Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Practical Identity, Obligation, and Sociality

2018; Wiley; Volume: 49; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/josp.12258

1467-9833

Ana Marta González,

Ethics in medical practice

Journal of Social PhilosophyVolume 49, Issue 4 p. 610-625 Original ArticleOpen Access Practical Identity, Obligation, and Sociality Ana Marta González, Ana Marta GonzálezSearch for more papers by this author Ana Marta González, Ana Marta GonzálezSearch for more papers by this author First published: 22 November 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12258Citations: 3AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Your reasons express your identity, your nature; your obligations spring from what your identity forbids … an obligation always takes the form of a reaction against a threat of a loss of identity.(Korsgaard 1996a, 101, 102) Introduction By characterizing obligation as a reflective rejection of what threatens one's identity, Christine Korsgaard introduces a suggestive approach to this normative concept. This approach is mediated by the notion of "practical identity," which she first characterized in Sources of Normativity as "a description under which you value yourself, a description under which you find your life to be worth living and your actions to be worth undertaking" (Korsgaard 1996a, 101). She has basically maintained this approach in her more recent work focused on agency and self-constitution (Korsgaard 2009, 20). However, since obligations are usually toward others, her account could seem too self-centered; that is, by explaining obligation through identity, the other person enters the picture too late. In this article, I explore the way in which Korsgaard's approach to obligation in terms of "reflective rejection of what threatens one's identity" can be brought into harmony with the fact of human sociability, which accounts for our obligations toward others. The problem arises because, if it is only upon reflection that we find that the other is a relevant part of us, such that hurting the other is akin to hurting one's self, it is not entirely clear how to separate obligations toward the other as such and those toward one's self. William FitzPatrick (2013, 42) has suggested that Korsgaard is unable to avoid this sort of "psychologization" of moral experience, and Stefan Bird-Pollan more explicitly pointed in this direction when he asked, "Is interaction really only with one's own principle or is it with the other, actual, people who have their own principles?" (2011, 377) To this objection Korsgaard might answer that for every kind of obligation (and not just obligations toward others), interaction is not primarily with a principle, but rather with parts or dimensions of oneself; this is the same sense in which Immanuel Kant explains obligation as resulting from interaction between homo noumenon and homo phaenomenon (Kant 1996 [MM 6:418]). Still, this alone does not entirely address Bird-Pollan's point insofar as it does not explain why obligations toward others cannot merely be reduced to obligations toward oneself. In order for that to happen, a further distinction is needed, namely, the distinction between the reason why a law applies to someone—for instance, French law applies to you insofar as you have French citizenship—and the object of a particular obligation ensuing from that fact—say, you ought to pay taxes in France. According to this distinction, too, moral law applies to you, and you are subject to obligations, insofar as you are a rational being, but the specific content of those obligations derives from different circumstances, which impinge upon your humanity. Especially relevant among these are other people, who provide you with particular reasons for action that you find binding precisely because of your identity as a human being. Thus, being a physician provides a general reason why certain obligations fall to doctors, yet a particular patient in need provides the particular reason for going through with certain medical action; more generally, your identity as a human being provides the basic reason why you are receptive to the demands that the other's reasons convey, urging you to act in a certain way. From this perspective, our identity as rational beings can be viewed as a source of obligations toward others without losing the genuine sense of being obliged to/by others; it suffices to remember that no obligation becomes real unless a particular reason is provided, and others can provide that particular reason. In this regard, it should be further noted that, from a psychological point of view, the thought that others are expecting something from us very often constitutes more powerful reason to perform an action than when we think of certain actions merely as duties toward ourselves. After all, the other's reasons are embodied and alive, that is, they enjoy a factual reality that our own "private" reasons—that is, the reasons we give to ourselves to ground a certain behavior—often lack. Nevertheless, the compelling force that an obligation can exhibit due to a variety of psychological considerations is not as much of interest here as is the normative force derived from the intrinsic structure of practical reason. In effect, motives should be rational in order to be normative. As I will argue below, the very structure of practical reason demands the articulation of a universal premise, which our rational nature provides, and a particular one, which depends on various circumstances. In this context, the noteworthy part of Korsgaard's account pertains to her argument about "the shareable character of reasons." Indeed, she has noted that, while in some cases the other can provide that particular reason, with his or her specific needs and claims, it is neither "your" nor "my" reason that obligates me, but rather