Caring, Identification, and Agency

Ethics

Volumn 114, Issue 1, 2003, Pages

  Shoemaker, David W ^a  

^a CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 1642499422     PISSN: 00141704     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/376718     Document Type: Review

References (57)

1. I borrow this way of conceptualizing the matter from Gary Watson, in "Free Action and Free Will," Mind 96 (1987): 145-72, p. 145.
2. Harry Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," in his The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 11-25.
3. Gary Watson, "Free Agency," in Free Will, ed. Gary Watson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 96-110.
4. See Watson, "Free Agency," pp. 108-9, and "Free Action and Free Will," pp. 148-49.
5. See Watson, "Free Agency," pp. 108-9, and "Free Action and Free Will," pp. 148-49.
6. Watson, "Free Action and Free Will," p. 149.
7. Ibid., p. 150.
8. Ibid., pp. 150-51.
9. For a paradigm example of this method at work on behalf of libertarianism, see C. A. Campbell, "Has the Self 'Free Will'?" in his On Selfhood and Godhood (London: Allen & Unwin, 1957), pp. 158-79. For a very recent example, see John Searle, Rationality in Action (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), esp. pp. 61-96.
10. For a paradigm example of this method at work on behalf of libertarianism, see C. A. Campbell, "Has the Self 'Free Will'?" in his On Selfhood and Godhood (London: Allen & Unwin, 1957), pp. 158-79. For a very recent example, see John Searle, Rationality in Action (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), esp. pp. 61-96.
11. Frankfurt suggests something like this in "On Caring," in his Necessity, Volition, and Love (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 155-80, esp. pp. 159-61. In what follows, however, I construct a detailed account of the nature of caring, as well as its relation to desires and evaluative judgments, that may differ from Frankfurt's account in significant ways. I will note this divergence where it occurs.
12. Of course, there may be certain objects of care not vulnerable to the gains and losses of other cared-for objects, in which case when I care about them I am not myself vulnerable to any emotional ups and downs. Indeed, this may be a good reason to care about such things. So, e.g., the Stoics and Spinoza recommend to us caring about the rational order of the universe and our own reason as a part of that rational order. In directing our attention to this object, we know that it is invulnerable to changes in fortune, and so we know it will not constitute a source of emotional vulnerability in us. Of course, this possibility does not undermine the general point in the text, for if, say, the rational order were subject to gains and losses, I would still be tied to it in a way that would produce emotional ups and downs in me as well. I am grateful to Martha Nussbaum for this point.
13. There might be thought to be another alternative here, illustrated by the alleged experiences of (successful) Buddhists and Stoics who perhaps claim to care about the lives of those around them but who experience no negative emotions upon their deaths. I would need to know much more than I do about both sorts of people to assess such claims properly; instead, I simply register here my deep skepticism that this is actually what is going on. My suspicion is either that they have somehow managed not to care or that they do experience emotions, albeit overtly unexpressed.
14. Two points; first, this in no way is meant to constitute a so-called reductive analysis of emotions. I am neutral on what emotions are, or consist in - whether, e.g., they are just evaluative judgments, say, or just desires or some combination of the two (or something else). Instead, I am simply concerned to point out what I take to be an analytic truth about what makes an emotional reaction an emotional reaction. So even if emotions are just desires, or just judgments, what makes those mental states emotions is just their being interpretable in light of cares. Second, I am here simply applying a somewhat familiar recent normative view of the mind to caring and emotions. For more robust articulations and defenses of such a view, however, see, e.g., Donald Davidson, in various of his essays collected in Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987); and Simon Blackburn, Ruling Passions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 52-59.
