The Retreat of Reason Part 8 pptx

Prudence: Maximization or Idealism? 349

represent myself suffering at another time than the actual present one does not necessarily

include this feature: here it is indeed possible that I now strongly detest that state of

affairs which I desire at the time represented and the absence of which then induces

me to suffer. And this current dislike might (legitimately) counteract my sympathetic

concern.

There are then crucial disanalogies between the case of being conscious of one’s

present attitudes (towards one’s experiences) and representing or imagining the attitudes

one would have (towards one’s experiences) at times that are not now actual. If one

overlooks these disanalogies and assumes that what is true in the former case is true in

the latter case as well, it might well seem to one, I surmise, that the explanation of this

fact is something like the PHS.

Prudentialism and Higher and Lower Qualities of Fulfilment

My argument has only been to the effect that the maximalist or prudentialist reaction

prescribed by Hare’s PHS is not rationally required in the realm of prudence, not that it is

in any sense irrational or rationally impermissible.¹² The idealist option of wanting

something more than the inter-temporal maximization of one’s own fulfilment is also

rationally permissible. To assess properly the denial of a requirement to accept prudential￾ism, it should be remembered that the prudentialist aim of inter-temporally maximizing

one’s own experiential fulfilment need not be understood in a purely quantitative

fashion, as it often has been, but could allow for a differentiation between higher and

lower fulfilment, as remarked in Chapter 10. This follows from the rejection of the

arguments in favour of prudentialism given in the foregoing sections.

Imagine that we discover a drug which slows down our life-processes and which,

thereby, enables us to live lives more than ten times as long as our present lives. The drug,

however, has the side-effect of making our mental faculties duller; they are reduced

to the level of, say, pigs (as we have seen, such a transformation would not destroy our

identity). But, in our present advanced state of technology, we also have the power to

arrange the environment so that, were we to turn into pig-minded beings, we could live

satisfied throughout our long pig-lives. No doubt, under these conditions the average life

of a pig would contain quantitatively much more fulfilment than an average human life

in an affluent country now does.¹³

Nevertheless, prudentialists need not advise us to take the drug. For, even if they

vividly imagine how overwhelmingly pleasant, quantitatively speaking, a pig-life would

be, it is possible for prudentialists to prefer a life in which they could fulfil some of the

more sophisticated desires they currently possess, but would lose were they to turn

¹² Hare’s earlier position (1963: 121) seems closer to mine, for here he claims that it would be a mistake “to try to incor￾porate ideals into a utilitarian theory”. This is exactly what my argument will result in, when in the next chapter, it is

extended into the inter-personal domain of morality. ¹³ Cf. Parfit’s “Drab Eternity” (1986: 160).

pig-like. This is possible because, even though a desire is conditional upon its yielding

experiential fulfilment, not only the intensity and the duration of the fulfilment, but

also its quality, that is, its object, may be a reason for preferring its satisfaction—even at

the cost of the satisfaction being shorter or less intense. Thus, the goal of fulfilment￾maximization could be interpreted in a (to my mind, at least) more plausible way than

it sometimes is. Idealism, therefore, has a worthy opponent.

350 Rationality and Personal Neutrality

27

THE REQUIREMENT OF

PERSONAL NEUTRALITY

THE subject-matter of prudence is the consequences of one’s actions in so far as they affect

only one’s own (ultimately) intrinsic desires. The question of how to live here takes the

limited form: ‘In the light of philosophical truth, what life have I most reason to lead, tak￾ing into account only my own intrinsic desires?’ A traditional reply is an inter-temporally

maximizing one: I should lead the life that contains the maximal felt fulfilment of such

desires over time. This is prudentialism which features a requirement of cognitive ration￾ality that demands temporal neutrality—a requirement defended in Part III. In the last

chapter, I pointed out, however, that this temporal neutrality (which prohibits preferring

one thing to another simply because of its temporal position) does not rule out (pruden￾tial) idealism. Nor is there any other consideration—as, for example, the truth of hedonism

or the importance of one’s own identity—that shows this idealism to be cognitively irra￾tional. Hence, rationality does not force upon you the aim of inter-temporal maximiza￾tion of experiential fulfilment in the domain of prudence. You could rationally adopt

some ideal, like rationalism, which conflicts with prudentialism.

The subjectivism or desire-relativism of value espoused in Part II allows that it is best for

you now that p is true at a future time, t, although it is the case that, because of changes in

your desires, it will at t be best for you that not-p is true then. This raises the question

of whether you rationally should bring it about that p or that not-p at t. If inter-temporal

maximization were a rational requirement, there would be no doubt about the answer: you

should rationally do that which maximizes the desire-fulfilment of your whole existence.

But, if the argument of the preceding chapter is right, and rationality does not rule out

idealism in the realm of prudence, this sort of fulfilment-maximization is not required.

Extending Idealism into the Inter-personal Realm

In this chapter I lift the artificial restriction to prudence and introduce the complement￾ary dimension which spans the consequences of your actions in so far as they affect the

352 Rationality and Personal Neutrality

¹ When Susan Wolf argues that, from the “point of view of individual perfection” (1982: 437), it would not be “particu￾larly rational or good or desirable for a human being to strive” to be a moral saint (1982: 419), I think she does not do

enough to distinguish what has the sanction of this point of view from what we find (un)attractive merely as a result of the

“egoistic, hedonistic side of our natures” (1982: 496).

fulfilment of the intrinsic desires of all other beings than yourself. It is apposite to do so, since

the foregoing discussion of personal identity shows that there is a rational requirement of

personal neutrality which demands neutrality between different persons or conscious

subjects, like the requirement of temporal neutrality demands neutrality between dif￾ferent times. Thus, in the inter-personal or intersubjective domain of morality, there

operates a requirement of personal neutrality which extends the requirement of temporal

neutrality, in force in the intra-personal domain of prudence, across the lives of different

individuals.

