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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 3 them, even if not on the importance of the particular answers I myself offer in this project. I recur often to this particular test case in the two-volume argument that follows. 1. Transpersonal Rationality and Power In order to actualize the potential for transpersonal rationality, one must first genuinely value it. That is, one must value both rational behavior that transcends the personal and egocentric, and also the character dispositions which that behavior expresses. According to Nietzsche, the capacity for reason becomes a value when it is valorized by a "slave morality" that assigns highest priority to the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality and the spirit at the expense of natural human instincts. Like a good Untertan, I intend to do exactly that in this project: not argue for the value of transpersonal rationality, but rather presuppose its value, and argue for our innate ability to turn it into a fact - what Kant optimistically calls the fact of reason. Thus I am going to presuppose that if a person's freedom to act on her impulses and gratify her desires is constrained by the existence of equally or more powerful others' conflicting impulses and desires, then she will need the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality to survive; and will assign them value accordingly. The more circumscribed her freedom and power, the more essential to survival and flourishing the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality become. And to the extent that such a person's power to achieve her ends is limited by a distribution of scarce social or material resources often less than fair or favorable to herself, she will to that extent, at least, value the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality as a needed source of strength and solace. Genuinely valuing the capacity for reason, then, proceeds from concrete experience of its power. On these assumptions, the valorization of the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality that typify a "slave morality" does not express mere sour grapes, as Nietzsche sometimes suggests in his more contemptuous moments. Nor does it merely make a virtue of necessity, although it does at least do that. It recognizes an intrinsic good whose value may be less evident to those for whom it is less necessary as an instrument of survival: How long will you wait to think yourself worthy of the highest and transgress in nothing the clear pronouncement of reason? ... Therefore resolve before it is too late to live as one who is mature and proficient, and let all that seems best to you be a law that you cannot transgress. ... This was how Socrates attained perfection, attending to nothing but © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
