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Show Chapter VIII. First-Person Anomaly 338 using them to rationalize theoretically anomalous ethical violations in biased defense of our high opinion of ourselves. For they signal to us that the conventional association between term and referent, concept and particular, is being broken; and so that the needs of understanding and communication are being subordinated to the requirements of self-defense. These signals ramify the internal disjunctions between principles and practice into a much larger disjunction between mind and world. That is why we often say about selfdeceivers who are truly adept at rationalization that they are "out of touch with reality," or "living in their heads." 4.2. Kant on Dissociation Kant's discussion in the Groundwork also describes the interior rational disintegrity that biased negation can wreak. He says, If we now attend to ourselves whenever we transgress a duty, we find that we in fact do not will our maxim to become a universal law - since this is impossible for us - but rather that its opposite remain a law universally: we only take the liberty of making an exception to it for ourselves (or even for just this once) to the advantage of our inclination (G, Ak. 424; italics in text). Here Kant describes the condition in which we believe deeply in some moral principle, believe also that everyone should abide by it, and knowingly make an exception to it in our own behavior. In this case, we evade a moral obligation, as well as the charge of personal bias in application of it, by excluding our own behavior from its scope of application. As an example, take the principle of keeping one's promises. Again we probably all can agree that the world would be a better place if everyone kept their promises, and condemn those who fail to keep theirs. And again we may hold these convictions with special fervor about those who break their promises to us. The experience of having relied on another's word in formulating an action plan, and then trying futilely to execute it as we watch its foundations buckle is equally painful, and not only because the promisebreaker disrespects and sabotages our rational autonomy. The promisebreaker's betrayal is a more elemental withdrawal of epistemological preconditions - in whose existence we were rationally justified in believing - for the prima facie success of that action plan. Again the experience of effectively thrashing around on a rug that has just been pulled out from under one's feet is extremely unpleasant. Yet here, too, we often violate the symmetry requirement. We let ourselves off the hook about keeping promises made to others, when fulfilling such an obligation would be inconvenient, or require a greater investment of time or resources than we want to make, or when a more attractive or selfenhancing commitment beckons. Under these circumstances we may be the ones to yank the rug - perhaps on the grounds that the original promise was © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
