[MD] Morality and Prudence

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Steve:
...Anyway, ... a reasonable person should conclude that I'm talking about human morality, and not about rocks or atoms. In effect, you're criticizing my comments for being limited to the actual topic, namely empathy, the thing that sociopathic personalities do not have.



Steve replied:
I'm not criticizing your comments at all. When people talk about morality they generally want to draw a distinction between behavior motivated by empathy and behavior that is motivated by personal self interest where the former is moral and the latter is prudence. My point is that the MOQ does not allow for this usual distinction (or does not make it in the usual way) because _everything_ is moral behavior in the MOQ. What we have are different types of morality--different sets of moral codes--rather than morality as something distinct from the lack of morality.


dmb says:
The MOQ doesn't allow for this usual distinction because morality goes all the way down? Well, if I follow your reasoning, you're saying that empathy can't be the basis of morality at the inorganic level. You're just saying that empathy can't be pushed all the way down. Okay, but, again, the topic was anti-social personality disorders and so, obviously, my claim was made in the context of discussing human morality and the lack thereof. As you might recall from previous conversations, we already discussed the capacity to follow DQ, the capacity to choose, to express preferences, to move toward "betterness" in the MOQ's larger framework, which does push morality all the way down. As I pointed out in those posts, Pirsig gives us that full picture right there in the same passage where we find his reformulation of the free will/determinism dilemma. I mean, we have talked about that and we can talk about that, but to interject it at this juncture is really just changing the subject to something other than abnormal human psychology. 



dmb said to Steve:
Yea, let's get rid of all those advocates of natural law and divine command. They're drowning out the MOQ and they have to be stopped. But seriously,...

Steve replied:
You seem to be getting defensive here for reasons unknown to me.


dmb says:
Defensive? No, I'm just ribbing you because I've never seen any posters advocating natural law or divine command. It's a pointed joke. I was trying to use humor to point out that there is no reason to defend the MOQ from such views. 



Steve:
Yes, but the point I was making is that you claimed that empathy is the basis for morality. I agree (though I think modifiability can also serve as the starting point for assigning moral responsibility), but the MOQ seems to disagree. In the MOQ, nothing can be the basis for morality since morality is the basis of everything.

dmb says:
Again, you have to change the subject and take my claim out of context in order to disagree with it. That's silly and unreasonable. If the claim is put back into context and the subject isn't changed to something much larger than anti-social personalities, then my claim is obvious and you don't even disagree with it anyway. AND, isn't that last line just the kind of thing that gives sophistry a bad name? I mean, we are talking about the forms of mental illness that preclude people from having the capacity to empathize with other people. To say that empathy is the basis of morality in that context only means that you can't have human morality without it. But you've expanded the claim beyond it's context so that it becomes a claim about the basis of everything, about metaphysical foundations or some such thing. Thus you want me to explain how empathy can be pushed all the way down at the level of rocks and trees. Again, my claim was never meant to be that broad, and hopefully you remember that we already covered that larger topic in recent weeks.

I'm thinking that "betterness" is sufficiently vague for the MOQ's morality to be pushed all the way down to even the inorganic level, and that's exactly what Pirsig does in concluding the section where he reformulated the old free will dilemma. But he also makes plenty of distinctions between the levels of morality, talks quite a lot about how each these levels has it's own version of what "betterness" can mean, how these levels are even in conflict with each other. I mean, we can rightly talk about specifically human levels of morality and the role that empathy plays without undoing or undermining the larger unifying scheme. There's no contradiction. It's just a matter of being specific and practical on the one hand (anti-social personality disorders) or broadly metaphysical and abstract (the MOQ's structure) on the other. 


Steve said:
True, [care is an essential ingredient for Pirsig] but Pirsig did not explicate a place for empathy in the MOQ. It is not a central term in his philosophical system.

dmb says:
That sort of argument strikes me as wildly disingenuous. If there ever was a theory of interpretation that said we are limited to the specific terms and explicit statements, it would have produced some pretty worthless readings. As if all Pirsig's talk about caring and identifying with one's work couldn't possibly have anything to do with empathy. Come on, you can't really believe that. That would take rigid thinking to a whole new level of silly. Like I said, "I can't even imagine how the MOQ's moral vision could be incompatible with human empathy. ... It is easy to justify intellectually and all the great spiritual leaders have held it as centrally important. It reaches across and transcends the levels. Do unto others. It's the golden rule wherever you go. Can you think of any GOOD reason why the MOQ would be inconsistent with that?"


Steve replied:
What is interesting to me once again is that despite the fact that "all the great spiritual leaders have held it as centrally important" in discussing morality, Pirsig does not talk about empathy, compassion, and love to explain morality.



dmb says:

That's just because Pirsig is a philosopher and not a writer of Hallmark cards. Obvious platitudes don't need a metaphysical framework. I mean, Pirsig doesn't offer any personal hygiene tips either. By your reasoning, the MOQ has no place for brushing your teeth. Maybe I'm missing your point. But this sort of criticism seems, um, ...unserious.