosmos and the
"perfection" that (you believe) natural evolution ultimately leads to.  When
I presented to you the analogy of insentient robotic creatures constructing
a sophisticated world they're totally unaware of, I'd hoped it might
demonstrate what is a truism to me: that there is no point to Value if it
can't be experienced

Platt, you argue constantly for recognition of the individual as the world's
decision-maker and prime mover.  But if the individual's ingenuity and
energy serves no purpose other than transforming the shape of an insentient
world, what's in it for man?  Where in this evolutionary process of thought
and matter is the connection between the individual and his source?  How can
this be a "moral system" without it?

> It is the human condition, unfortunately, to have to
> settle for less than perfection. You know it exists,
> but also know you can never attain it. Such is life.
> Some whine and complain about it and dream of
> Utopias. Most of us get over it.

So the struggle to move the world toward perfection is in vain, since we can
never know the perfection we strive for.  For sure, something is lacking in
this worldview; however, I won't try to argue you out of it, as it appears
to be a belief system you're committed to.

Insamuch as you also believe the evolutionary world to be a moral system (a
conclusion I must confess is beyond my understanding), you are troubled by
the thought that anyone could be a moral relativist.  Let me requote the
"confessional" section of Stephen Edington's 2003 sermon, just to refresh
your thinking on this issue:

"The assumption being made about morality and codes of moral behavior here
is that they are ultimately rooted in some source beyond human experience or
human construction. It could be either in a Deity, however conceived; or in
what our Enlightenment ancestors-Thomas Jefferson, for example-called
'Natural Law.'  This is a common, and quite understandable, assumption. What
parent, for example, has not said, at some point of exasperation, to his or
her child after running out of offering explanations for a parental command:
'Because I said so, and that's all the reason you need!'   Way back in my
pre-parenthood days I made a promise to myself that I'd never say that to a
kid of mine.  That turned out to be one of the more easily, and most
frequently, broken promises I ever made to myself.

"It is not that big of a step, really, to generalize from this kind of
common parental experience, or-on a larger scale-from our human attempts to
formulate our truly necessary laws and codes of moral behavior and ethics,
that morality itself ultimately must come from some kind of cosmic,
supra-human 'Because I Said So.'   There may be debate over just who or what
this 'I' is that is 'saying so' but the idea that Morality (with a capital
'M') ultimately derives from a fixed source that is beyond us is a commonly
held one.  And there are those who firmly hold that to question, or to
deviate from, such an idea is to teeter on the precipice of a very dangerous
chasm called 'moral relativism.'

"Well, teetering or not, I'd like to make the case, the positive case, for
moral relativism today, with my underlying point being that it is really the
only kind of morality there is.  A related point is that it is the reality
of moral relativism that calls us, as human beings, to moral responsibility
and moral decision making."

In particular, I call your attention to the concluding sentence.  Can you
not see that if morality were an "absolute standard" implanted in each of us
like the values of Beauty and Perfection, there could be no Freedom for the
individual?  Man would be bound to the course dictated by this standard.
Instead of being free to choose and act as an autonomous individual, values
would be imposed on man, much as instinctual responses determine the
behavior of lesser creatures.

> If invented by humans, then humans can change
> the code. Being a human, I can change the code.
> So can you. So can the guy over there behind the
> tree. Is this what you mean? What human authority
> determines the the excesses and offenses of social
> behavior? Not Bin Laden I hope.
   [snip]
> So headhunting among some tribes in Borneo is morally OK with you? Or
> setting off bombs in trains in an effort to make the world a more "moral"
> place? I hope that's not what you mean, but your "morality is relative"
> statement leads me to that conclusion.

Now you're beginning to sound like your friend Arlo.  As an invention of
individuals in a civilized society, moral standards are adopted by
consensus, in the same way that civil laws are passed and judges are voted
for.  This is what makes for a free society.  Could Moses or our Founding
Fathers have predicted that bio-technology would one day create human cells
in a test tube that could produce marketable brain tissue?  Obviously, new
possibilities of human behavior are always emerging in a changing world, and
the standards of morality must change accordingly.  There is no such thing
as a "fixed morality" in a relational world, and man is free to choose his
path to Freedom within the constraints of his social order.

And, by the way, thanks for confirming what I had already suspected: Quality
and Value are synonomous terms for you and Pirsig.

Have a joyous holiday,
Ham