[MD] Natural Law

[Steven Peterson]

Hi John,

Steve:
>> In general, how do we decide what is morally right and wrong? What
>> role can the MOQ play if any in that process beyond explaining choices
>> after the fact?
>>

John:
> Well the best part of the MoQ's insight is that it's actually a real
> question.  There IS a right and wrong, that it's not all just relative
> preference.  Good is a noun.

Steve:
I think we agree that for the MOQ values are real, but that doesn't
tell us that there is a right and wrong that is not relative. Instead
I think it offers a vocabulary for articulating why you _believe_ that
something ought to be regarded as right or wrong. It can't adjudicate
between two people who use the MOQ vocabulary to argue opposite
positions.

Here's the LC quote:
"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:
> I think Pirsig almost says that the MOQ levels are useless for
>> personal moral deliberation in his football field analogy in the intro
>> to LC. If the MOQ levels do not aid s is discernment, what can be said
>> about the process of deciding what the world ought to be like and how
>> we ought to try to achieve it?
>>
>>

John:
> I don't think the MoQ is useless for personal moral deliberation.  Defining
> where you are on the field is very useful.  Imagine if there were no
> markers, how hard it would be then to see if one was relatively closer to
> the goal of the good.
...
> But the main essence of the football field is that we know there is a real
> goal post, and knowing this we are infinitely better off than saying "its
> just whatever you want it to be."



Steve:
If you reread the quote above, you'll see that it isn't about goal
posts but just showing relative positions on an open-ended field of
play.


John:
> And here's a keen insight, your positing of Natural Values offers us.
> According to Pirsig, Natural Values ARE the goal posts.  The MoQ says that
> Nature is the source of values.  Even as Royce embraced the fact of
> evolution as demonstration that the cosmos is a moral order, with a
> directional emphasis growing toward betterness.
>
> Most of what we call morality, is a code dictating relations with our
> society.  Analyzing these codes for betterness, is an intellectual
> activity.  Getting them to conform as close as possible to Natural Values,
> is our goal.


Steve:
The problem I have here with Natural Law is that a description of the
way things are now can't tell us how things ought to be in the future.

Best,
Steve