15. Two points; first, this in no way is meant to constitute a so-called reductive analysis of emotions. I am neutral on what emotions are, or consist in - whether, e.g., they are just evaluative judgments, say, or just desires or some combination of the two (or something else). Instead, I am simply concerned to point out what I take to be an analytic truth about what makes an emotional reaction an emotional reaction. So even if emotions are just desires, or just judgments, what makes those mental states emotions is just their being interpretable in light of cares. Second, I am here simply applying a somewhat familiar recent normative view of the mind to caring and emotions. For more robust articulations and defenses of such a view, however, see, e.g., Donald Davidson, in various of his essays collected in Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987); and Simon Blackburn, Ruling Passions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 52-59.
16. Two points; first, this in no way is meant to constitute a so-called reductive analysis of emotions. I am neutral on what emotions are, or consist in - whether, e.g., they are just evaluative judgments, say, or just desires or some combination of the two (or something else). Instead, I am simply concerned to point out what I take to be an analytic truth about what makes an emotional reaction an emotional reaction. So even if emotions are just desires, or just judgments, what makes those mental states emotions is just their being interpretable in light of cares. Second, I am here simply applying a somewhat familiar recent normative view of the mind to caring and emotions. For more robust articulations and defenses of such a view, however, see, e.g., Donald Davidson, in various of his essays collected in Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987); and Simon Blackburn, Ruling Passions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 52-59.
17. As already suggested in the text, I intend this claim to cover only mature adults. Infants (and some nonhuman animals) may experience rudimentary emotions, but they surely lack the capacity to care about anything (see, e.g., Frankfurt, "On Caring," pp. 157-58), precisely because they lack the cognitive machinery for critical self-reflection, judgment, and interpretation. Borrowing from Antonio Damasio, we can articulate this point in terms of an already intuitive distinction between primary and secondary emotions. Primary emotions are like reflexes, responses triggered with no mediation by the cognitive mechanisms of the prefrontal cortex, and the emotional reactions falling under this rubric are the familiar "automatic" ones of fear, anger, and surprise. Secondary emotions, on the other hand, require the cognitive ability consciously to entertain a variety of mental images and considerations with respect to the myriad relationships between self, others, and events, i.e., to engage in "a cognitive evaluation of the contents of the event of which you are a part" (Antonio Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain [New York: Putnam's, 1994], p. 136). This, I take it, is the capacity that infants (and nonhuman animals) lack. The analytic relation between emotions and cares discussed in the text, therefore, holds only with respect to these secondary, more robust or developed emotions.
18. As already suggested in the text, I intend this claim to cover only mature adults. Infants (and some nonhuman animals) may experience rudimentary emotions, but they surely lack the capacity to care about anything (see, e.g., Frankfurt, "On Caring," pp. 157-58), precisely because they lack the cognitive machinery for critical self-reflection, judgment, and interpretation. Borrowing from Antonio Damasio, we can articulate this point in terms of an already intuitive distinction between primary and secondary emotions. Primary emotions are like reflexes, responses triggered with no mediation by the cognitive mechanisms of the prefrontal cortex, and the emotional reactions falling under this rubric are the familiar "automatic" ones of fear, anger, and surprise. Secondary emotions, on the other hand, require the cognitive ability consciously to entertain a variety of mental images and considerations with respect to the myriad relationships between self, others, and events, i.e., to engage in "a cognitive evaluation of the contents of the event of which you are a part" (Antonio Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain [New York: Putnam's, 1994], p. 136). This, I take it, is the capacity that infants (and nonhuman animals) lack. The analytic relation between emotions and cares discussed in the text, therefore, holds only with respect to these secondary, more robust or developed emotions.
19. I am grateful to two editors at Ethics for suggesting this worry.
20. Compare Frankfurt, "On Caring," p. 157.
21. See ibid., pp. 161-62, for Frankfurt's discussion of commitment. I differ from his account slightly here insofar as I locate the object of commitment to be the cared-for object and not the desire for that object.
22. Ibid., p. 158.
23. Ibid. Of course, if we restrict the permissible content of evaluative judgments to those having to do with the agent's most important goals or projects, then we've got a distinction without a difference. See, e.g., Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 22. But I think that there remains a distinction between caring and evaluative judgment in our ordinary usage and consideration of the matter, and because one of my ultimate targets here is Watson's account of free agency, and because he takes there to be such a distinction, I think it best to leave it intact.
