[MD] The End of Faith - Spirituality

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu>:

> [Platt]
> Apparently from the vantage point of the inorganic and biological 
> levels their patterns can do no wrong. Is that true for the higher 
> levels as well?
> 
> [Arlo]
> Can you think of any activity that is 'immoral" or "wrong" that is so 
> not because of a level conflict?

Yes. I gave the example Pirsig gave that you deny as you explained below.

[Arlo]
> Are you suggesting there can be an "immoral biological pattern of values"?

No. But if there are no immoral patterns within a level as you suggest, then
I presume one intellectual pattern is just as good as another. 

> [Platt]
> Doesn't Pirsig suggest there's also a scale of morality within a level?
> 
> [Arlo]
> Pirsig brings "man" into the equation (man eating beef versus 
> lettuce), and I think confuses the issue. Consider this, is it 
> "immoral" for a bear to eat a fish when it could be eating berries? I 
> think in Pirsig's example, "man" makes the issue about an 
> intellectual awareness of the MOQ versus biological satiation of 
> hunger. Because man "knows" that fish are more evolved than berries, 
> it would be immoral for him to eat the fish when berries are 
> bountiful. As such, I think this pulls the issue back into a conflict 
> of levels issue, and not something that is an "immoral pattern within 
> any particular level".

Is it possible to leave "man" out of the MOQ?
 
Would you say that from a social level view that all social patterns are equally moral?




-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/