[MD] What kind of ethical theory is the MOQ?

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
...The question is, for whatever that situation is, what considerations does the MOQer make in order to decide what is moral? .. The answer may be a combination of these (consequentialism, deontology, teleology) or none of them.


dmb says:
I think it would be pretty tricky to fit the MOQ into any particular type of ethical theory, especially if the options are limited to Western philosophical theories. As far as I know, there is no Western school of thought that says morality goes all the way down. Pirsig thinks that "morality" as most people understand it is actually just one kind of morality, the social level of morality. He defies conventional notions to include everything from subatomic particles to scientific creativity, from the bottom all the way to the top. But by tracing the linguistic roots of Quality as far back as he can go, he finds a sympathetic view among the ancients. In fact, there he finds "exactly what the MOQ was claiming". 

Pirsig says, (In Lila, chapter 30):
"One of Phaedrus' old school texts ..contained a good summary: 'RTA, which etymologically stands for 'course' originally meant 'cosmic order', the maintenance of which was the purpose of all the gods; and later it also came to mean 'right' so that the gods were conceived as preserving the world not merely from physical disorder but also from moral chaos. The one idea is implicit in the other; and there is order in the universe because its control is in righteous hands.'The physical order of the universe is also the moral order of the universe. Rta is both. This is exactly what the MOQ was claiming. It was not a new idea. It was the oldest idea known to man."

"Dharma, like rta, means 'what holds together'. It is the basis of all order. It equals righteousness. It is the ethical code. It is the stable condition which gives man perfect satisfaction. Dharma is duty. It is not external duty which is arbitrarily imposed by others. It is not any artificial set of conventions which can be repealed by legislation. Neither is it internal duty which is arbitrarily decided by one's own conscience. Dharma is beyond all questions of what is internal and what is external. Dharma is Quality itself, the principle of 'rightness' which gives structure and purpose to the evolution of all life and to the evolving understanding of the universe which life created."


dmb continues:
There is nothing wrong with classifying the MOQ's stance on ethics or morality if it helps to make things more intelligible. Both books have subtitles that make it pretty clear that morality is very much on the front burner. But I also think Pirsig is offering a fairly radical departure from the standard views AND his alternative view is about as all-encompassing as it can be. For these reasons, putting the MOQ into any of the existing theoretical categories probably won't help much. It would probably be more useful to reverse the question, if you will. By that I mean it would help to clarify these ideas by asking where each of the existing moral and ethical theories would fit in the MOQ's moral hierarchy. 

Did it ever occur to anyone how odd it is that the ten commandments do not include a prohibition of slavery or rape? If you were going to make a top ten list of no-nos, would you leave those out? In any case, that sort of traditional morality is going to be very different from the kind of thing Kant did or Habermas is doing. A professional (medical or legal) ethics board is usually going to be much more specific and far more likely to be applied in some actual situation than is the work any philosopher is likely to be. 

I think the MOQ's moral hierarchy is a good way to think about these differences. It makes it easy to see that we aren't supposed to pick the best moral theory. The social level traditions prohibit lies, theft and murder and that's perfectly valid whenever we're talking about human behavior. But a medical ethics board is not going to seriously consider the commandment to keep the Sabbath Holy. But again, it not that we pick one and reject the other so much as apply the most appropriate one, depending on the particular issues and circumstances. It's a much broader and more complex notion of morality, so broad that all the other moralities fit inside it, if you will.