[MD] Changes in 2011

[david buchanan]

dmb said:
...These are not simply alternative points of view. These positions have been maintained in the face of evidence that would and should convince any reasonable person. As I see it, these people have proven that they are not reasonable.


Tim replied:
If I can speak casually for just a sec, I think you will find that you and I are pretty close vis-a-vis 'reasonable'.  If I can speak with total formality for a sec: what is 'reasonable'?  In between, if we lean towards one extreme, you will be hard pressed to find one reasonable person out of... how many would you say?  One out of every million?  I don't know. ...


dmb says:

As I understand it, the MOQ says we are morally obliged to be reasonable. From Lila, Chp. 24:
"What passed for morality within this crowd was a kind of vague, amorphous soup of sentiments known as "human rights." You were also supposed to be "reasonable." What these terms really meant was never spelled out in any way that Phaedrus had ever heard. You were just supposed to cheer for them.
"He knew now that the reason nobody ever spelled them out was nobody ever could. In a subject-object understanding of the world these terms have no meaning. There is no such thing as "human rights." There is no such thing as moral reasonableness. There are subjects and objects and nothing else.
"This soup of sentiments about logically nonexistent entities can be straightened out by the Metaphysics of Quality. It says that what is meant by "human rights" is usually the moral code of intellect-vs. -society, the moral right of intellect to be free of social control. Freedom of speech; freedom of assembly, of travel; trial by jury; habeas corpus; government by consent—these "human rights" are all intellect-vs.-society issues. According to the Metaphysics of Quality these "human rights" have not just a sentimental basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are essential to the evolution of a higher level of life from a lower level of life. They are for real."

To be unreasonable is to be immoral. It doesn't mean you're a murderer or an adulterer. Reasonableness is an intellectual level value and that's why it's so crucial in a philosophical discussion group, which is obviously an intellectual activity. If you want to participate in intellectual practices, you need to have a decent respect for intellectual values like precision, clarity, and the ability to discern what's reasonable and what isn't. 
I think it's interesting that William James conceived of truth as analogous to health and wealth. I like that formulation because it maps onto Pirsig's static levels so well. Health is biological excellence, wealth is social level excellence and truth is intellectual level excellence. So when Pirsig agrees with James's notion that truth is a species of the good, he means truth is what's intellectually good. All three of these concepts are going to resist exact definitions and their precise meaning will depend on the context in which they exist, but does anyone think that health, wealth and truth are meaningless standards? I sure hope not. I think most people would be quite happy to have all three. Health and wealth are goals you'll have to strive for on your own, in real life. But this forum is a good place to talk about what's true and what isn't. Being reasonable simply means that you can be persuaded by reason, by evidence, by an argument that makes sense. It's not a very fancy idea. I think it's usually pretty obvious when someone is being unreasonable.