reason in general—a reason that we can share insofar as we share its principles and are also knowledgeable of the particular reason in charge of bringing those principles into practice in a given case. By resorting to the "shareable character of reasons," Korsgaard is able to counter the previous objection about the self-centered nature of her account of obligation. Indeed, as I would like to argue, reason is neither self-centered nor other-centered; rather, it is the space where the self and the other can meet and find common ground. In what follows, I will further analyze this argument about the connection between obligation, identity, and sociality. In order to do so, however, I would like to start by stressing the fact that some sort of reflection is unavoidable in ethics because of its association with the very notion of human agency. On this basis, (i) I will resort to Aristotle to explore the kind of reflexivity implicit in the ethical relationships of justice and friendship; (ii) I will then resume Korsgaard's account of obligation toward others as arising from our identity as rational beings, and, more precisely, (iii) from the shareable nature of reasons. With this established, we also need to address the opposite objection: (iv) What makes the other's reasons different from my own? What is it that makes my reason actually mine? 1 Reflexivity and the Other: Justice and Friendship according to Aristotle The idea that the nature and quality of moral relationships with others depend on the nature and quality of relationships with one's self does not lack philosophical support. According to Aristotle, "friendly relations with one's neighbors, and the marks by which friendships are defined, seem to have proceeded from a man's relations to himself" (Aristotle 1984 [NE, IX, 4, 1166a1–2]).1 Ethical relationships with others—basically friendship and justice—are ultimately rooted in the sort of self-love that is proper to rational beings, which Aristotle explicitly distinguishes from selfish self-love (NE, IX, 8). Reference to the self can never be entirely bypassed: properly caring about ourselves is a condition for caring about others. Some sort of reflexivity—what can be called "structural reflexivity"—is embedded in every act of care.2 Yet, it is precisely the nature of this structure that we must understand. In this section, I argue that the reflexivity proper to ethical relationships is mediated by some sort of law, which we share with other rational beings. While from a psychological point of view it is clear that we develop a moral conscience in interaction with particular others, understanding the very possibility of establishing relations of a moral kind requires—to put it in Kantian terms—understanding the possibility of taking the other not solely as a means, but always also as an end. Thus, moral relationships require that we relate to others in terms that differ from those proper to instrumental reason—that we relate to others not in terms of master and slave, but rather as equals. This kind of moral relationship is encapsulated in the idea of justice and, even more perfectly, in the idea of friendship, which culminates the features of freedom and reciprocity that are also characteristic of relationships of justice. This explains why Aristotle claims that "when men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality" (NE, VIII, 1, 1155a26–31), something that is surely connected with equity (NE, V, 10, 1137b9–26). Indeed, saying that true friendship "has no need of justice" is not meant to say that friends are unconcerned with the objective requirements of justice; rather, it stresses the fact that they usually exceed the requirements of that kind of justice. Along those lines, Aristotle considers injustices against friends as particularly appalling: "injustice increases by being exhibited toward those who are friends in a fuller sense" (NE, VIII, 8, 1160a1–6). For him, justice constitutes a dynamic reality that is intrinsic to every relationship and cannot be reduced to legal justice; the latter only represents an external measure that sets the minimum of reciprocal freedom required in human relationships.3 While the virtue of justice cannot be equated with friendship, it demands more than strictly abiding by the law. In this way, Aristotle's approach to both justice and friendship suggests a dynamic continuity between them. Friendship can flourish between those who are just. In the meantime, however, there is a significant difference between them; that is, from the perspective of justice the other appears primarily as an "equal," subject to the same law, and therefore endowed in principle with the same rights that one claims for one's self; from the perspective of friendship, by contrast, the other is regarded as "another self."4 In other words, while justice stresses otherness, friendship stresses identity—my friend is a part of me, a quasi-extended self. In this way, friendship makes room for basic solidarity to emerge, which does not cancel out the equality highlighted by justice, but rather presupposes it. Indeed, recognizing the other as an equal, as is required by justice, already involves comparison with one's self, and hence a connection with the self. Such connection, however, emerges even more clearly when it comes to friendship, where it is closer to identity; Aristotle even says that, in perceiving his friend, the good man perceives himself (NE, IX, 9, 1170a32–1170b13; NE, IX, 12). The good man finds his reflection in his friend almost as if he were looking in a mirror. Interestingly, Aristotle speaks of "perception," and not of "reflection," thereby reducing the epistemic distance between friends. For our purposes here, we can regard this perception as a form of embedded reflexivity, made possible through reflexive habituation. By "embedded reflexivity" I mean self-awareness