[MD] Is Morality innate in the cosmos?

[Ham Priday]

Platt --


> If you do not welcome my challenges to what you say,
> just pass the word and I will desist. When debate ceases to
> be fun, it's time to say, "No mas."

Perhaps "making my life difficult" came across as a personal accusation,
which I did not intend it to be.  If so, I apologize.  I have always enjoyed
our discussions in the past.  The "difficulty" I was referring to is really
my disappointment at finding what began as a stimulating discussion turn
into a debate about whose belief system is the more "reasonable" without
exploring the fundamental differences that separate us.

One of the problems I'm encountering is that the standard of "reasonability"
by which you are judging my ideas is rooted in a concept of the universe
that is foreign to me.  Your concept, which derives from Pirsig, makes
Morality the central philosophical issue.  My concept, on the other hand, is
intuitive and puts the major emphasis on Individual Freedom.  The
consequence of working at cross-purposes is that we wind up 'chipping away
at each' other instead of making genuine progress.  And this is where
debates cease to be "fun".

I think the crux of the matter is your application of "morality" to the
evolutionary processes of Nature.  To me, this makes morality and its
presumed "standards" something pre-human in the universe rather than a code
of social behavior developed by man.  And a fixed cosmic morality
invalidates the concept of man's autonomy.

This statement, for example, demonstrates why our discussion is stymied.

[Platt]:
> Do you then consider men to be animals so that my saying "Animals
> compete . . ." meant to you that I was espousing a universal moral
> principle that applied to humans? I notice you avoided my question,
> "Do you not see any moral difference between animals and men?"
> And ignored my answer, "I certainly do."  Each evolutionary level -- 
> inorganic, biological, social and intellectual -- operates under a
> different, moral code. The only universal moral code consists of
> these separate and distinct codes, each fighting for dominance.

My answer is that what distinguishes animals and men isn't morality (because
animals have no morality), but the fact that man's sense of value enables
him to exercise free choice in his actions, whereas the animal acts
according to its biological instincts.  But I would also ask why we need
four "evolutionary levels, each fighting for dominance" when the only REAL
VALUE in existence is the value made sensible to man.

You see, from my "reasoning standard", having four modalities of the
universe in conflict with each other is not only redundant, but
counter-productive and meaningless in an anthropocentric world.  Applying
Occam's razor would make this four-fold division superfluous for a
fundamental ontology.  You will of course challenge my belief that man is
the sensible locus of physical reality, but at the same time will insist on
the four-level ontology, despite the fact that it is MAN'S INTELLECT that
has created this heriarchy.

Do you see my problem?   Do you have any suggestions to resolve this
impasse?

[Ham]:
> Scientific methodology is objective.  What is truth to the scientific
> community is what has been universally established by objective
> evidence.  There is no objective evidence for metaphysical theories,
> which is why they remain hypotheses.

[Platt]:
> So there is no difference between science methodology and
> objective validation?  Is that correct?

There is more to the methodology than objective validation, but objective
evidence is the validating criterion.  Why do you ask, and what is the
relevance to our discussion?

[Platt]:
> In a letter to Bo Skutvik, Pirsig made it clear that Quality is positively
> verifiable:
>
> "Arguments that value is unreal can be reduced to absurdity by the
question,
> "Do you think a five dollar bill has the same value as an one dollar bill?
If
> so, are you willing to trade some bills?" and "If not, why not? What's the
> difference?" If they give the standard answer that money is a convention
you
> can ask, "What kind of convention is a crash in the stock market?"
Conventions
> are static, but as every good trader knows stock prices are a mixture of
static
> and dynamic factors. This can be expanded hugely into a discussion of the
stock
> exchange indexes whose sole purpose is the measurement of value and
expanded
> further into the large areas of economics. Consider how many books have
been
> written on economics that don't touch on the real meaning of value! "

I'm familiar with this analogy, but one cannot make logical headway by a
play on words.
"Value" in monetary transactions simply implies relative purchasing "power"
or "importance".  What the answers from Pirsig's imaginary respondent affirm
is only that a five-dollar bill has more marketability than a one-dollar
bill; i.e., some things are better than others.  It does not prove that
Value exists apart from man's awareness of it, or that Value is a
pre-intellectual principle innate to the cosmos.  In other words, Platt, it
isn't valid objective evidence for the Quality of MoQ.

[Platt]:
> The venus fly trap comes immediately to mind, but I remember reading
> about trees who respond to the environment by increasing sap production
> or some such response to stimuli which would indicate a form of
consciousness.

Consciousness, like pregnancy, doesn't subscribe to "forms".  You're either
pregnant or not
pregnant; a biological entity either has consciousness or does not.  And,
when you begin to talk to me "about trees WHO" I worry about your particular
state of conscious sensibility!

Peace,
Ham