[MD] tiny skull

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Heather Perella <spiritualadirondack at yahoo.com>:

      [Platt]
> > I'm talking about a moral compass individuals can
> > agree on.
> 
>      Platt, I'm truly not arguing with you.  I don't
> mean to keep bringing this up.  Maybe it's due to
> clarity that I'm hung-up on this.  When individuals
> agree, would that not have individuals being the same
> due to agreement?

I'm not sure what you are driving at. You and I can agree that
we like scrambled eggs, but that agreement in no way changes our
status as distinct and separate individuals.

> I don't think it would, for
> instance, beauty and the mystery it implies.  We might
> say something is beautiful, but the depth,
> intellectual perspective upon the beauty, and this
> open-ended quality.  We can agree on quality, but not
> be the same as to what quality is.  This is the
> overlapping I'm talking about.  We agree -
> commonality: not the same perspective on quality -
> individuals.  An overlap.

Sorry. You lost me.

>      As to a moral compass that individuals can agree
> upon.  It would have to be a generality wouldn't you
> agree.  The striving of excellent quality is a general
> endeavor.  Would that be something people agree on?

I have asked this group any number of times to identify the basis
for their moral judgments. The only answer I've ever received is a
reference to the Golden Rule but never with an explanation as to why
we should consider the Golden Rule moral. Some sociobiologists have 
have tried to show that altruism or "You scratch my back, I'll scratch
yours" has evolutionary advantages, a notion pretty much scotched by
Dawkins' "selfish gene." 

So yes, to answer your question, morality is usually expressed in 
generalities. But what really interests me are the presumptions 
behind the generalities and how those presumptions are arrived
at. Are they from authorities? Or arising from the individual himself?
Or drawn from competing evolutionary levels as Pirsig posits?

I probably haven't interpreted your question correctly and thus have
furnished a non answer. For that, I apologize.

Platt
   
     

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