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Show Chapter VI. Moral Interiority 264 Without an empathic imaginative involvement, one's understanding of the interests and preferences of others would remain purely verbal; they would be surface objects of imagination. This is not to maintain that they would be entirely lacking in significance. But one would lack insight into what was at stake psychologically and emotionally for individuals who have those preferences and interests. By contrast, to the extent that one had firstpersonal insight into what was at stake psychologically and emotionally in having one's own preferences and interests, those interests would be depth objects of imagination. In thus violating symmetry, one's capacity for impartiality would be correspondingly defective. One's judgment would be distorted by the psychologically and emotionally compelling representation of one's own interests and preferences, relative to which others' would appear by definition less compelling.4 The same argument applies when we must judge impartially, not between our own interests and another's, but between two third-personal sets of interests, in only one of which we have an imaginative involvement.5 We may begin, then, by thinking of impartiality in the judgment of preferences and interests as the result of applying a universal and general, normative moral concept or principle to those relevantly situated agents' inner states selected by the terms of that principle, such that the inner states of the person applying the principle do not lead him to tailor its application to his own situation, nor add special weight to his personal interests or allegiances in determining its application; this just is the conception of Could one be impartial in one's judgment if both one's own and the other's interests were equally surface, rather than depth objects of imagination? Since symmetry would remain inviolate, why not? Since, in this case, one's capacity to understand any of the interests in question would be vitiated, a fortiori one's capacity to judge them impartially would be as well. 5For example, consider the California association of African-American social workers that has successfully lobbied for legislation prohibiting the adoption of AfricanAmerican children by Euroethnic families, even when those families have served the child in the capacity of foster parent for a sufficiently extended period of time that strong emotional and psychological bonds have formed between foster parents and child. The association's reasoning is that African-Americans in general are best served by being raised in cohesive African-American families - a concern with which all adult African-Americans can identify. What the association seems to lack is the empathic understanding of what it means to a child to have psychological bonds of trust and affection with an adult caretaker destroyed, and destroyed repeatedly as the child is moved from one foster home to another; and what toll this will take on the child's capacity to form bonds of trust and affection with anyone as an adult. It would seem that the association's failure of imaginative involvement with the child's inner states as depth objects, and correspondingly deep imaginative involvement with the long-term interests of adult African-Americans as a group, incapacitates its members from impartially carrying out their mandate to protect and promote the child's best interests. 4 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
