[MD] Is Quality Value?

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> I don't know where you got those ideas from. Not from Lila.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Absolutely from Lila. The Samoan story showed how biological patterns of
> behavior (sexual morality) worked in Samoan culture without threatening
> their social patterns. This demonstrates that there is not an "absolute
> moral code of sexual behavior" that transcends culture*. The problem is
> that although the sexual morality is "relative" between American and Samoan
> culture, does not mean that it is transplantable.

What Pirsig really says is that cultural relativism gave SOM intellect "
a ferocious instrument for dominance of intellect over society. Intellect could
now pass judgment on all forms of social custom, including Victorian custom,
but society could no longer pass judgment on intellect. That put intellect
 clearly in the driver's seat." (Lila, 11)

[Arlo] 
> *- if there is, it is that biological patterns of value are (or should be)
> acceptable so long as they do not threaten to dominate or destroy social
> patterns of behavior (the same is true for social patterns of value). 

Is that a quote? Where and what chapter?
 
> Thus, the only "absolute" test in the MOQ is whether or not lower patterns
> of value threaten or suppress higher patterns of value. The Samoan sexual
> practices (their biological patterns of value) were moral within Samoan
> culture because they pass this MOQ test. Those same patterns of value
> within our culture (Pirsig argued) were immoral for the reason that they
> threatened social patterns of value.

They were immoral because they were misused by SOM intellect to undercut 
social patterns of value, thereby loosening restrictions on biological 
forces. 


> [Platt]
> Thus, according to SOM intellect, anything goes, completely ignoring the
> role of social patterns in keeping biological forces under control. I don't
> know where you got this "moral relativity is OK" business from.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Show me where, in Lila, Pirsig indicates that a particular behavior is
> absolutely immoral except for in context where a lower level threatens to
> destroy a higher level.

Show me in Lila where Pirsig has anything positive to say about cultural 
moral relativism. 

> [Platt]
> Capital punishment is never condemned absolutely in the MOQ. If the 
> accused represents a threat to society, it is OK to execute her.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Pirsig says, "When a society is not itself threatened, as in the execution
> of individual criminals, the issue becomes more complex. In the case of
> treason or insurrection or war a criminal's threat to a society can be very
> real. But if an established social structure is not seriously threatened by
> a criminal, then an evolutionary morality would argue that there is no
> moral justification for killing him."
> 
> You'd be hard pressed to come up with an explanation for how a prisoner in
> a secure facility for life could constitute a "threat" to the existence of
> a society. Take the recent execution in California. Did you support it?

Absolutely.

> Do
> you feel his existence in that prison constituted a "serious threat" to the
> "established social structure"? If he would not have been put to death,
> would American society have been destroyed?

If America goes soft on murderers, rapists and pedophiles the society can 
indeed by destroyed. The recidivism rate among criminals is atrocious.   
 
> [Platt] 
> The MOQ provides a framework whereby moral questions can be resolved on the
> basis of reason. That's its claim to fame. "Relative" social morals don't
> enter the picture.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Yes, they do. According to the MOQ, patterns of value on any given level of
> the MOQ are not immoral until they threaten the existence of higher levels.

Show me where Pirsig says that. How about patterns of value that threaten 
the existence of their own level? Like terrorism? Or are you now ready to 
admit that terrorism is a biological pattern?

[Arlo]
> The framework the MOQ gives us is one to see if behavior, or patterns of
> value on any level, violate this or not. If not, the pattern of value in
> question is not open to societal suppression. Indeed, it is immoral for
> society to suppress biological patterns of value that do not constitute a
> threat to society.

You mean it's immoral of me to eliminate crabgrass from my lawn? Show me 
where Pirsig says that.

Platt