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Show Chapter XV. Seven Dogmas of Humeanism 608 affairs, thus providing support both to the primacy of sentential propositions as the basic units of meaning, and to the is-ought distinction as confining meaning to the physically verifiable. Conversely, these six dogmas lend support to the Humean conception. Behaviorism implies an interpretation of desire of the sort that revealed preference theory supplies. Epiphenomenalism and mind-body materialism together underwrite the interpretation of such desires as exclusively physical, and the interpretation of rational judgments about ideal and therefore nonverifiable states of affairs as both causally impotent and meaningless. This interpretation is given further credibility by the presupposition that sentential propositions that refer to physically verifiable states of affairs are the fundamental units of meaning. If only third-personally observable physical behavior exists, then firstpersonal mental states do not. Rather, they are manifested in verbal and other physical behavior to the extent that they exist at all. If the mind is epiphenomenal and causally ineffectual, then verbal behavior that purports to express thoughts and beliefs in sentential propositions not only manifests epiphenomenal and causally ineffectual mental states of the agent, but also communicates them in an epiphenomenal and causally ineffectual manner. A fortiori, verbal behavior that purports to express rational thoughts and beliefs in sentential propositions that refer to ideal states of affairs manifests epiphenomenal and causally ineffectual states of the agent, communicates them epiphenomenally and ineffectually, and refers to nothing. Therefore reason is causally, i.e. motivationally ineffectual both first- and secondpersonally. So not only are rational principles impotent to motivate our behavior first-personally. In addition, second-personal appeals to reason in others are impotent to motivate their behavior. Then in particular, the second-personal appeals to reason that form the foundation of philosophical practice in the Socratic metaethical tradition are in theory incapable of doing the job to which they purport to be committed. Hence philosophical practice itself as traditionally self-represented is without practical effect. Moreover, if all our actions seek to satisfy our desires, then maximizing the satisfaction of desire, i.e. utility, is our only final end, and this end is revealed in the physical behavior in which we engage. Then in particular, our physical behavior of, for example, analyzing, arguing, criticizing, theorizing and so on, maximizes our desires to do those things, and supplies some of the more innocuous reasons why we do philosophy. Similarly, physical behavior that maximizes the satisfaction of our desires to win, shine, show off, acquire power, or subjugate others supplies some of the more noxious ones. The transpersonally rational ideal of gaining reflective consensus on a transpersonally justifiable ethics, politics or society has nothing to do with it. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
