[MD] Is Quality Value?

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Good morning Gentlemen,

[Platt previously]
I don't see any evidence that convicted murderers, rapists, pedophiles and
other assailants can become messiahs.

[Arlo]
As I said in my last post, what "evidence" do you see that brain-dead, comatose
patients "can become messiahs"? What "evidence" is there that severly retarded
or those with severe neurological damage "can become messiahs"? If we base the
decision to support life or take life based on "evidence that one can become a
messiah", we are turning the MOQ on its ear.

This is because, as I said, a central premise of the DQ/SQ MOQ is that you can
(1) never, ever predict from what direction DQ will
derive/emerge/originate/thrust itself upon us, and (2) many time it is only
retrospectively that we can see DQ-inspired evolution.

[Ham]
If the moral basis for clemency is that a criminal "has ideas which take moral
precedence over society", I don't buy it.  Since when are ideas more valuable
than people? What kind of morality is that?  Are we to victimize innocent
people because a murderer or rapist has ideas?  Don't the victims have ideas,
too?

[Arlo]
I'm not sure who is proposing "clemency", unless you define "clemency" as simply
"not murdering". No one, lest of all me, has proposed that criminals of the
sort you mention be immune from punishment and incarceration. I am only
suggesting that "murdering" that prisoner is immoral, as was the act of the
prisoner (murdering) in the first place.

This is the crux of it, you see. By taking the life of the prisoner, we are
lowering ourselves to the same immorality of the prisoner (always with Pirsig's
"threat to society" caveat in mind). A culture that values "life" must side
with "life", whether it is the life of a convicted felon or the life of a
brain-dead, comatose patient. 

[Ham]
I submit that morality is based on the cultural values of society and,
therefore, that the principle of morality is to live in peace and harmony
with one's neighbors.

[Arlo]
What about the "cultural values of society" that condone the murder of, say,
Jews? Or Indians? Here, your first statement contradicts your second in that
the first proposes a cultural "norm" test for morality, the second proposes
something that is beyond specific cultural norms and more universal "living in
peace and harmony with one's neighbors". 

[Ham]
This may conflict with the personal values of a homeopath, sadist, or thief, in
which case society has the moral right to deny such persons of their freedom. 
In the case of an intractable murderer or rapist, social justice may empower
the legal right to take his life.

[Arlo]
Disagree. But I think you sum up where we are "at". I think more about where we
"should be". You talk about "social justice", but oddly, as I've pointed out to
Platt, the "most prisoner murdering" nations are (1) China, (2) Iran, (3)
Vietnam, (4) US, (5) Saudi Arabia and (6) Pakistan. Would you say that is a
list of countries concerned with "social justice"?

[Ham]
While I also believe that the highest existential value is individual freedom,
the exercise of that freedom must occasionally bend to the morality of the
culture or community.  In a free society the individual has the right to choose
his own values and express his ideas, however radical or perverse they may be,
although he may not force these values or ideas on others.

[Arlo]
Would you side with China, then, in saying it is "moral" for China to execute
political dissidents? These are prisoners that China feels are a very real and
serious danger to its social system.

You, and Platt, seem to say in your posts that justifiable capital crimes
include murder and rape (and Platt includes pedophilia and similiar
"assailants"). Platt, at least, claims this is moral because it "protects
American society" from destruction. What is the difference, then, between us
and China's pronouncement that dissidency is a capital crime, morally
punishable by death, because it "protects Chinese society"?

Would you argue that "murders and rapists" are universally morally executable,
but that no culture has the moral right to pronounce any other offense
"capital"? Was Germany moral in its decision to execute Jews out of the belief
that they constituted a danger to Germany society?

[Ham]
Neo-platonism or Judaism itself might have become the predominant belief system
of the Western World. Would we have been any worse off?

[Arlo]
I doubt it. Perhaps we'd be Vikings? Perhaps I would have grown up to be a
Berzerker, like my dad, and his dad before him. :-)

[Ham or Platt previously]
With all due respect, I don't think you answered my question. Are some societies
more moral, i.e. better, than others?

[Platt or Ham responded]
I'll use the Clintonian response.  It depends on what "more moral" means.
Who's making the judgment call?

[Arlo]
Ham, are you familiar with Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "Flow"? Platt and I had
some agreement on this concept as a cross-cultural measure of societies.
Simply, the greater the number of citizens in any given culture that are free
to pursue activities they find "Flow" experience in, and the greater the time
those citizens are able to engage in "Flow" activities, the "better" the
society. Asking each person, "what do you find Flow in?" and "how much time
each day are you able to devote to this?" is a good start for determining the
betterness of one society over another. Of course, it is not perfect, nor is it
an absolute measure, but I (and I think Platt too) find it a good dialogic
springboard for the discussion.

Arlo