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Show Chapter VIII. The Problem of Rational Final Ends I said in Chapter I that a conception of the self consisted in two models. The first was a motivational model. I examined the Humean motivational model itself in Chapter II, the problem of moral motivation it engendered in Chapter VI, and Thomas Nagel's attempt to solve that problem in Chapter VII. I proposed as the second element in a conception of the self a structural model that describes the conditions of rational coherence and equilibrium within the self, a model that calls for a theory of rationality to satisfy its requirements. I examined the Humean structural model - the utilitymaximizing model of rationality - in Chapters III and IV. In the present chapter I examine the problem of rational final ends that the structural model of utility-maximization engenders for the Humean conception of the self; and I evaluate the attempts of four leading twentieth century Humeans - Frankfurt, Watson, Williams and Slote - to solve it. Section 1 defines the problem of rational final ends that arises from the Humean model of rationality: that rational criticism or justification of the ends we happen to have - much less revision of those ends in light of alternative conceptions of the good we might develop philosophically - is impossible. Section 2 considers Harry Frankfurt's solution to this problem. Frankfurt distinguishes between free and unfree actions, according to whether or not they are motivated by desires that are themselves the object of higher-order desires that rationally evaluate them. Frankfurt's view implies that an action is free if the desire that motivates it is rational. But it is not easy for a Humean to say what makes a desire rational. Frankfurt's attempt raises the problems simultaneously of self-evaluation and moral paralysis: If we lack desireindependent terminating criteria for evaluating rationally our first-order desires, then on what nonarbitrary grounds do we commit ourselves to any n+1-order desires as themselves authoritative evaluators of our first-order ones? And without such terminating criteria, how can we ever decide what to do with any degree of moral conviction? That we sometimes succeed in doing so suggests that the Humean conception is not adequate to the psychological facts. Section 3 considers three main responses to Frankfurt's dilemma. Gary Watson proposes a bipartite conception of the self, according to which reason and desire are two independent sources of motivation within the self, as Plato thought. Watson accepts the belief-desire model of motivation. But he also argues that reason is the source of value, of what is genuinely good for the agent, and so enables the agent to assess on which of her desires she should rationally act. But since this Humean/Platonic conception of the self stipulates two independent sources of motivation within the self, it must be an open question not only which does take motivational and evaluative precedence on any particular occasion of action, but also which should. And in the event that |
