[MD] Catching up to Pirsig

[Ham Priday]

Hey, Platt --

> I feel we've covered this territory so much that there really
> is no point in arguing about it further. The new quote you cite
> is all well and good but tells us nothing about what moral
> good ought to be emotionally desirable. There are those who
> consider it good and emotionally desirable to cut off another's
> head.  At least Pirsig gives us a rationale for determining the
> good from the bad by reference to his moral evolutionary
> levels.  Decapitation is fine at the biological level, not good
> at the social, and definitely bad at the intellectual.

I'm not giving up that easily.  You've put your finger on the "ought" 
question, which is what everybody seems to expect philosophy to answer. 
Beware of the philosopher who does!

I addressed this question in my Values Page last week which ran the David 
Brooks column you had cited earlier.  I wrote: "A major concern of those who 
participate in philosophy discussions is: How should I act in a given 
situation?  The presumption is that a philosopher should be able to tell us, 
or at least present a moral framework that can guide our behavior when faced 
with social decisions.  ...Essentialism holds that the basis of any value 
system is individual preference.  When people participate collectively in a 
culture, a community, or the workplace, it's the value preferences of the 
individual members that establishes the moral guidelines."

Brooks had quoted Steven Quartz of the California Institute of Technology, 
who said: "Our brain is computing value at every fraction of a second 
Everything that we look at, we form an implicit preference.  Some of those 
make it into our awareness; some of them remain at the level of our 
unconscious, but ...what our brain is for, what our brain has evolved for, 
is to find what is of value in our environment."  This I think is the key to 
teleology and the purpose of man's existence, but it won't make sense to 
those who deny the subjectivity of value sensibility.

You mention decapitation as an evil act.  Remember what Sinnott wrote about 
evil in my quote from "Biology of the Spirit" yesterday?  "What makes us do 
evil is that evil, for one reason or another, attracts us more than good 
does.  Not until virtue is attractive FOR ITS OWN SAKE will men cleave 
always to it."  What is "virtue" but a standard of moral excellence?  And 
where does this standard come from but the perceived values of individuals 
like you and me?   For a society to survive, its members must temper their 
response to values with "reason".  Laws can be established to maintain peace 
and harmony.  But a social order evolves BECAUSE its participants value the 
lives and freedom of their fellow human beings.  Hence, what is "reasonable" 
in the collective sense is actually an expression of human compassion in the 
individual sense.  Where value (moral excellence) is "attractive for its own 
sake" as well as the desired goal of autonomus individuals, the society will 
survive and flourish.  This is the morality implicit in Essentialism.

By the way, where is Pirsig's rationale for determining that decapitation is 
bad?  Do you really believe that domination of the intellectual level over 
the biological level will prevent acts of violence and cruelty against 
mankind?  Do you regard values such as excellence, beauty, freedom, and 
compassion as "intellectual"?  (Frankly, I think emotions are 
"psycho-somatic", and therefore at least as biological as they are 
intellectual.)  But the issue here is Value, and I maintain that unrealized 
value does not exist.  We are the sensible agents of value, and this 
sensibility is the driving force of civilization.  If we nurture our 
value-sensibility in the realization that we all benefit from its potential, 
it is conceivable that societies and nations may one day coexist without the 
need for laws and edicts.

> So long as you stick to your subjective-centered view of an
> objective reality Pirsig's moral inquiry will always be of little
> value to you. But for all the reasons given in Lila, I prefer his
> static/Dynamic division of a moral reality. Of course, my
> preference in no way affects my high regard of you.
> We see eye to eye on many important matters.

A reality without subjective awareness cannot be moral.  However you 
conceive of value or quality, it always refers to what you are not.  Even 
when you value "yourself" you are valuing your being-in-the-world 
objectively. That's why a subject/object reality is necessary for value to 
be realized.  (It's why my metaphysical ontology is based on a 
Sensibility/Otherness dichotomy.)

