[MD] Principled Person Level

[Platt Holden]

Hey DMB, All:
 
> 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.

How does morality about "we" apply to the inorganic and biological 
levels? I doubt if the individual photon cares about his fellow photons 
or anything other than itself for that matter. Nor does an individual 
blade of grass exhibit any moral choice regarding his next door 
neighbor.

> 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.

Cultures always involve people including "other people" besides the 
people of oneself.

> 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.

Yes, this is the most telling answer to the question. However, Pirsig 
laments the "dissipation of these values" (optimism, belief in the 
future, their codes of craftsmanship and labor and thrift and self-
discipline), not only acknowledging the existence of a "self" but also 
suggesting the nation would do well to focus on recapturing such values 
if it is to reverse its current trend of slouching towards Gomorrah. I 
agree.  

> 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.

How does a high quality person show quality at the inorganic level? At 
the biological level? Further, how does someone "show" self-discipline? 

> 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.

"Excellence" is what we all want. But, we all have different ideas 
about what is excellent. There's the rub.  I consider the personal 
traits I mentioned to mark of individual excellence. Others disagree, 
putting them down as outdated  remnants of  insufferable Victorian 
morality.  

> 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".

Pirisg would agree, and he credits Victorians with just such 
creativity: "What we tend to forget is that, unlike the European 
aristocrats they aped, the American Victorians were a very creative 
people." 

Perhaps in referring to Victorians we should take a page from Pirsig 
and distinguish between Europeans and Americans. :-)

Platt