Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals

by Robert M. Pirsig

  That was all he had to say to the mystic objections to a Metaphysics of Quality. He next turned to those of logical positivism:

  Positivism is a philosophy that emphasizes science as the only source of knowledge. It sharply distinguishes between fact and value, and is hostile to religion and traditional metaphysics. It is an outgrowth of empiricism, the idea that all knowledge must come from experience, and is suspicious of any thought, even a scientific statement, that is incapable of being reduced to direct observation. Philosophy, as far as positivism is concerned, is limited to the analysis of scientific language.

  Phædrus had taken a course in symbolic logic from a member of logical positivism’s famed Vienna circle, Herbert Feigl, and he remembered being fascinated by the possibility of a logic that could extend mathematical precision to solve problems of philosophy and other areas. But even then the assertion that metaphysics is meaningless sounded false to him. As long as you’re inside a logical, coherent universe of thought you can’t escape metaphysics. Logical positivism’s criteria for meaningfulness were pure metaphysics, he thought.

  But it didn’t matter. The Metaphysics of Quality not only passes the logical positivists' tests for meaningfulness, it passes them with the highest marks. The Metaphysics of Quality restates the empirical basis of logical positivism with more precision, more inclusiveness, more explanatory power than it has previously had. It says that values are not outside of the experience that logical positivism limits itself to. They are the essence of this experience. Values are more empirical, in fact, than subjects or objects.

  Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague, woolly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As such it is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who cares to do so. It is reproducible. Of all experience it is the least ambiguous, least mistakable there is. Later the person may generate some oaths to describe this low value, but the value will always come first, the oaths second. Without the primary low valuation, the secondary oaths will not follow.

  The reason for hammering on this so hard is that we have a culturally inherited blind spot here. Our culture teaches us to think it is the hot stove that directly causes the oaths. It teaches that the low values are a property of the person uttering the oaths.

  Not so. The value is between the stove and the oaths. Between the subject and the object lies the value. This value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any self or any object to which it might be later assigned. It is more real than the stove. Whether the stove is the cause of the low quality or whether possibly something else is the cause is not yet absolutely certain. But that the quality is low is absolutely certain. It is the primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed.

  Once this primary relationship is cleared up an awful lot of mysteries get solved. The reason values seem so woolly-headed to empiricists is that empiricists keep trying to assign them to subjects or objects. You can’t do it. You get all mixed up because values don’t belong to either group. They are a separate category all their own.

  What the Metaphysics of Quality would do is take this separate category, Quality, and show how it contains within itself both subjects and objects. The Metaphysics of Quality would show how things become enormously more coherent — fabulously more coherent — when you start with an assumption that Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world… but showing that, of course, was a very big job… He noticed a strange noise, unlike any boat sound he was used to. He listened for a while and then realized that it was coming from the forecabin. It was Lila. She was snoring. He heard her mutter something. Then she was quiet again…

  After a while he heard the putt-putting of a small boat approaching. An early fisherman, probably, heading down the creek. Soon the entire cabin rocked gently and the lamp swung a little from the boat’s wake. After a while the sound passed and it became quiet again… He wondered if he was going to get any more sleep himself. He remembered when he used to be a night person, going to bed at three or four in the morning and waking up at around noon. It seemed then that nothing of any importance could ever happen during the hours between dawn and late afternoon, and he avoided them as much as possible. Now it was the opposite. He had to be up with the sun or something was missing. It didn’t matter that there was nothing to do.

  He picked up the slips on Dusenberry, put them back into the tray where they had been removed and then got up and tucked the tray into the pilot berth where it had come from. Above the pilot berth the portholes of the cabin showed light outside. He saw that the sky was somewhat overcast. It might clear up. The buildings across the harbor were gray. Some trees on the bank still had their leaves but they were brown and ready to fall. October colors.

  He pushed the hatch back and stuck his head out.

  It was cold out, but not as cold as before. A mild breeze rippled the water toward the stern of the boat, and he felt it on his face.

  6

  Richard Rigel awoke and looked at his watch. It was 7:45 already. He felt tired and cross. He had not had much sleep since that fool author and Lila Blewitt stumbled across his deck.

  All night long, in and out, in and out, the wakes from passing boats caused that author’s barge next to him to push his own boat in and out against the dock like a railroad Pullman car. And there was nothing he could do about it.

  He could have gotten up and adjusted the author’s lines himself. But that wasn’t his job.

  What was really angering was that he hadn’t even granted the author permission to raft. The author had been told in Oswego he could raft because of the emergency there and evidently had taken it as a lifetime privilege.

  Now no more sleep was possible. He would have to make the best of it. Bill would have to get up too. There was much to be done today.

  Richard Rigel went to the forecabin of the boat, found Capella with a pillow over his head and pulled it off. Get up, Bill, he said.

  Capella opened his eyes, looked startled and then sat up quickly.