mediated through the presence of one's friend; this kind of self-awareness evolves in the context of long-term friendships. Indeed, friends who have been acquainted with each other for a long time develop a peculiar knowledge of their own selves in the context of their relationship. Now, I would like to suggest that such reflexivity is nothing other than the full development of what human beings first realize when they recognize the other as an equal, that is, as a person subject to the same law. Aristotle, of course, does not stress the fact that the recognition of the other as an equal is an act mediated by the law, but he does indicate that there is justice among those subject to the same law.5 While here he obviously refers to positive law (he does not usually talk about law in any other sense), an implicit reference to the mediating character of the law is already at work when he notes the possibility of friendship between master and slave insofar as the slave is a man. His argument goes as follows: Where there is nothing common to ruler and rule, there is not friendship either, since there is not justice; between craftsman and tool, soul and body, master and slave … neither is there friendship towards a horse or an ox, nor to a slave qua slave. For there is nothing common to the two parties; the slave is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave. Qua slave, then, one cannot be friends with him. But qua man one can; for there seems to be some justice between any man and any other who can share in a system of law or be a party to an agreement; therefore there can also be friendship with him in so far as he is a man. (NE, VIII, 11, 1161 a 31- b7) Conversely, the fact that master and slave can be friends, insofar as both are human beings, suggests that there is some justice between them because they "can share in a system of law or be a party to an agreement." Being able to share in a system of law, therefore, underpins the development of justice and friendship. This is important in order to understand the nature of the reflexivity that both justice and friendship entail; in both cases, reflexivity is mediated by an implicit reference to the law, which signals that we are equals. This also means that obligations toward others cannot be entirely traced back to obligations toward one's self, at least not in an obvious sense. It is only through the mediation of law that the rational agent comes to recognize the other as an equal, as an end rather than a means, and as a source of moral reasons for action. Insisting on the mediating character of the law is important to show that one's idiosyncratic self does not serve as a criterion for recognizing the other as an equal; rather, it is the law, working in a particular self, that leads one to treat the other as an equal, that is, as another particular self under the same law. By formulating the problem this way, we find ourselves in Korsgaard's terrain. 2 Obligations toward the Other as Derived from One's Identity There is an obvious sense in which obligations toward the other depend on reflection, that is, "if you are going to obligate me I must be conscious of you" (Korsgaard 1996a, 136). Yet, being conscious of you as an equal, and hence in a position to make moral demands upon me, requires a further step. In the previous section, I noted that reflection upon the demands you make becomes a moral reflection insofar as it is implicitly mediated by the thought of a law that impinges upon both you and me as human beings. We could also say that, in order to avoid making one's obligations toward the other contingent merely on one's self-conception, it is important to see the necessary relationship between whatever practical identities we may have and the moral identity derived from our rational nature, which Korsgaard describes as essential practical identity (Korsgaard 2009, 22; 1996a, 113–25). There is a sense, of course, in which one's obligations toward the other are contingent on one's self-conception. After all, if a waiter is obliged to serve coffee to a patron, that obligation is based on the waiter–patron relationship, which could disappear if the waiter quit his job. As long as he is a waiter, however, some obligations follow. In Korsgaard's view those obligations can be accounted for as deriving from the reflective rejection of everything that one perceives as a threat to one's identity (Korsgaard 1996a, 100, 113–25). This seems especially clear in the case of professional identities with definite boundaries and for practical identities that incorporate specific roles or tasks, that is, as a member of a family or citizen of a certain country, and so on. Otherwise, when practical identities are not so institutionalized, human beings feel the need to reflectively frame their actions so as to provide them with a certain structure, defining, in the process, their position and hence their obligations toward others. This framing is a matter of reflective judgment; if it is meant to specify an obligation, however, it is only because it manages to connect the situation at hand with the most basic requirements of our humanity. To illustrate the above, imagine a train accident in which one passenger realizes that she is the only person without serious injury; this realization leads her to conclude that she is particularly obliged to help other passengers. Of course, being ultimately moved to help other passengers is not based just on being the only uninjured passenger; being a passenger is a fleeting, ephemeral identity representing just one of the premises that could lead to such a conclusion. Yet, this minor premise brings to light a deeper solidarity hidden in any concept of identity. Indeed, every time we attribute an identity to an individual—say, physician, lawyer, woman, American—we make him or her part of a group that shares in that particular