Blackburn's Ruling Passions

On Simon Blackburn's thought-invoking book "Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning" Michelle Mason wrote a clear and fair review that can be found here.

I summarise here her basic points and also jot down my views on this matter in square brackets.

Blackburn's Hume-friendly theory of pratical reasoning is different from both the oversimplified Humean instrumentalism and Kantian objectifying desire in an independent tribunal of reason. By presenting a fine-grained theory of deliberation, in which desire is also affected by deliberation, Blackburn strives to present Hume as non-relativistic. But even admitting this immense contribution, it is difficult to reconcile the traditional opposition between desire and reason, the perenial worry that prompts the entrechment of reason in various forms, most famously the Kantian school.

[I like Blackburn's move in general, that is, to provide a more sophisticated picture of Humean deliberation, which I believe has long been due to him. Yet I don't believe a thorough-going theory of this sort, like Blackburn's quasi-realism or that of Nagel to some extent, can provide the final answer. The tension between what Nagel calls the personal standpoint and the impersonal standpoint cuts deeper. Nagel's own insights on existentialist truth well illustrate this tension. Perhaps at the end of the day, we have no better option than being a Humean skeptic; or we could follow Hume in being a relentless and thorough philosopher on the one hand, and being a man that lives in common sense on the other. The pursuit of thorough coherence across all domains of human life and to encapsulate it into a grand system is perhaps as dogmatic as any blind dogma can go. Yet it seems that this impulse to systemise underlies most of the history of philosophy. On a theoretical level, a Pyhhronian suspension of judgement that is well learnt by Hume, which is negative in nature, is our only intellectually honest choice.]

2 Human Natures - Fallen Angel vs. Ripe Ape

It is a bit surprising to see Kant of using the term "human nature" in his moral theory, at least as Rawls interprets him. However, given his awareness of the inner difficulty of his formerly Manichean moral psychology, i.e. the almost hopeless difficulty in connecting the moral law from the intelligible world and the real human beings in the sensible world, say, the difficulty of motivation, his move to an Augustinian moral psychology is understandable. The gap inherent in the earlier dualism seems unbridgeable. In essence it is the gap between two separate selves. In the later Augustinian moral psychology, by contrast, there is only one self, though possessed with conflicting predispositions, one of them pertaining to the moral law. It is with this united self that Kant observes (assigns) a human nature according to which "we cannot help but be moved to identify with" the moral ideal informed by the moral law. 

We put aside for the moment whether Kant observes or expects (assigns) such a human nature to the human beings in the sensible world. Instead we examine what kind of human nature it looks like. The very brief depiction "cannot help" reveals an inner tendency for us to elevate ourselves to the ideal level described by e.g. the kingdom of ends. It's like the longing for becoming angels. This is connected to the idea that humans are fallen angels and thus it is in our nature to tend to go back, to the realm of heaven or at least to the community of moral saints. 

However, Hume and Hobbes depict a very different human nature, which is more and more confirmed by modern sciences, especially by recent developments in empirical psychology and anthropology, informed by evolutionary biology and neuroscience, as well as human strategy studies, i.e. game theory and rational choice theory. In this picture, human nature is not that of fallen angels but of ripe apes. Then the challenge to Kant's conception of human nature is not only about the attainability of the ideal, but more of its desirability. For the Humean human, the ultimate motivation is not to get elevated to angel or saint, but to stay in safe distance from beastly passions. 

Habermas Lecture at KUL

For those who are interested, you can find the full transcript here:http://www.kuleuven.be/communicatie/evenementen/evenementen/jurgen-habermas/en/democracy-solidarity-and-the-european-crisis Unfortunate or in fact fortunate for me is that I didn’t get the chance (ticket) to listen to the lecture. Although there is live broadcast (considerate KUL) in the park and in other auditoriums, I didn’t go since the main reason to join the lecture at all is to see the person in real rather to listen to his already too familiar theory. Failing in getting a ticket in time, I ended up in cooking at the same time of the lecture. 

After the lecture, some youtube clip was mentioned on facebook and I clicked for a glance. The introduction by the president of the EU council was actually touching: he confirmatively answers the question Habermas repeatedly asks, i.e. whether politicians are aware of the challenge they are faced. He further claims in a fashion of confession, that politicians are faced with higher challenges than philosophers would imagine, that is, to make hard choices, although difficult but they have to, disappointing either these or those. This reminds me the difference between politics and political philosophy, as best narrated in Berlin, in praising the political talent necessary but largely neglected by philosophers, as in the example of Bismarck. 

Habermas’s voice is quite unintelligible for me, also for my colleagues who were at the lecture. This is what I mean fortunate not being there. The transcript was printed into KUL pamphlet and I read part of it. I also get to know it by reading Chris’s blog (http://schwartztronica.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/habermas-leuven-the-eu-as-enormous-labor-union/ and his further analysis, also by discussing in the RIPPLE (http://www3.kuleuven.be/ripple lunch. Basically Habermas was calling for a EU solidarity, based on a mutual interest model, especially for Germans. Chris points out he’s actually calling for a EU Labor Union as instantiated early 20th century Europe to tackle rampant capitalism. However, this involves necessarily blood, which Habermas largely ignored. For me the concern is the notion of solidarity, which for Habermas is reduced to mutual interest. Solidarity, like many other political ideas are many symbolic and mystic than rational self-interest. It is more like a black box people are willing to go in without knowing exactly what is inside. Politics or the political, cannot be reduced to complete rational design and plan, nor should it be so. In this vein, Habermas remains as utopian as he always is.