  Much to do today, Rigel repeated.

  Capella yawned and looked at his watch. They said they’d take us at nine to get the mast up.

  Rigel replied, We should be ready for an earlier opening.

  He went back to his aft cabin, removed his pajamas, carefully folded them and put them in the drawer. Only a week left before going back. He could get Simonsen to take over his court appearances, but if he were lucky and there were no more delays he might still get back in time… What a completely rotten vacation.

  Capella’s voice said, What about next door?

  You mean the "Great Author"? Rigel replied. I don’t think the "Great Author" will be up this morning.

  Why not? Capella asked.

  Didn’t you hear him last night?

  No.

  You certainly must have been sleeping soundly… Of course! You were forward. He fell on my cabin.

  He fell?

  Yes, he and that woman he was dancing with stumbled across the deck and fell evidently. I didn’t want to get into it so I didn’t go up there. What a commotion!

  In the boat’s head Richard Rigel drew a basin of heated water with which to wash his face and shave. He said loudly, We’ve got to get free of his boat before we can move. You’ll have to go over and wake him up.

  Wake him up? Capella repeated.

  Yes, Richard Rigel replied. He was in no condition to set an alarm clock.

  He added, more softly, I wonder what his situation is, to pick up someone like her.

  The water was steaming hot but there wasn’t much satisfaction in that now. Two years ago it had c
ost him an arm and a leg to have this hot water system installed. He had to wait a whole summer for it. Now he was selling the boat. Everything changes. Nothing is predictable any more.

  Rigel vigorously soaped the warm wash cloth and applied it to his face. He thought the Great Author’s respectful readers should have seen him last night dancing with Lila. They probably wouldn’t have minded though. Among his respectful readers drunkenness and whoring were probably considered some form of Quality.

  It was interesting to get a look at someone like him up close. In Oswego he seemed so reserved. They look so fine from a distance but when you see them up close for what they really are then all the cracks and blemishes appear. He wasn’t reserved. He was just boorish.

  Last night was typical. After listening to the author talk on and on about some pet idea about nothingness, Rigel had tried to illustrate the point with a fishing story. The Great Author didn’t even listen. Rigel had tried to warn him about sailing alone off shore and he wouldn’t listen. And then after he had warned him about Lila he had the nerve to invite her to their table.

  Boorish. What made it so hard to stand was that it wasn’t deliberate. He just didn’t know any better… He seemed so naive most of the time and yet there was something… clever about him that infuriated. He shouldn’t let him make him so angry like this. He didn’t really matter that much… If he wasn’t careful he was going to cut himself with this razor.

  There were enough people like that, of course, but what made this all so insufferable was that here was a man who was passing himself off as an expert on Quality, with a capital Q. And he got away with it! It was like watching some ambulance chaser sway a jury. Once he got them emotionally on his side there wasn’t much you could do about it.

  Richard Rigel emptied the basin, rinsed it neatly, then folded the towel and put it on its rack to dry properly.

  Capella said, If I’m going to wake him up, what am I going to tell him about his boat?

  Rigel thought for a while. I suppose I should be the one to talk to him, he said.

  He would do it tactfully. He’d invite him to breakfast, and then when the author turned the invitation down, he would be up and awake so that he could be told his boat needed moving.

  Now clean and shaven Richard Rigel felt a little better. He watched in the mirror as he combed his hair into respectability, then tried on a tie. It didn’t look right. With Gary Grant features like his own it would be inappropriate to be overdressed, particularly in a place like this. He removed the tie, unbuttoned the collar and carefully opened it a little. Much better.

  He climbed to the deck and looked around at the harbor. There were old rotting timbers and hulks that had to be crossed by a series of precarious gangplanks to get to dry land. One was lucky if he didn’t break his neck. Probably it would be a whole day wasted here.

  Richard Rigel turned and was surprised to see himself being watched. The Great Author himself was in the next cockpit.

  Hello! Richard Rigel said loudly.

  Hello.

  His neighbor’s expression seemed bland. He was wearing the same blue chambray shirt he had worn yesterday, with the same food stain above one pocket.

  I didn’t expect to find you up this early, Richard Rigel said.

  The author replied, If you want to take your boat down to the crane dock I can cast off now.

  He must be some sort of a mind-reader, Rigel thought. He said, There may be another boat at the dock.

  No, I checked.

  He seemed to be in remarkably good shape after his performance last night. He would be, Rigel thought.

  It’s still too early, Rigel said. There may be a boat scheduled ahead of me. Are you interested in breakfast?

  As he said it he realized it was no longer necessary to invite the author to breakfast, but it was too late.

  That sounds good, the author answered. I’ll see if I can get Lila up.

  What? Richard Rigel was startled. No, of course not. Let the woman have her sleep. Just you come.

  Why? the author asked.

  There it was again, that boorishness. He knew perfectly well why. Because this is undoubtedly the last time we will be seeing one another, Rigel smiled. And I would prefer to chat alone.

