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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 603 the rationality of those ends any more than its does the rationality of the passions themselves. Hence Hume's principles of variability and stability do not delimit a range of identifiably rational ends. For the demand for identifiably rational final ends is not for principles governing ends that are rational in virtue of the rational status of the principles. The demand is for principles governing ends that confer rational status on the ends. The PIU principles of the violent and calm passions do not meet this demand. This conclusion follows, indeed, from Hume's very characterization of the passions: [W]hat we commonly understand by passion is a violent and sensible emotion of mind, when any good or evil is presented, or any object, which, by the original formation of our faculties, is fitted to excite an appetite (T 437). Hume's first point here is that when any object that is good, evil, or capable of causing in us a desire or aversion for it is presented to us, we then experience a "violent and sensible emotion of mind," or at least a more tranquil one that "cause[s] no disorder in the temper." His second point is that the range of objects capable of affecting us in this way is constrained only by our own capacity to so respond to it, i.e. by "the original formation of our faculties." Two implications of Hume's claims follow immediately: First, the passions, both violent and calm, depend on the prior presentation of some object in order to be aroused. It is only if we are already conscious of the object as desirable or repellent that we are then incited to pursue or avoid it. Hence the passion follows rather than precedes adoption of the object as a positive or negative end. This summarizes and is underscored by Hume's earlier assertion that 'Tis from the prospects of pain or pleasure that the aversion or propensity arises toward any object: And ... these emotions extend themselves to the causes and effects of that object, as they are pointed out to us by reason and experience (T 414). This passage occurs as part of Hume's argument that reason can provide no motivation to action. But the temporal priority of perceiving the object as a source of pleasure or pain over the excitation of a motivating passion for or against it stands nevertheless. If we must perceive the object as desirable or undesirable before we are motivated to achieve or avoid it, then it must be a recognizable end for us, whether positive or negative, before we are moved to action on its behalf. But if the recognition of the object as a desirable end is presupposed by its exciting a violent or calm passion, it is not easy to see how the passions might originally determine any particular range of ends. Clearly, it would seem to be the other way around. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
