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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 387 retrospectively, that I must have desired something different after all. Any internal, structural conflict I may experience over an action I have performed is a conflict, not between warring motivational components of the self; but rather between what I believe I desire and what I desire in fact. On the Humean analysis, beliefs are not motivational components at all, and irrespective of them, I always do what I most desire in fact. Since the desire to do what I did in fact is a ubiquitous feature of action, so is my pro-attitude toward it. How weakness of will can ever occur is then a mystery indeed. Stephen Schiffer 12 analyzes weakness of will as the case in which an agent's first-order desire to φ is stronger than her first-order desire not to φ, her second-order desire not to act on her first-order desire to φ is stronger than her second-order desire to act on her first-order desire to φ, yet she φs anyway. Her first-order desire to φ is therefore stronger than her second-order desire not to act on her first-order desire to φ. That she φs in spite of her second-order desire not to act on her first-order desire to φ is what qualifies her action as weakness of will. I have already addressed some of the difficulties of this type of view in discussing Frankfurt in Chapter VIII.2. It can be added here that this is recognizable as a case of weakness of will only if the agent's first-order desire is irrational and her second-order desire rational; but neither Frankfurt nor Schiffer offer any assurance that it must be. For example, suppose φ is "to obtain adequate rest." Then in what sense am I suffering from weakness of will if I favor this desire over my second-order, reflective desire not to? Even Davidson's compelling example, in which I compulsively get up to brush my teeth even though this will make no difference to my dental health but will disturb my sleep, 13 preserves the rationality of the reflective desire I flout. Davidson may be right that the reflective desire or judgment I violate need not be moral. But it nevertheless must be rational in order to enter into an occurrence of weakness of will. Neither Frankfurt's nor Schiffer's analyses meet this requirement. These two conceptions of action thus radically diverge. Whereas the Kantian tradition defines the consequent action with reference to its antecedent intention, the Humean tradition defines the antecedent desire with reference to its consequent action. So whereas the Kantian tradition implicitly assumes that actions depend for their identification on the independent and antecedent intentions that precipitate them, the Humean tradition implicitly assumes that desires depend for their identification on the independent and consequent actions they precipitate. Marrying the two traditions as Gewirth tries to do engenders a very odd hybrid. Gewirth means only to equate intentions with a certain species of Stephen Schiffer, "A Paradox of Desire," American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (1976), 195-203. 13 See Davidson, op. cit. Note 9. 12 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
