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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 521 Like the Utilitarian, parents have reasons of utility for not disclosing some of their intentions and beliefs to their children: they would be disruptive, misunderstood, have an untoward effect on psychological development, and so on. Like the Utilitarian, parents cannot require their children to make a considered judgment or mature confirmation of the validity of these beliefs. For this reason, parents, like the Utilitarian, can have a satisfying and affectionate relationship with their children, but do not expect to form the same complex relationship of mutual affect, trust, dependence, and respect that is possible with a friend or equal. Like the Utilitarian, the morally best act for a parent is often the one with the most favored consequences for others, that is, the children: parents often feel that their beliefs and efforts will be sufficiently vindicated if only their children grow up to be happy, mature, and productive adults who have recognized the value of their parents' strategies and have developed a minimal gratitude for their efforts. These are the worthwhile goals in the service of which they manipulate their children. But at this point the analogy with the Utilitarian importantly fails. For we have seen that there is, after all, no future state of things with reference to which the Utilitarian free rider may justify his policy of secrecy and manipulation and in the light of which this policy might eventually be dispensed with and commonly validated, in retrospect, as a means to the worthwhile goal of moral maturity. That is, there is no point at which the attitude of the Utilitarian toward the rest of the community can develop past the paternal attitude of a parent toward his child and no point at which the Utilitarian can eventually share with others a relationship of mutually acknowledged respect as mature, autonomous, moral adults. The consistent Utilitarian, then, must permanently regard himself as though he were the only adult in a community of children. Now multiply this pervasively unhappy attitude by the number of consistent Utilitarians, and calculate the social utility thus maximized accordingly. The more Utilitarians there are, the less social utility is maximized and the more widespread the unhappiness and self-censoring alienation inherent in simply being a consistent Utilitarian becomes. Conversely, the fewer consistent Utilitarians there are, the healthier one's social relationships, the happier one consequently feels, and the more efficiently social utility can be maximized. Social utility can be most efficiently maximized, it would seem, by abandoning the commitment to Utilitarianism entirely. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
