[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,


> Steve said:
>
> It seems to me that if "relativism" amounts to "justification is relative to an audience," and if you find that to be a big problem, then your bigger problem is with Pirsig rather than Rorty.
>

>
> dmb says:
>
> "The MOQ says that if moral judgements are essentially assertions of value and if value is the fundamental ground-stuff of the world, then moral judgements are the fundamental group stuff of the world." (Lila, 156) "So what Phaedrus was saying was that not just life, but everything, is an ethical activity. It is nothing else. ... this definition of 'betterness' - this beginning response to Dynamic Quality - is an elementary unit of ethics upon which all right and wrong can be based. When this understanding first broke through in Phaedrus' mind, that ethics and science had suddenly been integrated into a single system, he became so manic he couldn't think of anything else for days. The only time he had be more manic about an abstract idea was when he had first hit upon the idea of undefined Quality itself." (Lila, 157) "... given a value-centered MOQ, it is absolutely, scientifically moral for a doctor to prefer the patient. [over a germ] This is not just an arbitrary social c
>  onvention that should apply to some doctors, or to some cultures but not all cultures. It's true for all people at all times, now and forever, a moral pattern of reality as real as H20. We're at last dealing with morals on the basis of reason. We can now deduce codes based on evolution that analyze moral arguments with greater precision that before." (Lila, 159)
>
>
> When Pirsig says "this is NOT just an arbitrary social convention that should only apply to some doctors, or to some cultures", shall we conclude that he's saying justification is relative to the group just like Rorty? Obviously not. He's saying pretty much the opposite of what Rorty says.
>

Steve:
Appealing to the MOQ hierarchy of value patterns doesn't help you
distinguish Rorty from James with regard to relativism. Pirsig
actually thought James's pragmatism couldn't avoid this relativism.


Pirsig in Lila:
"James would probably have been horrified to find that Nazis could use
his pragmatism just as freely as anyone else, but Phædrus didn't see
anything that would prevent it.  But he thought that the Metaphysics
of Quality's classification of static patterns of good prevents this
kind of debasement."

Pirsig thought his evolutionary theory of value patterns rather than
radical empiricism is what lends his philosophy moral
clarity.  But he later backed off on the "science of morals" notion
when he wrote in the introduction to LC:

"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."

Clearly first order justification ("both are moral arguments. Both can
claim the MOQ for support.") is relative in the MOQ and second order
justification is as well as evidenced by the intellectual realities as
paintings in a gallery metaphor. There is nothing that isn't related
to anything else. Even static and dynamic define one another.

We can exchange quotes all day long.

If relativism is more than a fake problem (...for pragmatists. It's
real one for SOMers)  brought about by bad metaphysical assumptions,
then James and Pirsig are just as guilty as Rorty. But it isn't a real
problem for pragmatists. Anyone like you who has stopped finding it
interesting to ask "is the quality in the subject or in the object?"
should have long ago stopped thinking that there is something to the
SOM question "is it absolute or relative" that ought to be preserved
and used as a cudgel to beat up on fellow pragmatists.
Relativism/absolutism is an SOM platypus, Dave, and you should know
better than to think that Rorty is somehow dangerous.

Best,
Steve