[MD] Principled Person Level

[david buchanan]

Hey MOQers:

Steve said to Platt:
You already know my opinion: these are social level values. (craftsmanship, 
labor, thrift and self-discipline, perseverance, patience, honesty, courage, 
prudence, diligence, etc..) You used to think of social quality as the value 
that holds a society together. Denying such biological quality as appetites, 
urges, whims, and impulses is what the social-biological code is all about. 
Labor, thrift, honor, self-discipline, courage, honesty, etc. may be values 
that self-regulating individual holds, but they are still social values. 
They are values that hold society together in contrast to intellectual 
values which are values that hold ideas together.

dmb says:
I'd like to point out that morality is always going to be a collective thing 
no matter which level we're talking about. Morality is always about "we". 
The scientist has to be honest about his data and the whole process revolves 
around peer review and publishing ideas, etc. But that doesn't mean science 
is a social level activity. It just goes to show that individuality and 
collectivity doesn't necessarily have any relevance in determining the level 
of a thing.

Platt:
If you answer "the social level" you are buying into the common notion that 
all morality is social and always involves other people, i.e., no morality 
required by someone marooned alone on a desert island.

dmb says:
As I've been saying, "other people" do not make a thing social. People are 
more than just social, even when they get together at parties or act 
collectively on election day. Even the gal who reads scientific journals 
alone at night in her room under the blanket with a flashlight is, in a very 
real sense, participating in a collective activity. The language and the 
math contained in a publication like that can only exist because of the 
culture's long evolutionary history. It makes no difference.

Steve:
I'm not buying into that common notion. All morality is not social, but just 
about everything that people commonly think of as morality is.

dmb says:
Yea, and this is a huge problem. Its one thing to be against vice, and quite 
another to think that this level of morality is the only kind. What makes it 
even worse is that so many believe this narrow set of moral codes is 
God-given. And of course, its then also assumed that only theists can be 
moral people.

Steve quoted RMP from Lila:
"What is today conventionally called "morality" covers only one of these 
sets of moral codes, the social-biological code."
Steve commented on the quote:
So anything that would conventionally fall under the heading "morality" like 
all the things you listed, are part of this social-biological code.

dmb says:
Exactly. I don't really have a point to add here. I just wanted Platt to see 
this quote again.

Platt asked:
Without an individual level containing the pattern of a principled person, 
what criteria do we use to say a principled person is high quality?

dmb says:
I liked Ant's answer best, but Steve made a good point here too. I don't 
think you'll find a principled person on any particular level. But how about 
if we add Ant's idea of the artist to Steve's objections and say that a high 
quality person shows some quality at all levels and has some DQ too.

Its not complicated, is it? Excellence in thought and creativity strike me 
as more important than shaking hands well or preforming rituals with 
precision, but they're not mutually exclusive. I think a quality person is 
one who makes all these things work together in an integrated way, in a 
groovy way. He rides. She sails. They're artists of their own lives.

And its interesting, I think, that some of the best artists are known as 
cultural bearers. As Pirsig describes it, these artists are often just 
working out their own problems, but they end up solving larger, cultural, 
collective problems along the way. Basically, I think these artists are the 
ones who feel the same discomfort we all feel, but they feel it more 
accutely. And isn't that also true with the creative thinkers in science? In 
a slightly different way, they're all trying to solve the same problems, 
confronting the same issues. Then somebody comes up with an idea and 
everybody says, "Wow, I wish I'd thought of that".

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