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Show Chapter VII. Nagel's Internalism 288 conception of myself as the same person later that I am now implies that I conceive myself as a person whose interests later are equally, therefore, my interests now. The first question would be whether this self-conception is accurate, i.e. whether I am in fact the same person later that I am now. But assume it is accurate. This does not necessarily imply that my interests later are the same as my interests now. Surely I can change my mind about at least some centrally important matters without renouncing my personal identity. Indeed, recall the argument from Chapter IV, that minimal psychological consistency requires only one long-term preference not subject to revision in ranking status on each occasion on which pairwise comparisons are made. But let us give Nagel the benefit of the doubt here as well. Nagel does not claim, but the plausible reading of his argument suggests, that I now must know what those future interests are, in virtue of knowing my self-conception, in order for them to now motivate my present action. If my future interests are my present interests because my future self is as much part of my life as my present self, then my future interests are, at the very least, also my present interests. If they are also my present interests, then there is no great mystery as to why they should now motivate me to act to secure their future satisfaction, but also no reason to deny premise 2.2.(1), since this account is compatible with it. What motivates me to secure my future interests is the present desire to secure interests that are both present and future (or, on the broader, ordinary interpretation, perhaps the presently motivating thought of those interests as equally my interests now). To ignore or repudiate this self-conception, Nagel argues, is to act only on those dated reasons that I acknowledge to obtain at the time of action - in which case I have neither reason to prepare for future eventualities, nor reason to regret those I have ignored, nor reason to repudiate later those I now know I will want to repudiate then (40, 42, 58). So even if such indifference to other stages of myself were possible, it would express a dissociation so radical as to subvert future-directed action altogether. 2.5. Tensed versus Tenseless Judgments Nagel effectively concedes the necessity of a present mental event, alternative to desire, which can serve to motivate my present action, by introducing the distinction between tensed and tenseless judgment. He argues that a temporally dissociated (or pure time-preferential) self makes only present-tensed judgments about what it now has reason to do. These reasons will refer to ends or interests the agent now wishes to promote. Hence tensed judgments embed dated reasons in present mental acts of judging what one now has reason to do. However, Nagel argues, any such tensed judgment implies a tenseless one made from a standpoint of temporal neutrality - the standpoint of a self unified over time. This judgment embeds a timeless reason that applies derivatively to the particular act-token that now promotes © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
