| OCR Text |
Show Chapter XI. Brandt's Instrumentalism 472 thought and reasoning a subsidiary and instrumental role in achieving its ends. On these views, however, desire itself (not just one of its components) is an occurrent mental event that causes subsequent events, such as thought about how to satisfy it and instrumental action intended to do so. Even on these views, desire is not a sufficient cause of action, since other necessary background conditions also must be satisfied. But once they are, desire precipitates rational calculation and determines whether the act is finally performed or not. On Brandt's view, by contrast, desire no longer has this centrally determining role. Brandt's modification of the traditional view treats desire as a thought-activated disposition to act rather than as an occurrent event. Of course a disposition can be a contributing cause. But it cannot be a precipitating cause because it cannot itself be the thing that activates the disposition. On Brandt's view, thought - i.e. an occurrent belief about the consequence of performing the contemplated action - has this centrally determining role. Without such a belief, on Brandt's view, there would be no increase in an agent's tendency to perform the designated action, and hence no desire to perform it. When Brandt then maintains that "what an agent does is always a function of his desires at the time; there is no such thing as motivation by beliefs alone" (83), he is maintaining that such a thought is not sufficient in itself, in the absence of a prior disposition, to cause action. He says, If some philosophers have thought, as some seem to have done, that a person can do his duty even if so doing is not positively valenced for him [i.e. if he is not disposed to do so], ... perhaps 'out of respect' for duty in some sense, they were wrong; and their psychology of morality needs basic revision (66-67). On the tautologous reading of Brandt's thesis about desire, there would be no conflict between that thesis and the Kantian claim, which Brandt obviously means to oppose, that one might act out of respect for or knowledge of one's moral duty. That is, it might be true both that one has a net tendency to do what one does, and also that that tendency or disposition itself was caused by respect for or knowledge of the moral law. On the nontautologous reading of Brandt's thesis, acting out of respect for or knowledge of one's moral duty against one's settled character dispositions would be psychologically impossible. Knowledge of one's moral duty could precipitate action only if one had a prior disposition to do it. The extent to which even this nontautologous reading of Brandt's thesis conflicts with the Kantian claim is a matter for debate, since Kant agrees with Aristotle that cultivating the appropriate character dispositions facilitates and is indeed a precondition for © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
