[MD] Is Morality innate in the cosmos?

[Ham Priday]

Hi SA --

I should've known it was you and not Heather.  What could I have been
thinking of!?

> The discussion is based on whether morality
> is human invented or universally fixed - gotch ya, I
> see.  On the one hand the universe allows morality, as
> we have come to call it (it being morals); and even if
> humankind societies invent(ed) morality the universe
> has a place for them and therefore, the universe has
> morals, we notice them in humankind, at the least for
> now I will stick this discussion entry with humankind.
> On the other hand, do we pick up these morals from a
> deposit (the universe) that has already made them (the
> morals), and we just become aware of these morals and
> learn about them from outside of humankind invention
> and society.
> [snip]
> So where could morals have come from?

Now you've got it.

You should also know that most of the posts in this forum revolve around Bob
Pirsig's MoQ in which it is claimed that
Experience=Quality=Morality=Reality.

I don't know if you've read LILA or ZMM, but without the perspective of
those novels, you're going to find much of what is said here difficult to
swallow.  (Frankly, I find much of it hard to swallow even after digesting
those books.)  You can download "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
(ZMM) from a website linked to moq.org.  That was Pirsig's first published
novel, and it "outlines" his theory of Static Quality (SQ).  I'm not certain
if "LILA--an Inquiry into Morals" is available on-line, but this later book
relates Static Quality to Dynamic Quality (DM), completing Pirsig's
hypothetical universe.  I would also recommend a conference paper titled
Subjects, Objects, Data, and Values (SODV), which sums up Pirsig's
metaphysics and is also accessible from the home page.

Once it is understood that Quality (or Value) is the true Reality, it
becomes necessary to include Morality in it, whether or not human beings are
around to experience it.  To further complicate things, not only are these
four primary "essences" thought to be identical, Intellect also may be
primary.  (There is some dispute about this, however, since Intellect is
what divides Reality into the four levels of existence.)

So, you see, the Pirsigians have very little regard for man's role in the
universe.  They talk about "latching" to Morality, Intellect and Value, as
if these commonly understood human attributes were floating around in some
realm of their own, just waiting for man to grab onto them.  But have no
fear, they assure us, because the universe is "evolving to betterness" all
by itself.

Of course, this is the simplistic analysis of a renegade who has developed
his own philosophy which also happens to be based on Value.  But, perhaps it
will be helpful in understanding how the concept of a pre-intellectual
morality is perfectly reasonable to the MoQers but illogical to
unenlightened folks like myself who accept the self/other duality of
existence but insist that there is a primary source that transcends such
space/time differences.

However, you're here now, and I don't want to discourage you.  Besides, ZMM
and LILA are both well worth reading as semi-autobiographical accounts of a
writer-philosopher's reflective journey, by bike and sailboat, through a
pivotal phase of his life.

Good luck,
Ham