[MD] The relativity of the MoQ

X Acto xacto at rocketmail.com
Tue Aug 25 10:24:52 PDT 2009



Steve quotes Pirsig:

"I’ve concluded that the biggest improvement I could make in the MOQ would be to block the
notion that the MOQ claims to be a quick fix for every moral problem in the universe. I have never seen it that way. The image in my mind as I wrote it was of a large football field that gave meaning to the game by telling you who was on the 20-yard line but did not decide which team would win. That was the point of the two opposing arguments over the death penalty described in Lila.That was the point of the equilibrium between static and Dynamic Quality. Both are moral arguments. Both can claim the MOQ for support. Just as two sides can go before the U.S. Supreme Court and both claim constitutionality, so two sides can use the MOQ, but that does not mean that either the Constitution or the MOQ is a meaningless set of ideas. Our whole judicial system rests on the presumption that more than one set of conclusions about individual cases can be drawn within a given set of moral rules. The MOQ makes the same presumption."
Steve:
The above is only relativism if you believe in essences like The Moral Law or if you have bought into the philosophical promise of discovering an eternal foundation for our moral arguments. If you haven't, then I don't think you'd want to use the word relativism at all unless you encounter someone who takes the self-defeating position that nothing is better or worse than anything else.

Ron:
The above is relativism if one believs that the supreme court never makes a ruling, but it does,
given the many truths, it makes a decision based on the value of those truths.
the idea of many truths does not mean that there is no truth, only differing contexts of which it applies.
I believe it is relativism if one believes that a value decision may not be arrived at.
I think there is quite a difference between eternal foundationalism and having the 
ability to make value judgements.


      



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