[MD] A Science of Morals

[skutvik at online.no]

Ron, All.

1 Apr. you wrote:

> Sam Harris seems to be petitioning for science to make
> moral decisions...not sure if thats what Pirsig is forwarding..
> a scientific understanding of morals perhaps. But is'nt science
> already a moral appeal? is'nt the pursuit of truth the most moral of
> endeavors?

I liked that:  

    "But is'nt science already a moral appeal? is'nt the pursuit of 
    truth the most moral of endeavors?" 

Science as (part of) the intellectual level truly is a moral movement - 
the highest static such - whose moral is to control social morals. And 
this is is the crux, before  the MOQ - in SOM - social morals were 
morals itself thus science was regarded a loss of morals because it 
(science) pointed to morals as subjective - merely in our minds - "out 
there" is nothing but a-moral natural laws. 

The MOQ however says that there is nothing but Dynamic Morals and 
its static fall-outs. Social morals is no longer only in our minds because 
the mind/matter distinction only exists at  the intellectual level, rather 
the 3rd. static level. The 4th.level is a higher moral, but no longer the 
bleak valueless place it was in its SOM role, because we have been at 
MOQ's meta-level and know the Q- context.         

But this context  is what most alleged moqers don't want to be 
realized.
  
Steve before
> I am surprised that there is not more interest in Harris's endeavor
> toward a science of morals on this forum. I once thought that Pirsig's
> MOQ may provoke an intellectual conversation about morals in the US,
> but after about 20 years it seems less and less likely that the MOQ
> will gain much traction in mainstream thought. I have much more hope
> for Harris's upcoming book to start the conversation that we have so
> sorely needed to have.

Sic! The lame and tame "MOQ as an 4th. level pattern" (another 
SOMish idea)  has no chance, and he looks elsewhere for still more 
"intellectual (philosophological) conversation about morals in the US".   

Bodvar