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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 61 be theoretically interpreted. In this case, we gain nothing by invoking the two Principles in order to explicate our general theory of persons, because they are both trivially confirmed by any and all instances of Karl's behavior, whatever it may be. That is, the Principles of Charity and Rationalization add nothing of substance to our interpretation of the data furnished by P. They enable us to conceptualize them, but not properly to understand them. Rather than subordinating P to the two Principles plus Ao, we in this instance subordinate the two Principles plus Ao to P. Hence while our rendering of Karl's beliefs, desires and utterances in Ao and Ak may be described as radical in its assimilation of the physical data supplied by P, it is not, properly speaking, an interpretation of that data. The problem, it would seem, is Lewis' reliance on the Principles of Charity and Rationalization to motivate his solution. These are the culprits because they alone mediate the relation between Ao and P on which the formulation of the problem of radical interpretation depends. In interpreting Karl's behavior in P in terms of what we would believe and desire were we in his place, we reject the factual basis of cultural xenophobia - namely the inherent subjectivity and contingency of desire, in order to embrace the fiction of cultural appropriation. The comforting supposition that Karl really is basically just like us, except for relatively superficial differences in, say, life history, background, or appearance may be seen as a well-intentioned antidote to cultural xenophobia. But this antidote is purchased at the price of acknowledging information about the very real empirical divergences between Karl's motivational states and ours that make the problem of radical interpretation an important one. This, in turn, ensures the inaccessibility to us in theory of Karl's divergent motivational states themselves - and our continuing, guileless perplexity at the chasms of mutual incomprehension that can be generated by the introduction of sensitive topics into otherwise innocuous conversation. Thus our charitable impulses in trying to understand Karl's motivational states backfire, by rendering them yet more elusive of our attempts. Similarly, in interpreting Karl's behavior given by P as invariably utilitymaximizing, we compound the elusiveness of Karl's motivational states by the elusiveness and ubiquity of our own. In order consistently to apply the Principles of Charity and Rationalization conjointly, we must suppose the latter to describe our own behavior as well as his. We must interpret our own behavior, too, as invariably and ubiquitously maximizing utility, even in apparently irrational behavior; this is the essence of the revisionist variant on the desire model of motivation. As I argue at greater length in Section 3 below, this interpretation requires us to ascribe to ourselves unknown, hypothetical final desires that our actual behavior, however suspect, efficiently satisfies. Thus the ubiquity of the utility-maximization hypothesis renders our own motivational states just as obscure and elusive as Karl's, for © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
