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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 335 which aspect of the bipartite self is in fact central to the structure of actual selves, as well as the normative philosophical question of which aspect should be. 3.2.2.2. Personal Investment (Attachment Revisited) Consider the first possibility, that an agent adheres to universalistic principles without adhering to an impersonal point of view. Suppose you are personally invested in a moral theory that contains various universalistic prescriptions of fairness, sympathy, honesty, compassion, and so forth. Also suppose that there are clear psychological reasons for your personal investment, deeply rooted in your personal history. Perhaps, in addition to having had a sound moral upbringing, you discovered early on that these deeply instilled principles were your only resource for coming to terms psychologically with repeated personal injustice, or confusing or threatening personal encounters. Suppose further, then, that your investment in these principles informs your entire social and personal life. You try to do what is right, to be fair and honest in your dealings, to understand and sympathize with others, and to respond to them compassionately and without prejudice, as your moral convictions prescribe. These principles also inform your private life: You attempt to secure and maintain good physical health, to live modestly but tastefully, and not to deceive yourself about who you are or to what you aspire. The moral prescriptions that guide this conduct are universal in that they apply not only to you, but to all rational human agents. They are also general in that they include no proper names or definite descriptions. Moreover, they are impartial, for they require you to accord no special privilege to your personal requirements, merely in virtue of the fact that you are the agent whose behavior you are evaluating. Of course your moral theory includes provisions for different circumstances and social relations, for example that the elderly deserve special respect for their wisdom and experience, that one has special obligations to family and loved ones, and so on. Nevertheless, it applies universally, generally and impartially, for there is nothing in it tailored to fit your particular situation. Now if this moral theory entailed an impersonal or dissociated point of view, then since this point of view is the symptom of moral alienation, we would be forced to conclude from your overriding investment in this moral theory that you were alienated from those of your central desires and ground projects thus overridden. But surely you are so alienated only if your personal investment in your ground projects outweighs your personal investment in the moral theory with which they may conflict; and surely this is a moot question. I shall say that an agent A is personally invested in some state of affairs x if © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
