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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 487 idiosyncratic in some of its details, each is similarly vulnerable to the deconditioning techniques described above. "For this reason," Brandt says, I explained 'cognitive psychotherapy' in such a way as to keep some touch with reality; so that a desire or liking ends up as irrational only to the extent that repeated self-stimulations would actually diminish it (1445; my italics). Brandt's solution to this problem is to distinguish between desires that would conceivably extinguish under cognitive psychotherapy, and those that would actually extinguish. But this is no distinction at all. By using the subjunctive, Brandt is in the realm of the counterfactually conceivable as opposed to the actual from the outset. His distinction is therefore the distinction between desires D1 and D2, such that, (1) under certain conditions, I can conceive that {I can conceive D1 as extinguishing}; and (2) under certain conditions, I can conceive D2 as actually extinguishing. But if (2) is true, then surely (3) under certain conditions, I can conceive that {I can conceive D2 as actually extinguishing}. There is then no relevant distinction between D1 and D2, since under certain conditions I can conceive both as extinguishing. Brandt's modal operators 7 "conceivably" and "actually" are doing no work here. By contrast, suppose Brandt's solution had been instead to explain cognitive psychotherapy so that a desire or liking ends up as irrational only to the extent that repeated self-stimulations will actually diminish it. A straightforward distinction between the conceivable and the actual would have preserved the desired "touch with reality." But it also would have required him to take a radical empiricist, wait-and-see attitude toward any desire proffered for rational evaluation. This would have made it impossible to speculate in advance of empirical observation on which desires were rational and which were not. We will shortly see that Brandt needs to be able to do this in order to defend his claim that benevolent desires are rational. 7 In any case, on page 212 he contradicts the distinction he offers here. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
