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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception 257 namely her inner states. To entertain another's inner state as a surface object of imagination is also an exercise of modal imagination, therefore might suffice for mere verbal ascription of inner states to explain another's behavior. But it is insufficient for empathic understanding of that behavior. An involvement with another's inner states as an imaginative object requires that one empathically experience those states as well. An inappropriate involvement that violates 3(a), i.e. vicarious possession, has this feature to an excessive degree. In the case of vicarious possession by another person's inner states, one treats one's own inner states as surface objects and the other's inner states as depth objects. To appropriate the other's experience as one imagines it into one's self and replace one's own with it is to (1) empathically experience the other's feelings as one imagines them to the exclusion of one's own reactions to them (i.e. a case of being "out of touch with one's feelings"); (2) be so preoccupied with imagining what the other is thinking that one's own thoughts are temporarily suppressed; (3) act in a way that reflects one's conception of the other's wishes or desires as to how one should act or what should be done. In general, to be vicariously possessed by another person's inner states means that one's own sentience, rationality, and agency are suppressed in favor of the other's as one empathically imagines them to be. This constitutes an abdication of one's self to another as one imagines him. By contrast, an inappropriate involvement that violates 3(b), i.e. selfabsorption, lacks this feature entirely. When another's inner states are treated as surface objects in deference to one's own as depth objects of imagination, the constituents of one's interpretation of her behavior are empty words at best (assuming one bothers to interpret her behavior at all). Terms such as "headache", "grief", or "starvation" fail to elicit in one any corresponding empathic response altogether. This is one state of mind that makes it easy to toss the letter from the charitable concern into the trash. The moral term for this condition is "callousness", and it constitutes a sacrifice of another's inner states as one conceives them to one's absorption in one's own. 4.3. Symmetry The contrast between both of these brands of inappropriate imaginative involvement and an appropriate one is that in the latter case, one manages to retain the empathic experience of the other's inner state and the reactions that constitute one's own simultaneously and with equal vividness, in such a way that neither 3(a) nor 3(b) is violated. One holds two equally vivid and sharply distinct experiences - one's own response and the other's as one empathically imagines it - in mind simultaneously. An appropriate imaginative © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