I hold you in high regard also, Platt, which is why I've taken the trouble 
to explain my moral relativism to you, knowing that you will give it the 
benefit of your (subjective) consideration.

Respectfully,
Ham

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> {Platt]
>> > I have probably missed the point of your questions since it
>> > seems obvious to me and probably to you that we as
>> > human beings currently living in the West are much better off
>> > than we were, say, in the Middle Ages or, going back even
>> > further, when we were painting symbols of antelope in the caves
>> > of Lascaux.  As for the obvious "better offness" of morality,
>> > we no longer live in a world where might makes right but in a
>> > world of laws protecting individual rights to be free of social
>> > (government) oppression -- rights that as you know are now
>> > being threatened by Obamamania. Unfortunately the path to
>> > betterness (individual liberty/personal responsibility) is never
>> > without reversals and setbacks such as we are witnessing today.
>
> [Ham]
>> I guess I've narrowed down my "mission" here to a single purpose:
>> persuading
>> the MoQers that value and morality start with the individual subject. 
>> The
>> problem with you folks -- and that includes you, Platt -- is that Pirsig
>> has
>> rejected subjectivity and you are all trying to get around it by 
>> impugning
>> value to the insentient universe.  This won't work epistemologically,
>> metaphysically, or as a morality system.
>>
>> This isn't a political mission -- heaven knows we've been beating that to
>> death for years.  Rather, it's the principle that value sensibility is
>> proprietary to the individual, not an attribute of the universe.  Value 
>> is
>> perceived differentially by the human being (organism) which
>> intellectualizes (rationalizes) it as an "esthetic/moral spectrum" from
>> goodness or excellence to evil or banality.  What we experience are
>> objectivized manifestations of these values, and morality represents an
>> effort to ensure that human society survives and flourishes in the same
>> way
>> that biological instincts assure the survival of non-valuistic life
>> forms.
>>
>> I believe that Mr. Pirsig was aiming for the same objective when decided
>> to
>> make LILA "An Inquiry into Morals".  What muddied the waters was his
>> refusal
>> to acknowledge subjective awareness as the locus of value, replacing it
>> with
>> an evolutionary system of levels and patterns which, in effect, turns
>> process and relations into "static" phenomena.
>>
>> Back in the '50s, I was intrigued by a small paperback in which a
>> biologist
>> outlined a moralistic philosophy based on attraction and desire.  As a
>> social moralist, you may find his line of reasoning of interest:
>>
>> "How much more certain a man is to do right if he not only knows what it
>> is
>> but WANTS to do it!  This want guards him far more strongly against wrong
>> than does the enforcement of his loyalty by law or obligation.  A stong
>> desire, a goal he seeks, is more powerful in the end than these.  The
>> lesson
>> we must learn is that the only sure way to make man moral is through his
>> motives, to make him WANT to do the things he OUGHT to do.  The means to
>> save society may be as simple--and as difficult--as that.  What makes us
>> do
>> evil is that evil, for one reason or another, attracts us more rthan good
>> does.  Not until virtue is attractive FOR ITS OWN SAKE will men cleave
>> always to it.  Our motive, our emotions, our MOVINGS must be elevated if
>> life is to reach a higher moral plane.  Many reformers think that 
>> emotions
>> are a hindrance to man's attainment of the ideal society, and look 
>> forward
>> to the day when reason only, unclouded by feeling, will guide his 
>> conduct.
>> That day will never come, for emotion gives the motive power for 
>> behavior.
>> ...Science can help develop techniques by which the good life can be
>> found,
>> but we shall never attain to it unless we earnestly DESIRE to do so."
>>         -- Edmund W. Sinnott: "The Biology of the Spirit" (1957)
>>
>> For all I know, Dr. Sinnott's little book may have sparked my interest in
>> human value.  (I no longer remember.)  However, if you compare this 
>> simple
>> concept with Pirsig's non-subjective, non-emotional, levels-driven
>> universe,
>> you may understand the reason for my discontent.
>>
>> Essentially yours,
>> Ham