| OCR Text |
Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 539 theorizing in claiming this; or with impartiality, as though they did not intend these very claims to apply impartially; or with moral ideals, as though the compassionate acceptance of agents' moral flaws and imperfections were not itself a moral ideal. None have suggested, as Baier does, that a familial model of interconnected but unequal power relationships among morally imperfect agents itself should be the measure of moral analysis. This is a much harder suggestion to refute, because it conforms so much better than the Contract-Theoretic model, even in the professional and market spheres, to the actual facts of our lives. Baier stresses the neglect by the Social Contract-Theoretic tradition of the roles of women and children. But in reality it applies no more closely to the roles of actual men, who are just as dependent, unequal in power, and involved in intimate relationships as women. That Baier's Humean familial model is so much more directly relevant does not make it any easier to live up to - to refrain from emotionally abusing our children when they get on our nerves, for example; or from publicly one-upping our spouse for their household incompetence out of barely repressed hostility; or from undermining a colleague who is treading on our professional turf. So it does not quiet the typical Anti-Rationalist complaint that normative moral theory is too demanding, nor license its conclusion that we should just all relax and do what we like. Baier's recommendations are just as demanding, if not more so; and they are very far from licensing us to relax and do what we like. The challenge Baier's thesis presents is rather to show why the Social Contract-Theoretic model should be retained at all, if it bears no realistic relationship to what we actually are and do. Kant's favorite tactic for de-fanging Hume is the one I am deploying throughout this project: to accept but subsume Hume's analysis of something - causality, substance, the self, practical reason - as a special case under one that is deeper and more comprehensive in scope. As a good Kantian, I believe this tactic will work particularly well against Baier's Humean analysis. Specifically, I think it can be shown that there is plenty of room for both the familial and the Contract-Theoretic model within a fully elaborated moral theory; and that the relation of the familial model to the Contract-Theoretic model is one of lower-level generalization to higher-level theoretical construct within such a theory. I do not try to defend this claim until Volume II, Chapter V.5.2. But I can try here merely to suggest some ways in which Baier's recommendations for revising the central orientation of normative moral theory are not as incompatible with Kantian Social Contract Theory as she makes them out to be. The importance for normative moral theory of the question of how to raise children to be responsible moral agents and so insure the moral stability and continuity of a community, and of how this essential activity should be conceptualized within any such theory that purports to have practical © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