  Capella appeared on deck and the three crossed the gangplanks to shore in a single file.

  Inside the restaurant Capella said, It’s hard to believe this is the same place.

  Rigel saw the juke box silent in one corner. Be thankful for small favors, he said.

  A blackboard in front of the bar mirror contained the breakfast menu. Beside it an old woman talked across the bar to three workmen eating breakfast at the table beside them. Probably the wife of last night’s bartender, he thought.

  The author was being his indifferent self again. His attention seemed to drift outside the window toward the boat-yard debris and docks where they had come from. Perhaps he was looking for Lila.

  Capella said to him, Where did you learn to dance like that? You really stopped the action.

  The author’s attention returned. Why? he asked. Were you watching?

  Everybody was, Richard Rigel said.

  No. The author grinned. I don’t know how to dance. He looked quizzically at both of them.

  You’re way too modest, Rigel smiled. You dazzled us all… particularly the lady.

  The author looked at them suspiciously, Ah, you people are teasing.

  Maybe you had so much to drink you don’t remember.

  Capella laughed, and the author exclaimed, I wasn’t so drunk.

  No, you weren’t so drunk, Rigel said. That’s why you tiptoed so softly across my deck at two.

  Sorry about that, the author said. She dropped her suitcase.

  Rigel and Capella looked at each other. Suitcase! Capella said.

  Yes, the author answered. She’s leaving the boat she was on and coming with me to Manhattan to stay with some friends there.

  Wow! Capella said, winking at Rigel. One dance with him and they pack up their suitcases. He said to Rigel, I wish I knew his secret. How do you suppose he does it?

  Richard Rigel frowned and looked around. He didn’t like the direction this was going. He wondered when the old woman was going to take their order. He motioned to her to come.

  When she arrived he ordered ham and eggs and toast and orange juice. The others ordered too.

  While they were waiting Richard Rigel said that the tide would turn at about ten. He told the author his best strategy was to wait until about nine o’clock, which was the last hour of the flood tide, then go as fast as possible with the ebb tide as far as he could before the tide changed again, moor for the night and wait for the next day’s ebb into Manhattan. The author thanked him for the information.

  They ate most of the breakfast in silence. Rigel felt stymied, pushed into a corner by this person. There was something about him that prevented you from saying anything to him, something that didn’t leave you any room to say it. He was in such another world, talking away so glibly about Quality.

  When they were finished eating Richard Rigel turned to the author. He didn’t like what he had to say to him but he felt an obligation to say it anyway.

  It’s none of my business whom you select for company, he said. You seemed to pay no attention to me at all last night. But I think I have an obligation to advise you one last time to get Lila off your boat.

  The author looked surprised. I thought you said I needed a crew.

  Not her!

  What’s wrong with her?

  There it was again. You’re not that naive, Rigel said.

  The author mumbled, almost to himself, Lila may be better than she looks.

  Richard Rigel contradicted him. No, Lila is much worse than she looks.

  The author looked at Capella, who was smiling, and then at Rigel with narrowing eyes. What makes you think that? he said.

  Richard Rigel studied the author for a while. The author really was innocent. I’ve known Lil
a Blewitt for a long, long time, he said. Why don’t you just take my word for it?

  Who is she? the author said.

  She’s a very unfortunate person of very low quality, he said.

  At the word quality, the author looked up as though it was some kind of challenge thrown at him. It was, of course.

  The author’s eyes shifted. What does she do for a living? he asked, evasively.

  When Capella glanced at him Richard Rigel couldn’t resist a smile. She meets people like you, my friend, he said. Didn’t anyone ever tell you about people like her?

  Another challenge. The wheels were turning almost visibly inside the author’s head.

  Rigel wondered whether to push it any farther. There was no point in doing so, really. But there was something about the author’s complacency, particularly after last night, that made him want to do it anyway. But then he decided not to. If you need a crew, he said, why don’t you wait a few days in Manhattan and then Bill will be available. I think Bill knows enough that the two of you could make it.

  Bill nodded with a smile.

  They talked more about the sail into Manhattan. It was all straightforward. They should call ahead to the 79th Street Marina since even this late in the year it was hard to get in there without a reservation. An October cruise to the Chesapeake might be something he would enjoy himself, Rigel said. But of course, he wouldn’t have the time.

  The author said suddenly, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. How do you know that?

  Know what? Rigel asked.

  About Lila.

  I know it from the experience of a very close friend whose divorce case I handled, Richard Rigel answered. In his memory a picture returned of Lila, arm in arm with Jim, coming into his office. Poor Jim, he thought. Your friend Lila completely ruined his life.

  She used to be much more attractive than she is now, Rigel added. She seems to be going downhill fast.

  Capella said, You never told me about that.

  It’s not a public matter, Rigel said, and I won’t mention his name, Bill, or you’d recognize it.