If they want their aim to be cognitively rational, this new requirement will force

satisfactionalists to abandon prudentialism in favour of a fulfilment-maximization that is

personally neutral as well as temporally neutral—a utilitarian fulfilment-maximization.

Will it also force rationalists to surrender, in the inter-personal realm, their idealism?

No, it bans personal partialities like the O-bias; so, if one is to be cognitively rational, one

cannot favour the fulfilment of the desires of somebody at the expense of the fulfilment

of those of another simply because the first individual is oneself. This parallels the fact

that one cannot rationally prefer the fulfilment of one desire to another simply because

it is in the nearer future. But just as giving up temporal biases does not make it cognit￾ively irrational to be an idealist in the prudential case, giving up the O-bias does not make it

irrational to be an idealist in the moral case. Ideals upheld in the intra-personal domain of

prudence can be rationally transferred to the inter-personal domain of morality.

My argument for this transference is not hard to extract. I have urged that, in the name

of an ideal, it is rationally permissible to go against the fulfilment of desires that oneself

will have in the future, and thus against the goal of the inter-temporal maximization of

one’s own fulfilment (a goal which one may embrace in the future). In Chapter 23 I con￾tended that the relation of our diachronic identity, and the material and matter-based

psychological continuities that allegedly compose it, are in themselves rationally trivial.

It follows that what one may rationally do to somebody to whom one bears these rela￾tions one may do to another, otherwise similar being, to whom one does not bear these

relations. Therefore, it is rationally permissible to go against the prudentialist goal of

another, similar individual, and thus against the goal of utilitarian maximization, just as it

is permissible to reject the goal of inter-temporal maximization of one’s own fulfilment.

But we must also take care to separate this idealism from a discreditable egoism which is

under the sway of the O-bias,¹ as in the domain of prudence we must keep apart idealism

from a violation of the constraint of temporal neutrality that expresses itself, for example

in the bias towards the near.

The position in which my argument in this chapter issues is what I shall call a moral

individualism, to be distinguished from the prudential individualism which was the upshot

of the preceding chapter. If rationality had demanded inter-personal and inter-temporal

fulfilment-maximization, rationality would have been able to restrict the theoretical

The Requirement of Personal Neutrality 353

possibility that value-subjectivism leaves open of the same persons at different times,

and different persons at the same or different times, making conflicting true claims, relat￾ive to their different sets of intrinsic desires, about what is best to do. It would have been

possible to reach a consensus about what real reasons exhort one to do. But we saw in the

previous chapter that, in the domain of prudence, rationality leaves open the choice

between idealism and inter-temporal fulfilment-maximization. We shall now see that

this individualist choice extends into morality owing to the rational insignificance of

identity.

Some will think that such a moral individualism is absurdly weak. For they hold there

to be demands of rationality strong enough to establish a consensus about what should

be done in the moral realm. It is, however, hard to see how this could be feasible even if

there were objective values. I believe that it should even then be agreed that both living

in the light of truth and living a fulfilling life are on the list of objectively valuable aims.

But then, if these aims diverge, it can hardly be denied that there is room for individual￾ism in the sphere of prudence at least to the extent that one may rationally prefer one

of these aims to the other. However, given the rational insignificance of identity, this

individualism must extend into the moral sphere in which others are affected.

In any case, according to moral individualism rationality does not settle the choice

between idealism and fulfilment-maximization. Cognitive rationality does not do it, and

there is no other form of rationality that could do it. Moral individualism allows the dif￾ferent personalities or individualities of people to articulate themselves morally, in the

shape of some form of idealism, like rationalism, or in a satisfactionalist rejection of all

ideals. As I shall attempt to bring out in the next chapter, there is something attractive

about this idealism, but it has the drawback of making pressing the question of how to

cope with disagreements about what is morally right or wrong. So, in the next chapter,

I shall also point to some contingent facts about us that may help us to deal pragmatically

with these disagreements.

My characterization of morality as an inter-subjective sphere, as opposed to the intra￾subjective sphere of prudence, needs to be further clarified in some respects. Although

this conception of morality implies that one cannot act morally rightly or wrongly so

long as only one’s own desires are affected, it does not imply that the attitude of others to

one’s behaviour towards oneself is beyond the pale of moral judgement. Suppose that, in

the name of some ideal, I am (rationally) about to make my life short and poor in respect

of fulfilment. Then a utilitarian may correctly regard it as morally right for her to inter￾vene because, to her, I am another and my behaviour is at odds with a requirement of

fulfilment-maximization that she applies to all. It would be morally wrong of her to let

me go ahead, but it does not follow that I am acting morally wrongly towards myself.

Michael Slote claims that “ordinary moral thinking seems to involve an asymmetry

regarding what an agent is permitted to do to himself and what he is permitted to do to

others” (1984: 181). For instance, according to common-sense morality, it is, he writes,

“quite permissible to sacrifice one’s own greater benefit to the lesser benefit of another”

(1984: 180), but not another’s greater benefit to save one’s own smaller benefit. If an agent

were to treat another better, his action could be described, in Slote’s words, as “irrational”,