[MD] Is Quality Relative?

[118]

Hi All,
It would appear to me that this is an important topic in terms of MoQ.
 I would therefore like to (once again) open a thread towards its
discussion.

I will use the presentation by Chris Swoyer published in the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), in 2003, and its references therein,
as the basis for discussion.  It can be found at:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/

This is a good a ground as any to work from, and will aid in
preventing this discussion from becoming the typical Hungarian Goulash
that often results.  I would encourage you to read this and use it as
an operating system, otherwise this thread will become another mess.
This is not a problem, if it leads somewhere useful, but if it just
becomes an exchange of unrelenting opinions, then the discuss aspect
is lost.

A very brief history of relativism can be found at:

http://www.friesian.com/relative.htm

I am not qualified to say whether this history is accurate or not, but
it does make some interesting points.  Of interest from that link is
the question what Protagoras meant by "better".  Was he invoking an
absolute concept?

So, on to the discussion.  I will start with the following quote from
the SEP essay:
"But it is also true that most academic philosophers in the
English-speaking world see the label ‘relativist’ as the kiss of
death, so few have been willing to defend any version of the doctrine
(there is less reluctance in some other disciplines)."

If this is indeed true, then we must consider whether we want to stick
the knife into MoQ, and turn it.  It is of course possible that
relativism is appropriate to MoQ.

Using the format of the essay by Swoyer, I believe we are typically
referring to "normative relativism" (as opposed to "descriptive
relativism") as presented by the following quote: "Normative
relativism is a family of non-empirical normative or evaluative claims
to the effect that modes of thought, standards of reasoning, or the
like are only right or wrong, correct or incorrect, veridical or
non-veridical, relative to a framework."  I behoves us therefore to
consider the framework of MoQ for determining if relativism is indeed
appropriate.

Before that discussion, it is instructive to note that Relativism is
self destructive, because it must also apply to itself.  A relativism
position is similar to the statement "every thing I tell you is a
lie".  For if relativism is itself relative, it allows for
philosophies which are not relativistic, and thus annihilates itself.
This would be similar to saying that democracy should allow for the
election of a totalitarian state, for, after all, that is the
democratic process.  In doing so, democracy is annihilated.  Hoever,
the question is whether Relativism would annihilate the Absolute of
Quality (if that is how we see Quality).  Keeping in mind that many
arguments against relativism point out the self condemnation of
relativism, I would like to try to steer away from this form of
argument.  I believe philosophers such as Rorty have done so
successfully.

To start the discussion, I will choose the concept of Better.  Within
relativism, "better" is dependent on the framework in which it is
presented.  It follows that "betterness" is also a relative concept if
we subscribe to Relativeness.  By this line of reasoning, the
direction of the universe as presented by MoQ becomes a relative
concept.  The levels as described are relative, and not absolute.  The
distinction between DQ and sq become relative to a framework.
Subsequently MoQ dissolves into "whatever we want".  This seems to be
a direction many people are taking, and in my opinion does destroy
MoQ.  It would imply that the levels are as good as any, and MoQ is a
matter of taste, not a compelling metaphysics.  If indeed betterness
is relative, it has no absolute direction, and therefore the evolution
of the universe has no direction either.  I do not believe this to be
the case.  The pragmatic approach, which I believe is a relativist
approach (aka Rorty) does not sit well with MoQ as it is presented by
Pirsig.  I thought I would bring this in even though I am not educated
enough to evaluate Rorty's philosophy.  However I do see this as a
bone of contention amongst MoQers and I would like to learn more about
this.

A starting point would seem to be: is "Better" a relative concept, or
is it an absolute?  It would appear to me that Quality is an absolute
from which all else stems, at least according to Pirsig when he
equates Quality with Tao. However, some may respectfully disagree and
prefer to present Quality in relativistic terms.  If this is indeed
the case, we must evaluate the framework in which we are presenting
MoQ, to see if it leads anywhere useful.

Again, I would encourage us to work from the SEP article so that this
discussion does not become "just what we want".

Thank you for your participation.  Any thoughtless "one liner
responses" should be ignored in my opinion, since they are simply "cat
calls" reflecting a need for attention without delivering anything
substantive.  Such throwing from the peanut gallery often derail a
thread.  I have to say, however, that sometimes interesting things are
discovered from these deviations from the trail.

Cheers,
Mark