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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 87 physical boundaries of the agent, are exempt or privileged with respect to this stipulation. The desire model of motivation requires the mobilization of all the components of the self - physical and mental, internal and external - as potential resources for the appropriation of objects of desire. In Chapter IV.5 I argue that the Humean model of rationality is incapable of accommodating moral or rational side-constraints as intentional objects of behavior. This means that these other components, including, for example, a sense of duty or moral conviction, feelings of compassion or moral indignation, and so on, are not just instrumental to the satisfaction of desire, but motivationally subordinate in importance to it as well. Call this the instrumentalization dilemma. 3.2. The Instrumentalization Dilemma This dilemma is exemplified by the case of Dick. Suppose Dick desires to become a spontaneous and emotionally responsive person, adept at discerning his emotional reactions and at articulating them honestly to his friends. Suppose further that this desire is instrumental to a further desire to improve morally his personal and social relationships by being concerned, compassionate, and honest. To these ends, Dick undergoes therapy, keeps a journal, and encourages his friends and associates to confront him with their responses to his behavior, and to engage with him actively regarding whatever issues are raised by doing so. He realizes he is inviting intense emotional upheaval by seeking out such situations and analyzing them introspectively. But his desire to improve morally his interpersonal relationships is genuine, and he strongly believes (correctly, let us suppose) that his emotional arridity and fear of vulnerability have made him a moral cripple in the past. Then suppose Dick reacts dismissively or arrogantly in a meeting to a professional associate's suggestion as to how to improve the efficiency of their business, and is taken to task for it publicly. It is suggested that Dick frequently has difficulties in countenancing from women colleagues the same professional input that he invites from men; is even more characteristically ungenerous when competing with the former; that perhaps he feels threatened by women, or has not successfully resolved his separation from his mother, or is re-enacting his childhood sibling rivalry, and so on. Dick's responses to these confrontatory remarks are various: He is alternately outraged, thoughtful, defensive, receptive, insulted, and sarcastic. Occasionally he is sorely tempted to storm out of the meeting in a huff, or revamp his strategy for moral self-improvement; but is reminded, or reminds himself, of his commitment to the process of social engagement - and so sits it out, outwardly contemptuous of his colleagues' unconscionable armchair psychologizing, but inwardly wondering whether they may not, after all, be right. Now most of us know such individuals, and it is worth examining why we may feel an uneasy sense of insincerity in their presence. This response © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
