[MD] Is Quality Value?

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Ham, Platt, Rebecca, All,

As per "moral relativity", I'd interject that part of Pirsig's formulation of
the MOQ emphasizes that "moral codes" can be "relative", so long as they don't
violate the MOQ hierarchy. For example, the Samoan sexual mores, he argues, are
fine for Samoan culture because these patterns of behavior (biological) do not
threaten fabric of social patterns. Those same sexual mores imported to
American culture become dangerous (he argues) because our cultural-social
fabric IS threatened by these behavior patterns. In this sense, the sexual
morality in question is indeed "relative", but that does not mean it not
subject to "right and wrong" within the larger MOQ context.

On a more general level, we can say that the morality of biological behavior
(since "vice" is normally what you guys mean you use the word "morals") is
indeed "relative" so long as it does not threaten the existence of social
patterns. Social morality, too, is relative, up to the point where it dominates
or threatens intellectual level patterns.

Platt, or Ham, mentioned cannabalism, and I think the MOQ does provide an
absolute moral standard to object to this by, namely that it is by individuals
responding to DQ that a society evolves. When Pirsig condemns capital
punishment, it is by absolute moral condemnation. That is, capital punishment
can never be "relatively moral", as the sexual mores of Samoa, it is always and
everywhere "immoral".

I point this out because the MOQ provides a framework whereby we can avoid the
"relative-absolute" dichotomy, and talk about some morals being relative, some
being absolute, and why. 

For those of us interested in "freedom", this is a critical distinction because
it allows us to escape from both static morality of convention that doesn't
violate the MOQ, and gives us a framework for challenging the "absolutist" who
tells us a moral is "absolute" because his/her God says so (for example). It
also points us towards the other arm of society that suppresses intellectual
patterns in the name of adhering to a conventional moral code or a dictum of
God.

Arlo