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Show Chapter X. The Criterion of Inclusiveness 406 behavior acquit him of moral responsibility for Washington's pain: if he is not enough of a basket case to be relieved of his professional responsibilities as a senior colleague, he is not enough of a basket case to be excused for not fulfilling them, either. Moreover, Smith wrongly implies that his greater familiarity with Vogeler's personal foibles furnishes a more adequate information base upon which to evaluate the moral significance of Vogeler's behavior: Having known him from college, Smith claims, he knows better than to interpret Vogeler's behavior as morally blameworthy. But Smith's greater knowledge of Vogeler does not necessarily translate into a more informed moral evaluation of him. It may be that, although Washington hardly knows Vogeler personally at all, she has often encountered individuals like him in the past. It may even be that she hardly knew any of them personally, either; yet she still may be in a position to make a more informed moral evaluation of Vogeler than Smith. For it may be that racists and misogynists almost always are basket cases in precisely the way Vogeler is; that they never mean any real harm, but are instead reacting only to their own inner anxieties, nightmares, and resentments, without the modal imagination or sensitivity to envision the psychological effect of their behavior on others. But it is hard to see why their primitively egocentric brutality should be thought to abrogate their accountability for those effects. Washington may have no interest in speculating on Vogeler's intentional states, nor consider those states relevant to the question of whether or not his behavior constitutes harassment or not. For the primary features of Vogeler's behavior relevant to Washington's moral interpretation of it are its disparity relative to publicly affirmed norms of collegial professional conduct, and the corrupt system of personal values Vogeler reveals to Washington by engaging in it. Thus Smith cannot argue that his special access to Vogeler's intentional states, which Washington lacks, furnishes him with an information base for evaluating Vogeler's behavior that is superior to Washington's. It may be that Washington's extensive past experience with this kind of behavior more than outweighs any insight she may lack into its phenomenal causes in this particular case. Moreover, it would be difficult to overestimate the importance and quality of the insight Washington gains into Vogeler's moral character solely from her special access, which she shares with no one else, to his racist and misogynist proclivities. By being their object, Washington thereby discovers in Vogeler morally significant character dispositions with which Smith may be unfamiliar, and that cannot be overridden by what Smith does know about him. Of course these proclivities may coexist with being a wonderful colleague and memorable school chum to Smith. But these positive qualities hardly can be invoked as a justification for denying the existence of the more dangerous ones as well. This would be as irrational as invoking Vogeler's racist and misogynist behavior to Washington as evidence that he © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
