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Show Chapter VIII. The Problem of Rational Final Ends 334 independent of any personal relations or connections, from which Williams supposes "universalistic" principles to be generated. Universalistic principles are appropriate to scientific theory, because it "looks characteristically for considerations that are very general and have as little distinctive content as possible, because it is trying to systematize and because it wants to represent as many reasons as possible as applications of other reasons." [EL, 116-117] By contrast, the "critical reflection" appropriate to the enterprise of ethics "should seek for as much shared understanding as it can find on any issue, and use any ethical material that, in the context of the reflective discussion, makes some sense and commands some loyalty." [EL, 117] This is because, as we have just seen, such reflection must express our motivational dispositions and projects rather than detach us from them. Hence we can understand Williams' thesis as admonishing us not to assume a stance that is, in fact, part of our selves, but that leads us astray when we are trying to solve practical questions. Williams' thesis thus depends on a bipartite conception of the self that, like Watson's, draws upon the Platonic distinction between reason and desire. On one side are the impersonal point of view and the universalistic principles expressive of it, appropriately deployed in scientific but not ethical theorizing. On the other side are the more complex and reflective desires that Williams calls "projects", from the perspective of which we appropriately survey the world and engage with it ethically. Thus unlike Plato and Kant, and twentieth century philosophers such as Thomas Nagel, but much like Hume and twentieth century philosophers such as Richard Brandt, John Rawls, and Harry Frankfurt, Williams claims authority for desire over theoretical reason in the structure of the self. Williams' contribution to this Humean conception of the self is to have pointed out that if a psychologically adequate concept of desire cannot depict it merely as an "original ... modification of existence ... 24 [that] contains not any representative quality," then there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that objects of desire must be limited to personal gratification on the one hand and universal happiness on the other. Theoretical reason, in turn, according to Williams' thesis, has two parts: the impersonal point of view and the universalistic principles that govern that point of view. The passages already examined show that Williams - like Nagel - thinks of these two as necessarily interconnected, but this is mistaken. An agent may adhere to universalistic principles without adhering to an impersonal point of view, and may adhere to an impersonal point of view without adhering to universalistic principles. If either of these possibilities can determine ethical behavior in a psychologically and socially healthy way, then Williams, like Watson, has effectively begged the psychological question of 24 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Ed. L. A, Selby-Bigge (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1968), 415. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
