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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 81 satisfaction, are by definition what he lacks. And he perceives himself as inferior to his envisioned future self whose lacks have been replenished. Thus self-hatred is an inherently relational, comparative, and quantitative emotion. It is relational and comparative in that it depends on pairwise comparisons of relative status, such that his own perceived inferior status is perceived as a function of others' perceived superior status, and others' envisioned inferior status - i.e. as lacking what he has - as effecting his own envisioned superior status. It is quantitative in that it calibrates the degree of his inferiority to different external others with respect his own gain or loss relative to theirs. From the perspective of a self-hating agent, any gain to another is an aversive loss to oneself; and any loss to oneself is an aversive gain to another. Conversely, any loss to another is a desired gain to oneself; and any gain to oneself is a desired loss to another. So self-hatred is also an inherently competitive emotion. An index of the pervasiveness and depth of self-hatred is the degree to which the agent implicitly keeps count: no gain to himself, no matter how much of a desired loss to another it is perceived to exact, suffices to restore equity. Self-hatred is also an implicitly envious emotion, because if a loss to another is equivalent to a desired gain to oneself, then a Humean self is naturally and necessarily willing to suffer loss to itself if this effects loss to another, provided that the gain to itself it obtains through the other's loss outweighs the loss it suffers in order to effect that loss to the other. Envy pays in those cases in which the consequence of one's self-imposed loss is a greater self-directed gain. In Chapter X.3.1.2 below we see that Rawls adopts both a Humean conception of the self and also a stipulation that the parties in the original position are not moved by envy. But we can already see here that these two assumptions are mutually inconsistent. Envy is implicit in the belief-desire model of motivation because one's attempts to achieve the impossible goal of wholeness and self-sufficiency necessitate personal sacrifice when this effects another's loss that maximizes one's own competitive and status-comparative gain. Thus self-hatred within the Humean conception presupposes belief in a zero-sum hierarchical game in which the goal is to enhance one's own statussuperiority and the means is to reduce the status-superiority of others. Because, like all available means, the desire for this goal engenders not only further lower-order desires for them, but in addition desires for the means to protect them, the acquisition and replenishment of means can provide satisfaction independently of that envisioned for the goal. Since this goal is an impossible one for a Humean self to achieve, satisfying desires for means and resources of various kinds provide a more immediate source of gratification that may effectively outweigh and replace that envisioned in obtaining the impossible goal of status-superiority. Thus not only does a Humean self grade and sort the external world into opportunities and setbacks relative to its © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