24. Ibid. Of course, if we restrict the permissible content of evaluative judgments to those having to do with the agent's most important goals or projects, then we've got a distinction without a difference. See, e.g., Martha Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 22. But I think that there remains a distinction between caring and evaluative judgment in our ordinary usage and consideration of the matter, and because one of my ultimate targets here is Watson's account of free agency, and because he takes there to be such a distinction, I think it best to leave it intact.
25. And Watson himself recognizes that his original model (in "Free Agency") "conflates valuing with judging good," See "Free Action and Free Will," p. 150.
26. Watson, "Free Action and Free Will," p. 150.
27. For the notion of a wanton, see Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," pp. 16-19.
28. T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 372.
29. Frankfurt advances a similar sort of argument against a slightly different target in his article "Rationalism in Ethics," in Autonomes handeln: Beitrage zur philosophie von Harry G. Frankfurt, ed. Monika Betzler and Barbara Guckes (Berlin: Akademie, 2000), pp. 259-73.
30. There is an enormous literature on the concept of guilt (usually contrasted with shame). But for the basic - and, I take it, fairly uncontroversial - view I am presenting here, see, e.g., Blackburn, pp. 16-21; and Bernard Williams, "Morality and the Emotions," in his Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 207-29, pp. 222-23.
31. There is an enormous literature on the concept of guilt (usually contrasted with shame). But for the basic - and, I take it, fairly uncontroversial - view I am presenting here, see, e.g., Blackburn, pp. 16-21; and Bernard Williams, "Morality and the Emotions," in his Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 207-29, pp. 222-23.
32. See, e.g., Herbert Morris, "Nonmoral Guilt," in Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions, ed. Ferdinand Schoeman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 220-40, p. 226.
33. See Frankfurt, "Rationalism in Ethics," for a similar point. This is not to say, however, that in these nonmoral cases I am moved by Reason alone either (when I adhere to its deliverances). For in violating these requirements I may also experience certain emotions (e.g., embarrassment or foolishness), emotions that also presuppose certain carings, e.g., caring about consistency or having transitive preference orderings, and this suggests again the main thesis here, that my motivational reasons for action are tied intimately to my nexus of cares.
34. Although, I hasten to add, mere harmony between one's motives and one's cares will not be sufficient for free agency. Something more is needed, namely, a dependence relation between motivation and care.
35. See Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," pp. 17-25.
36. What, though, of the willing addict, who, while certainly addicted to the drug, nevertheless loves his addiction and would do what he could to maintain it were it to wane? (See ibid., pp. 24-25.) The first thing to note is that his will to take the drug would be effective regardless of whether he loved being an addict. His will is, let us assume, shaped initially by his physiological addiction and so is, at least to that extent, independent of his nexus of cares. But because he now cares about the drug, his will is certainly not incompatible, or disharmonious, with his relevant cares, as it is for the unwilling addict; indeed, even if he were to stop being addicted, his will would remain as it is, for it would in that case depend solely on his actual cares, and furthermore it may, for all we know, actually come to depend on them as well during the period of his addiction. The only difference in such a case, then, between the willing addict and the nonaddicted but happy drug taker would be that the former's will would have one more source, namely, his physiological addiction. But insofar as it also depended on his caring about the addiction, he would not then constitute the exception to my general thesis about caring and motivation represented by the unwilling addict.
37. Harry Frankfurt, "The Importance of What We Care About," in The Importance of What We Can About, pp. 80-94, p. 86.
38. Ibid., pp. 86-88.
39. See ibid., as well as Frankfurt's "Rationality and the Unthinkable," in The Importance of What We Care About, pp. 177-90.
40. See ibid., as well as Frankfurt's "Rationality and the Unthinkable," in The Importance of What We Care About, pp. 177-90.
