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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception 283 most famous whistle-blower of them all, for exposing the ignorance and pretentiousness of his fellow citizens and refusing to retract his criticisms even though his stubbornness condemned him to death: Perhaps someone will say: 'Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of leading a life which is very likely now to cause your death?' I should answer him with justice, and say: 'My friend, if you think that a man of any worth at all ought to reckon the chances of life and death when he acts, or that he ought to think of anything but whether he is acting justly or unjustly, and as a good or a bad man would act, you are mistaken.' … Wherever a man's station is, whether he has chosen it of his own will, or whether he has been placed at it by his commander, there it is his duty to remain and face the danger without thinking of death or of any other thing except disgrace. … it would be very strange conduct on my part if I were to desert my station now from fear of death or of any other thing when the god has commanded me - as I am persuaded that he has done - to spend my life in searching for wisdom, and in examining myself and others.23 The whistle-blower, then, is the direct antithesis of the free rider discussed in Chapter IV.8 above. Whereas the free rider violates moral rules for the sake of personal advantage, the whistle-blower violates immoral rules for the sake of others' advantage. Whereas universalization of the free rider's behavior leads to social chaos, instantiation (or, for that matter, universalization) of the whistle-blower's behavior leads to social benefit. And whereas the free rider's success depends on private concealment, the whistle-blower's success depends on public disclosure. In essence, the whistle-blower redresses the injustices free riders collectively perpetrate. In this respect, the whistle-blower is a significant though widely neglected paradigm of right conduct for moral philosophy. The foregoing discussion supplies the necessary apparatus for a character profile of the whistle-blower that proposes to explain how she might be motivated to redress injustice even when desire plays no role. Three predominant traits that characterize the whistle-blower are genuine preference, interiority, and motivationally effective intellect. First, the whistleblower is consistent, or asymptotically approximates consistency, in her choices over time, in the sense discussed in Chapters III and IV. This is a case that shows how my and McClennen's psychologies of choice are mutually interdependent: the whistle-blower remembers and is guided by the priorities she established in earlier choices as she is choosing on the present occasion; chooses in the knowledge that she is similarly accountable to the future self that reflects back on this present choice; and so commits herself resolutely to that course of action on which she knows she can follow through. That is, the Plato, Apology XV.28 - XVII.29, in Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Trans. F. J. Church and Robert D. Cumming (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 34-35. 23 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
