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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 321 surely agree that the conclusion to irrationality in at least some of these cases would be false. Finally, he outlines an argument that a person may act rationally when she is acting against her judgment, if her judgment directs her to do what is practically unthinkable for her. We can well imagine such a case: I judge, after long and careful reflection, that in fact I really need only two articles of any kind of clothing (pants, dresses, T-shirts, socks, suits, blouses, shoes, etc.) - one to wear while the other is being cleaned; that it would serve the cause of helping the needy to donate the rest of my clothes to charity; and so conclude with full conviction that I should give the rest of my clothes to the Salvation Army. Yet I find that I cannot bring myself to do it. My emotions, my desires, and my values simply revolt. Frankfurt is surely right to suggest that rationality may be on the side of my emotions rather than my judgment in this case. But he then goes on to conclude that it is precisely in the particular content or specific character of his will - which may salubriously lead him to act against his judgment - that the rationality of a person may in part reside (190). - without, however, suggesting any criterion by which we may identify such rational content. Surely there remains a question to be answered, in the above hypothetical case, as to whether it is my judgment or my emotions that are in fact closer to what rationality requires. Leaving myself with only two articles of each type of clothing may be a very austere, unsociable, and inconvenient way to live. But that does not demonstrate that it is irrational under circumstances in which so many people have no clothes of their own at all. Frankfurt thus leaves us with a searching analysis of unthinkability as a force that may practically constrain behavior under certain circumstances, and therefore may constrain judgment, desire, or will. This force may thus play the practical role that an authoritative criterion of rational judgment, desire, or will would play in guiding, justifying, and motivating action in the service of certain identifiably rational final ends. But it is not the same as such a criterion, nor does it apply coextensively, nor does it suggest what such a criterion would be. In the end, Frankfurt does not supply the rationality criteria that would justify a decisive identification with one's n-order desires - or will, or judgments, or intentions - at any level. He thus leaves the fundamental problems of self-evaluation and moral paralysis unsolved. If there are rational grounds on which decisive identification with one's n-order desires (etc.) can be made, this will ensure the authority of the decision to terminate the regress at some particular point in the series, but only by sacrificing the evaluative authority of second-order desires. For whatever the grounds on which we justify our decisive commitment to some set of n-order desires, those grounds cannot themselves be desires of any order. If they were, the regress could be reopened, merely by asking for reasons why we should be impressed with the authority of those n+1-order © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