41. Frankfurt "Rationality and the Unthinkable," p. 183.
42. Frankfurt, "The Importance of What We Care About," p. 86.
43. Ibid., p. 85.
44. And of course we must be careful to distinguish one's emotional reaction from one's overt display of the emotional reaction. When playing poker, I may hide my joy at drawing an inside straight from the other players (because I care about winning the hand, on my analysis), but that certainly doesn't mean that I don't experience joy. Of course, the attempt to hide the reaction may be fruitless as well, given the multiplicity of "tells" people have, recognizable to those in the know.
45. I will return to the admittedly puzzling phenomenology of this sort of case later.
46. I hasten to point out, however, that this account of decision making is not a kind of "rational necessity" account, one according to which it is the force of reasons that determines one's will. While reasons and evaluations often are in harmony with one's will, it is not necessarily they which shape the will. I will return to explain this point in greater detail later on.
47. Frankfurt argues just such a point in "The Faintest Passion," in Necessity, Volition, and Love, pp. 95-107, pp. 104-5.
48. Nevertheless, I do not want to deny that there are some aspects of the deliberative process that are active in a common and intuitive sense. After all, once my will to engage in critical reflection has been necessitated by my recognition of the importance of the situation in which I find myself, there are various aspects of my reflection on the cares involved that surely feel active (where such a feeling of activity is compatible with their being caused) ; e.g., I focus my attention on certain factors over others, I relate to the variety of factors in various ways, etc. What I want to resist, though, is the typical claim in the literature that active agency extends beyond this fairly restricted range to include the making of decisions or the determining of one's will. Instead, both are passive processes, made or determined by one's passions, specified in terms of one's cares.
49. This would be the active part of agency suggested in the previous note.
50. Emphasis in original. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), pt. 1, chap. 6, p. 33.
51. Harry Frankfurt, "Identification and Wholeheartedness," in The Importance of What We Care About, pp. 159-76, p. 175.
52. There is an obvious sense in which pains and itches are psychic elements that are mine, and they can also be motivationally efficacious, but they typically move me in situations where I act wantonly (unreflectively), akin to pangs of hunger and thirst. What I am interested in, of course, are those psychic elements that are mine in the sense of identification, where the (nonwanton) actions I perform are determined by psychic elements on authority of my self. Pains or itches rarely (if ever) play such a role, and, if they do, I am maintaining that they would be connected in some way with other psychic elements (e.g., desires or judgments) that depend on my cares.
53. See, e.g., Damasio, p. 33.
54. Watson makes a similar point about one's evaluational system in "Free Agency": "One can dissociate oneself from one set of ends and principles only from the standpoint of another such set that one does not disclaim. In short, one cannot dissociate oneself from all normative judgements without forfeiting all standpoints and therewith one's identity as an agent" (p. 106). I am making a stronger point, however, namely, that one cannot dissociate oneself entirely from one's set of cares, which, while giving rise to one's specific set of evaluational judgments, are more inclusive and wide-ranging than just that set.
55. It might be objected that surely not all our cares are part of our identity. After all, I might care a great deal right now about wording this note correctly, insofar as I am emotionally vulnerable to the prospect of getting it wrong. But once I finish wording it correctly, this care will fade from my motivational structure. Have I then changed identities? Surely not, it would seem. Now while I agree that such a case would not necessarily involve a change in identity, the reason is not the fading away of the care here and now, for a care's fading away from my motivational structure does not mean that it is no longer a part of my general nexus of cares. After all, caring about wording this note correctly is surely part of a more general care I have about doing good philosophy. The specific form that the care took here and now - the way it was articulated after having been tapped into - was determined by the specific circumstances in which I found myself, needing to respond to a particular possible objection. But this is not to say that that specifically articulated care's absence from my motivational structure indicates (a) its absence altogether from my nexus of cares or (b) a corresponding change in my identity. It may, after all, be tapped into again quite soon.
56. Compare Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," p. 25.
57. Watson, "Free Action and Free Will," p. 152.