[MD] Social Ants?

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham, 

[Ham]
> Gene's complaint that it's illogical to make biological values
> responsible for savage behavior is also well taken, as is Steve's
> assertion that "guns don't kill people, individuals do."  I think these
> arguments illustrate the futility of trying to "objectify" values by
> social/biological/-intellectual levels.  Human behavior is observed
> objectively, but the values that incite it are internal or subjective.

I hope you are not discounting the "subjective" or interior side of 
life and living. We can and do infer motives based on values from what 
we observe in behavior. It's not too hard to conclude that a man 
brandishing a gun at cashier in a bank is "up to no good." Nor do we 
find it hard to pass judgment on the values of a communist system that 
objectively prevents its citizens from free expression and sends those 
who speak out against the officially sanctioned social pattern to  
gulags, or worse. 

> The fact that some people behave badly is not an indictment of biology
> or evolution.  Lesser creatures who are dependent on biological instinct
> for their behavior rarely, if ever, exhibit the kind of savagery that
> Platt attributes to Hitler, Hamas and Al Qaeda.  In fact, mass cruelty
> applied to one's own species would appear to be peculiar to humans. 
> Should we then condemn intellectualism?  Should we hold society
> responsible for the crimes of its tyrant dictators?  Or are we to
> conclude that because some values inspire evil acts, value itself is
> immoral?

As Pirsig points out, what is good at the biological level (might makes 
right) is evil at the higher social level where cooperation is required 
for social unity. What is good at the social level (conformity of 
thought to assure social unity) is evil at the higher intellectual 
level where individual freedom of thought advances evolution. As for 
holding society responsible for the crimes of its tyrant dictators, you 
answered the question in the affirmative when you wrote, " If we 
willingly yield to them the power to control our lives we are complicit 
in their badness."  I agree.

> We tend to forget that values come in all flavors, and evil is just as
> powerful as goodness.  I've always suspected that what Platt really
> means by "a moral universe" has more to do with balance and order than
> with goodness or betterness.  The simple truth is that, for various
> reasons, some people are bad.  If we willingly yield to them the power
> to control our lives we are complicit in their badness.  Likewise, if a
> nation is not committed to defending itself against attackers, it will
> perish.  That is not a fault of a biological or social or intellectual
> level.  It's what happens when people take values like individual
> freedom and national sovereignty for granted and become irresponsible. 
> It is a fact of human history.

It is precisely because people have no moral foundation other than 
authority or tradition for understanding why individual freedom and 
national sovereignty are vital to their well being that begs for a 
rational morality such as Pirsig advances. For example, because of the 
lack of a rational moral foundation  we have those who prattle that the 
U.S. deserved to be attacked on 9/11, that those who died in the towers 
that day were "little Eichmans," and that Al Qaeda terrorists are 
"freedom fighters." 

Regards,
Platt