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Show Chapter VIII. The Problem of Rational Final Ends 322 desires. Here it will not do simply to point out that these are the desires we happen to have, or even that these are the final or intrinsic desires which confer urgency on all those that are instrumental to their satisfaction. For that we have desires does not demonstrate that they are non-arbitrary from the perspective of rational justification (suppose, for example, that my most urgent intrinsic desire just is to spend my evenings howling at the moon). A fortiori, it does not demonstrate that they constitute rationally authoritative and nonarbitrary terminating criteria of self-evaluation. Hence any such criteria to which we may appeal successfully must be independent, not only of the desires we actually do have, but also of those we should have. For part of the function of such criteria of rationality will be to furnish conclusive and compelling reasons why we should have precisely those desires rather than some others. The Humean model of rationality, even with Frankfurt's more recent refinements, is incapable in theory of furnishing these criteria. 3. Two Bipartite Conceptions of the Self 3.1. Moral Paralysis: Watson's Platonism 12 Gary Watson has proposed a conception of the self that addresses this requirement. He suggests that we distinguish reason and appetite as two independent sources of motivation, as Plato did. On Watson's view, reason is the source of evaluative judgments about "those principles and ends which [one] - in a cool and non-self-deceptive moment - articulates as definitive of 13 the good, fulfilling, and defensible life." These constitute rational values which are motivationally effective and from the standpoint of which the worth of our motivationally effective desires can be assessed. Since rational evaluations are of the first order too, the infinite regress - with all the attendant problems already enumerated - does not arise. Or does it? Watson's picture of rational values suggests that the regress is to be blocked by demonstrating that the ends "definitive of the good, fulfilling, and defensible life" are authoritatively justified, i.e. that it would be absurd or irrelevant to raise any further doubts about the rational value of those criteria. This much seems to follow by definition of "defensible." But this characterization thereby begs the question. For we can agree that the rational defensibility of certain final ends renders them immune to the pressure to push the regress of justification one step further. But merely calling them defensible does not make them defensible. Without knowing what Watson intends by "good," and to whom and under what conditions a life is "defensible," there is no reason why my most favored activity of howling at 12 Op. cit. Note 6. 13 Ibid. page 215. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