identity. Through this very act of attribution we create a particular reason for solidarity, providing particular content that activates the major premise, which is implicit in any ethical action, namely, "a rational animal is moved to help her fellows." Usually this major, universal premise does not need explicit articulation; it operates silently, but efficaciously, through particular premises—in this case, the perception of injured fellow passengers. Both premises together naturally lead the uninjured passenger to a conclusion that reflectively informs her choice to help. This is what it means to have a human nature, after all. Indeed, if a rational agent is expected to consider human nature as normative, it is only because, upon reflection, she does not object to anything in that kind of natural impulse,6 which is ultimately rooted in a basic solidarity that is antecedent to conventional social differentiations. On the contrary, were the agent not ready to help her fellow passengers, she would certainly feel that she had betrayed her identity as a human being. In my view, this reference to our humanity is implicit in every moral obligation. This is also the case for Korsgaard, insofar as she recognizes a link between the practical identities we happen to have and our rational, moral identity; while the former provides immediate incentives for action, only the latter contains normative force: Unless you are committed to some conception of your practical identity, you will lose your grip on yourself as having any reason to do one thing rather than another—and with it, your grip on yourself as having any reason to live and act at all. But this reason for conforming to your particular practical identities is not a reason that springs from one of those particular practical identities. It is a reason that springs from your humanity itself, from your identity simply as a human being, a reflective animal who needs reasons to act and to live. And so it is a reason you have only if you treat your humanity as a practical, normative, form of identity, that is, if you value yourself as a human being. (Korsgaard 1996a, 120–21) While the necessary link between a certain practical identity and our humanity is only discovered upon reflection, it is operative throughout; in valuing our own humanity, we begin to value other things (Korsgaard 1996a, 123). In Self-Constitution (2009, 25), Korsgaard reviews the same argument: "In order to be a person—that is, to have reasons—you must constitute yourself as a particular person, and … in order to do that, you must commit yourself to your value as a person-in-general, that is, as a rational agent." Indeed, to value our humanity in this way is to have what Korsgaard calls "moral identity," which is "just like any other form of practical identity. To act morally is to act in a certain way simply as a human being, to act as one who values her humanity should" (Korsgaard 1996a, 129). Reflectively endorsing one's own humanity provides one with basic reasons for action. Yet, in order to act, one must flesh out those reasons, which is where incentives that resonate with our nature and our practical identities come in. They represent the starting point of practical deliberation, but in order to decide whether a particular incentive should be taken up as a motive for action, one must ultimately ask, in a Kantian manner, whether one would be able to will the purported maxim as a universal law (Korsgaard 1996a, 108). It is only in this latter case that an inclination becomes a right reason for action, able to create or reinforce one's identity in a way that is consistent with our humanity. In Kant's case, the possible universalization of any given maxim, or reason for action, would automatically be a mark of its moral permissibility. Korsgaard, however, introduces a distinction, which Kant's work lacks, between the categorical imperative as law of free will and the moral law, which specifies the full domain of that imperative. Accordingly, "only if the law ranges over every rational being … the resulting law will be the moral law" (Korsgaard 1996a, 99). By adding this qualification, she is considering the possibility that a particular agent establishes as his or her law something like "acting on the desire of the moment," which would in fact preclude the very notion of agency. Similarly, if "the law ranges over the agent's whole life," but excludes the needs of others, the possibility of becoming "some sort of egoist" arises (Korsgaard 1996a, 99). Thus, while the law that egoists impose upon themselves constitutes them as a particular kind of agent, with an associated practical identity, it is not a moral law; the identity that egoist agents create for themselves is not open to the requirements of others and they are unable to care for others as they care for themselves, that is, as equals subject to the same law. This indicates that only when the law that regulates human choices expands its domain so as to include all rational beings—as manifested in the third formula of the categorical imperative, the Kingdom of Ends—do we get a truly moral law. Once we arrive at this stage, it is clear that we may be obliged by others as much as we oblige ourselves because of the simple fact that in both cases we are obliged by the same law. Now, following Joshua Gert (2002, 316), we might ask if this argument should be interpreted as saying that some agents' practical identities do not include being members of the Kingdom of Ends, while others do identify with this membership. If we consider that being members of the Kingdom of Ends is another way of identifying with our own rationality, this amounts to saying that egoist agents do not identify with their own rational condition. Yet, this is not exactly the case since they do identify with some form of rationality, albeit instrumental. Therefore, the problem lies