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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception 51 some of the many ways in which we maintain the appearance of rational integrity even when actual rational integrity has been violated. So, to apply this thesis to an example of specifically moral motivation for which a viable Kantian conception must provide an analysis, a whistleblower can be moved to publicize her company's unethical practices by an occurrent cognitive experience that, while minimally consistent with her other experiences and dispositions, nevertheless violates or threatens her convictions about fair labor practices. This experienced threat to her conception of fairness can motivate her to take steps to restore fairness by redressing unfairness, even though a desire to blow the whistle, whether selfor other-directed, is nowhere to be found - provided that the intentional content of this experience outcompetes in urgency the content of other intentional states she may also experience (for example, fear, self-seeking, greed, etc.). Whether it does or not depends, not on whether or not she has a "pro-attitude" toward fairness, but rather on how deeply embedded in the structure of the self the concept of fairness is for her. If it is very deeply a part of her, she will be moved to defend herself against assaults on it. Such whistleblower behavior would be a paradigm example of transpersonally rational motivation. Chapter VI.8 limns a psychological apparatus for explaining in greater detail how this could happen, and Chapter IX.8 offers a justification for why it ought to happen. Hence the above ruminations sketch only in very general outline the argumentative strategy of this first Part of the volume. Clearly there is a great deal more to be said. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
