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Show Chapter II. The Belief-Desire Model of Motivation 88 itself is a complex one: We ourselves may feel insincere for not revealing our own personal foibles and blind spots more fully, in the presence of someone who courageously subjects his imperfections and immaturities to the traumatic ordeal of public scrutiny, the way the matador waves the red cape before the bull. We may also feel that there is something distastefully exhibitionistic in this public display of breast-beating, and that suffering one's neurosis silently is more honorable. But there is often more to the response than this. We may, in addition, sense something insincere in Dick's own stance toward his psychological and moral flaws: If they are all out there on the table, then who is in the kitchen? That is: what kind of psychological entity is serving them up? The problem is that despite Dick's avowals, the belief-desire model of motivation requires us to view all his overt behavior, including his actions, avowals, responses, and explanations, as instrumental to the satisfaction of some further, unspoken desire. So by that hypothesis, none of that behavior intrinsically expresses the desires Dick says he is striving to satisfy. Dick's stated program for moral self-improvement requires the assumption that he has, as it were, turned himself inside out for the sake of that program; that the reactions we and he are invited to scrutinize are not just instrumental to the satisfactions of the self, but expressive of it. But by the lights of the beliefdesire model of motivation, we are entitled to view this assumption with suspicion. Because no matter how genuine and transparent his reactions, they are mere instruments to the satisfaction of some further desire. And so Dick's motivations for revealing them remain opaque: they are, by hypothesis, not among the responses with which we are invited to engage. Of course Dick explains his moral reason for inviting us to engage with him in this way. This explanation, too, is among the issues raised by his behavior with which we are asked to engage. But we have no independent evidence for the truth of this explanation, and no reason to accept it on faith, as he seems to want. Instead it merely defers our suspicions one remove, rather than allaying them. For now the question becomes that of what desire he satisfies by adopting this strategy for moral self-improvement rather than some other; what desire he satisfies by telling us all this; and to the satisfaction of what desire Dick's desire for moral self-improvement itself might be instrumental. We may think him excessively self-absorbed, preoccupied, narcissistic, or simply a glutton for attention, thereby discounting right away the possibility that his concerns are authentic. Indeed, the more confiding and self-revelatory Dick becomes, in response to our demurrals, the more we may feel somehow sucked in or manipulated; and the correspondingly less of a chance he has to satisfy his stated desire to improve his moral condition and relationships with others. So far the instrumentalization dilemma has been painted as arising from our third-personal perspective on Dick's avowals; from an apprehension that © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