in finding a way to "secure" a reflective transition from instrumental to moral rationality. Bernard Williams doubted that an argument for such a transition could be made;7 from another, more existential perspective, Søren Kierkegaard thought there is no rational transition whatsoever, but rather only a leap of faith from the esthetic to the ethical stage, and from the ethical to the religious one. By contrast, Kant himself thought that a rational argument for morality exists; indeed, his entire moral philosophy revolves around it. Yet, he also thought that the transition from nature to morality is never merely a natural one; even if becoming a full member of the Kingdom of Ends is a process of moral education, achieving a moral character is never just a matter of natural progress, but rather a revolutionary step. As he argued, "that a human being should become not merely legally good, but morally good"—he writes in the Religion—"… cannot be effected through gradual reform but must rather be effected through a revolution in the disposition of the human being" (Kant 1998 [RGV, 6:47]). Still, this revolution could be sustained on the basis that human beings are not merely natural beings for whom reason is just an instrument to satisfy otherwise particular natural goals. Rather, they are rational beings in a deeper sense, that is, beings capable of redefining their goals in accordance with the universality of reason, a fact that sooner or later they must reflectively endorse when confronted with other facts, including those related to their own human nature and social life. Now, if this is the human condition, there must be a way of showing that the reflective endorsement of the egoist's identity contradicts our deepest identity. This is what Kant attempted to show when he argued that by endorsing his maxim, the egoist introduces a contradiction in his will (Kant 1997a [GG, 4:424]). Arguing from the second formula of the categorical imperative, Korsgaard conveys the nature of this contradiction by showing that 1) whatever one chooses, and therefore values, implies that one is willing one's person as a source of value, as someone whose value is not relative, but rather absolute, and 2) once one has recognized one's value as an end, one becomes further committed to granting that value to other human beings.8 It is this second step that interests us here because, in arguing in favor of it, Korsgaard departs from routine arguments in ways directly relevant for understanding the nature of our obligations toward others. 3 Shareable Reasons According to Korsgaard, rational accounts of morality differ depending on whether they start from self-interest or from a moral conception of the self (Korsgaard 1996a, 132 ss).9 While the former usually refers back to Hobbes and shows how self-interest inspires reason to participate in a moral system, the latter goes back to Kant and tries to show how a moral conception of the self gives reason to regard others as equally moral. According to Korsgaard, many of the latter accounts defend the transition from the recognition of one's own value to the recognition of the other's value as if it were just a matter of logical consistency, that is, "since I regard my humanity as a source of value, I must in the name of consistency regard your humanity that way as well" (Korsgaard 1996a, 133). Now, while this sort of argument differs from the attempt to derive moral obligations from self-interest, it shares with it a focus on private reasons because both are concerned with showing how certain private reasons that the agent holds give him reason to take others' reasons into account and vice versa. In contrast, Korsgaard suggests that "reasons are not private, but public in their very essence": If reasons were essentially private, consistency would not force me to take your reasons into account. And even if it did, it would do it in the wrong way. It should show that I have an obligation to myself to treat you in ways that respect the value which I place on you. It would show that I have duties with respect to you, about you, but not that there are things I owe to you. But some duties really are owed to others: we may be obligated by others, I will argue, in much the same way that we may be obligated by ourselves. (Korsgaard 1996a, 134) As Peter Fristedt (2011, 537) notes, this argument is connected with Kant's formula of humanity because valuing our humanity is valuing our rational nature, and hence valuing reasons as reasons. While Korsgaard's argument on this point has been an object of criticism (Cholbi 1999; Gert 2002), it is important to note that it is an argument about the nature of reasons, which are not just private psychological acts issued by a particular agent; we should not forget that those psychological acts point toward an object that can be shared by other agents, and this object is also what we call "a reason." Accordingly, "to act on a reason is already, essentially, to act on a consideration whose normative force may be shared with others" (Korsgaard 1996a, 136). This is the cornerstone from which she argues for the recognition of others' claims. In her reply to Bird-Pollan, she elaborates further: I do not see how we can recognize the claims of others unless reasons are already, or rather essentially, public or intersubjective. If I am simply a being who follows my desires, the desires of others will be nothing to me unless I happen to desire that their desires should be satisfied. If we were weakly autonomous, we could not recognize the desires of others as having a claim on us, because we could not recognize in others what we do not find in ourselves. A being that acts only on its immediate desires does not recognize the idea of a claim. Our ability to acknowledge the claims of others is essentially tied to our ability to make claims on ourselves: there is no intelligible rou