| OCR Text |
Show Chapter IX. The Problem of Moral Justification 360 1.2. Expressive Norms Anderson's second requirement, however, is that in genuinely expressing one's valuations in action, one thereby communicates one's regard for the object's importance to some possible observer or listener. To do this requires that others can identify our behavior as appropriate, i.e. as meeting shared behavioral standards for expressing that valuation. This is the sense in which Anderson wants to claim that expressing valuations is governed by shared social norms relative to which others can recognize our behavior as expressing the valuations we intend to express by it. So in order to count as an authentic valuation, on Anderson's view, an agent must not only manifest overtly a positive valuational attitude. Indeed she also must not only express that attitude in action that establishes a relationship to the object she values. In addition, the action must be intelligible to others as an expression of her regard for that object. If the action through which the agent expresses her connection and regard for the object valued does not (or could not) communicate that regard to other agents, she does not qualify as authentically valuing that object at all. This is a very strong claim. But there is no ambiguity in Anderson's formulation of it. She argues that "I am capable of valuing something in a particular way only in a social setting that upholds norms for that mode of valuation. ... To care about something in a distinctive way, one must participate in a social practice of valuation governed by norms for its sensible expression" (12). Earlier I suggested that intrinsically valuing a person or thing requires not only a complex of favorable emotions and dispositions toward her or it, but also that this complex exhibit a certain internal consistency determined by our concept of valuation itself. So, as we saw, loving one's children requires pride on some occasions, alarm and a disposition to rescue them on others. This suggestion was consistent with the exclusive definition of an attitude, since it did not require a necessary connection between these emotional and dispositional responses on the one hand, and action on the other. By contrast, we can now see that Anderson's account does require this, and more. Her idea is that one must conform one's action to the shared behavioral norms prescribing appropriate expression of a particular mode of valuation in order to be said to value something in that way at all. The example she gives is that of honoring someone. Her claim is that if we do not physically do what counts socially as honoring her, e.g. treating her deferentially, applauding her or paying her obeisance under the appropriate circumstances, etc., we cannot be said truly to honor her. This seems right. But these are all actions whose connections to valuational mental states of the agent are contingent at best. Honoring may usually include valuational attitudes such as respect, admiration, perhaps affection, or esteem. But the © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
