[MD] Morality, Abortion and the MoQ

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Michael]
My feeling is that there is an innate biological aspect to protection 
of our young which is not socially ingrained. I don't protect my 
infant child because society tells me its the right thing to do. A 
lioness certainly doesn't either.

[Arlo]
Didn't I say this? I agree that there are biological foundations for 
many species instinctual (isn't that another word for biological?) 
habits towards self-preservation and preservation of their lineage. 
What I add is that on top of this we, as socialized beings, have 
developed a host of social patterns that support and or extend from 
this. We "see" our lineage in a way that a lioness can not. Because 
we have language we are able to cast our young into the past and into 
the future, and as such we "understand" the idea of a bloodline in 
many ways that go beyond the innate genetic desire to protect our offspring.

[Michael]
That new pattern, that baby, was US *and* itself.

[Arlo]
Yes. And I would argue that YOUR seeing this transcends the ability 
of the lioness, who doubtless is instinctual in her care of her 
young, but is unable to formulate any concept of "that cub is a 
pattern that includes both me and its lion father". Where the lioness 
responds with biological instinctiveness, you respond wielding the 
arsenal of symbolic concepts.

[Michael]
There is however, I think, the added notion of "potential". 
Protecting our young is IMO directly related to our innate 
appreciation for their potential...

[Arlo]
I disagree. I doubt that lioness has any formulation for the 
"potential" of her cub. "Potential" is one of the symbolic concepts 
that we, as social beings with a symbolic mode of relating to 
experience, develop. It is not "innate". Where the lioness has no 
means to ponder the potential future of her cub as a pride leader, or 
great hunter, or whatever, WE-- by virtue of our socially derived 
language-- are able to do so. This is not innate, this comes only 
with social assimilation. Indeed, the entire enterprise of 
abstracting oneself from the immediate present and projecting 
ourselves (and our children, and others) into some hypothetical 
future realm is possible (aka "potential") is possible only within a 
social frame, as sociality underpins language, and language makes 
such abstraction possible. No language, no concept of "potential".

Keep in mind that I say this seeing the social formulations we become 
able to make as exponentially superior to those allowed only within 
the realm of a biological reality. "Social" does not mean imaginary 
or made-up or irrelevant or based on something we can just dismiss. 
It is a higher recognition of Quality than simple following our 
biological urges. And as such I think the social-derived patterns 
that are part of the pregnancy lend stronger support than comparing 
your instinctual urges to protect your child with certain animal species.

That we share this instinctual biology is not surprising, we are 
biological creatures too after all. But we transcend that. We care 
for our children from birth to death, we mourn them, we call them on 
weekends to hear their voices, we cry when they marry, we break away 
from our routines to visit them, we share our lives socially with 
them. And all the while language gives us the ability to formulate 
many concepts that form the foundation for these relations. Don't 
dismiss the ways you respond to your child that are socially derived, 
embrace them, as they are more powerful and more profound than 
anything that lioness will ever experience.

[Michael]
Is there such a thing as "potential Quality"?

[Arlo]
Again, "potential" is an abstraction that derives from our ability to 
divorce ourselves from the present moment and imagine future worlds 
(and past ones). We are no doubt motivated by what we envision in 
these abstractions. "Potential Quality", as you use the words, seems 
akin to me to "intellectual Quality". It is patterns of thought we 
form based on our socially-derived ability to abstract and project. 
We construct our hypothetical futures, and then these patterns (as 
analogues) inform our present activity.

[Michael]
Or is it more that "potential Quality" is what patterns recognizing 
Quality learn to do to align themselves in ways so as to better have 
Quality experience?

[Arlo]
Expressed like this, you are talking about the strategies for seeing 
beyond our analogues Pirsig talks about in ZMM. I guess you could 
call it "maximizing the potential for Quality" or something like 
that. The language is cumbersome to me, but whatever.

[Michael]
I agree that drawing a line in the continuum would be realistically 
arbitrary in this MoQ understanding. However... if the line is drawn 
at the intiation point of the continuum, would this not avoid that 
problem? In abortion, that would be conception, yes?

[Arlo]
I don't think so, but anywhere you draw the line you create an 
arbitrary division that fails to consider the landscape. I'm not sure 
what the line is you are drawing with conception, or are you drawing 
a line because it seems to you a line should be there, and then 
retroactively asking what that line defines? I'd say it represents an 
alteration in biology, the egg-now-fertilized responds to its 
environment quite differently than it's pre-conception counterpart. 
We know that human females begin undergoing biological changes pretty 
quickly after conception, so it also represents a change in the 
woman's body-chemistry. But I'm not sure what else you could lay at 
this fault-line.

Socially, nothing changes. I'd venture that most women don't know 
they are pregnant at that moment of conception. And many fertilized 
eggs are passed without the woman ever knowing. It is only quite a 
bit later that the woman becomes aware of the developing organism in 
her uterus, and then social and intellectual patterns become 
interwoven into this experience. Consider, that if you're companion 
lost your child (and hers too) when the child was 8 months in utero, 
you'd likely feel a great sense of loss. But if you were made aware 
that a two-hour fertilized egg in your companions uterus was passed, 
would you also mourn as much? At all? In the former you'd likely even 
say "we lost our baby", would you say that about losing a two-hour 
fertilized egg? And here I'd say the difference begins not in 
biology, not with the gestational development of the infant, but with 
the social and intellectual pattens you bring to bear, and reinforce, 
and recreate as the developing infant gets closer to birth.

[Michael]
I find that ludicrous (MoQ morality is relevant to vegetarianism but 
not conception/abortion/birth!??) so have to think we can draw that 
line *somewhere.*

[Arlo]
The MOQ's stance on vegetarism is contextual, and it also one Pirsig 
never advocates legislating. I would imagine he'd say that even 
though eating animal flesh in times of plenty is immoral, that 
legislating this would constitute an ever greater breech of morality. 
Can you imagine a police force tasked with arresting someone for 
eating a ham sandwich if there is broccoli in their fridge? And how 
would you word this legislation? How would you legally define 
"abundance of grains and fruits and vegetables"? Does one handful of 
rice count? Or must it be a cornucopia of wheat and oats and apples 
and squash and spinach and mangos?

[Michael]
Working from there, we can show that while conception initiates the 
pattern, social issues immediately come into play that affect the 
pattern. And given those social patterning sources, different MoQ 
life valuations already begin, and we are only at the moment after 
conception. Relative to abortion, and notably social laws governing 
that act, MoQ already has something to say. Yes?

[Arlo]
I agree that this is a broad landscape the MOQ would consider before 
any pronouncement of morality may occur (there are also others you 
omit, I just want to be clear that the context is still much larger 
than the few points you refer to). As I said in my first post, there 
are instances of abortion the MOQ would likely consider immoral, as 
there are instances the MOQ would consider moral.

But translating this into social law is nightmarish, and something 
that may even bring about a greater immorality that the act it 
attempts to regulate. I think the best we can do is to preserve the 
freedom of the woman to make that choice, but advocate the moral 
distinctions you feel exist, and work towards doing everything you 
can so that society provides a strong foundation of encouragement for 
women to choose what it advocates as being morally superior (the next 
time you see a teen mom struggling with an infant in the grocery 
store, offer to help, find out if she is in a dire financial 
situation (likely, she is) and offer to buy her diapers or baby food, 
and if you overhear anyone making smug comments about her situation, 
remind them that you feel she is demonstrating great moral fabric by 
raising her child).