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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 5 point of view. It is presumed that this purpose has been achieved if the other's subsequent behavior changes accordingly. This presumption is fueled by philosophy's unsupervised influence in the political sphere - of Rousseau on the French Revolution, Locke on the American Revolution, Marx on Communism, Nietzsche on the Second World War, Rawls's Difference Principle on Reaganomics. In the private and social sphere, rational analysis and dialogue may just as easily give way to unsupervised imbalances in power and freedom, paternalistic or coercive relationships, or exploitative transactions. But even here it is not impossible for philosophy to have its influence: in turning another aside from an unethical or imprudent course of action, or requiring him to revise his views in light of certain objections, or altering his attitudes toward oneself, or influencing others to accommodate the importance of certain philosophical considerations through compromise, tolerance, or mutual agreement. In both spheres, then, the attempt rationally to persuade and to conduct oneself rationally toward others is an expression of respect, not only for their rational capacity, but thereby for the alternative resources of power - coercion, bribery, retaliation, influence - they are perceived as free to use in its stead. Toward one who is perceived to lack these alternative resources, no such respect need be shown, and raw power may be displayed and exercised more freely, without the limiting constraints of rational justification. For, as Hobbes reminds us, [h]onourable is whatsoever possession, action, or quality, is an argument or sign of power. ... And therefore to be honoured, loved, or feared of many, is honourable; as arguments of power. ... To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency, and humility, is to honour him; as signs of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do any thing before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently, is to dishonour.2 Hobbes is wrong to think that treating another with respect is nothing but an expression of fear of the other's power. But he is surely right to think that it is at least that. On Nietzsche's refinement of Hobbes' analysis, the appeal to reason expresses respect for another's rational autonomy to just and only that extent to which it simultaneously expresses fear of the alternative, nonrational ways in which that autonomy may be exercised. On Nietzsche's analysis of rational conduct, Hobbes and Kant may both be right. So philosophy's traditional commitment to the Socratic ideal is one quintessential expression of a "slave morality" that acknowledges the danger of unrestrained instinct and the egocentric use of power in its service, by to varying degrees constraining and sublimating instinct, impulse, and the manipulation of power into a rational exercise of intellect and will that brings its own fulfillments: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Ed. Michael Oakeshott (New York: Collier, 1977), 75, 74. 2 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
