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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 313 as a means to some further end, but in themselves. It contains no resources for answering that question, nor does it quite acknowledge that the question itself is legitimate. It regards ends such as howling at the moon, counting blades of 4 grass, or lying unwashed in bed in an anonymous hotel room consuming nothing but codeine and old Hollywood movies and being waited upon by 5 lavishly paid employees who also manage one's financial empire, as at most pathological in some psychiatric sense, but otherwise outside the scope of rational evaluation. It thus finds no connection between behavioral pathology and irrationality. The problem, of course, is that there does seem to be a connection. The psychological fact that howling at the moon or counting blades of grass or drinking codeine might be ultimate objects of desire for particular individuals does not excuse them from rational scrutiny, as the Humean rationality model seems to imply. But how can we say what is irrational about these ends, and rational about some others, within the constraints of a rationality model that is silent on what constitutes a rational final end in the first place? Can we then call on transpersonal rationality to function in a different and noninstrumental capacity? Can it identify any alternative final ends - for example, altruistic or principled moral ones, independent of those objects we in fact happen to desire, that it would be rational for us to adopt? Can it justify the adoption and pursuit of a final end that does not satisfy a desire the agent already has? According to the Humean model of egocentric rationality, it cannot do any of these things. In the end, only the prospect of satisfying an ultimate desire the agent has can justify an extended course of action in the service of the final end which is its object. Relative to this ultimate object of desire, reason can seek out and discover efficient means to that end, and so spark instrumental desires to make use of them. But reason cannot by itself, independently of any such ultimate desire, justify action in the service of principle alone. So the Humean rationality model implies that, in particular, philosophical reasoning is incapable of articulating persuasively viable alternative conceptions of the good - i.e. conceptions we would be justified in adopting - that diverge from those we already have been conditioned or hard-wired to accept. Philosophical discussion of principles or objects of value - or, for that matter, alternative goals or ends - that do not correspond to those we actually have is pointless, since no such discussion can justify such alternatives. The ends and values we happen to have effectively outcompete any of those proffered as philosophical alternatives, merely because of their 4 This is Rawls' example. Op. cit. Note 2, page 432. 5 Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele, Empire: The Life, Legend and Madness of Howard Hughes (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1979). © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
