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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 595 most proximate interests, objects of desires, and appraisals, but explicitly to assume the vantage point of a psychologically or spatiotemporally remote interest, object of desire, or appraisal in order to achieve this. These two are distinct. I can detach myself from my closest concerns by emotionally withdrawing from them. By repressing diminishing, or subduing the intensity of my desire for a Black Forest Torte, I achieve a certain detachment from this desire. It ceases to upset my composure, hence permits me to reflect on it more tranquilly, or consider with greater liberality features of it that my emotional investment in it might otherwise obscure or bypass altogether. A person who is not temperamentally susceptible to tempestuous feelings is able to view most of his interests and desires with greater intellectual clarity and equanimity, for it allows him to analyze and explain such things without the unbalancing impediment of emotional involvement. But emotional detachment is not sufficient for achieving the objective perspective. For it does not follow from my lack of emotional upheaval over my most proximate objects of desire or appraisal that I therefore do not, because of their proximity, mistakenly ascribe to them primary value. That is, it does not immediately follow from the assumption that the calm passions are governing one's behavior that one thereby appraises objects of desire judiciously. It is hardly unusual to encounter a person who is both calm and biased; whose emotional tranquility is matched only by a staunch conviction in the primacy of her personal interests above general ones. Hence it is not enough to distance oneself merely from the distorting effects of the violent passions, for this degree of detachment is nevertheless consistent with maintaining the subjective perspective. Unbiased and judicious judgment requires, in addition, that one view one's subjective perspective itself from a distance. And this requires not just emotional detachment, but intellectual and psychological distance from one's concerns as well. Hume's specification that one assume the vantage point of distant concerns makes this requirement explicit. However, concerns can be distant in two ways. They can be distant from the constellation of interests, desires, beliefs, and judgments that constitute my present self, but nevertheless proximate to the constellation that I now know will compromise my future self, or my overall self considered through each moment of time. This would be the stance of enlightened self-interest. Alternately, concerns can be distant from my self simpliciter, i.e. such as will never constitute part of myself from any temporal perspective, hence can never be subsumed under the rubric of self-interest. This would be the transpersonal stance of strict impartiality. I discuss the concept of impartiality in detail in Volume II, Chapter VI. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
