Richard Moran AUTHORITY AND ESTRANGEMENT AN Essay ON SELF-KNOWLEDGEraceto Mew HY od oes ot To my parentsCHAPTER TWO Making Up Your Min Self-Interpretation and Self-Constitutio 2.1 SELFANTERPRETATION, OBJECTIVITY, AND INDEPENDENCE ‘Ordinary realism about the mental suggests relation of gical inde pendence between the des ite (eg, a thought or emotional response) and the feature oF state Ausol Borin the ease ofthe sefincerprettion of various aspects ‘of psychological an that this independence does not obtain, The hermeneutic ua tion and Taylor's Constinive Cain, 110 understand why this idea oF constitutive elation between {ntetpretton and objects resuited to intentionally churater- Jed” phenomena, and why within these it is restricted to thet Fist person interpretation, Distinguishing the Constitutive Chm from the Kea that certain cone cept capacities aze necessary forte possibility of certain emo~ vipion of some feature of socal ie, some philosophers have argued we tional vesponses 202 SULH-FULPILLALENT AND ITS DISCONTANTS To say that a person's seinterpretation *constintes its object,” even patil, suggests that, in those cases the new interpretation suf “foes for anew description tobe tue of (perhaps a description ‘conforming to the new interpretation ise). Sometimes taking, oneself 10 bea certain way (eg, uncomfortable, ambivalent Is sullicint for being truly characterize in those tems. The ne tive character of svc “compromising” sel-desriptions, and the sei ulin logic of contamination, The appeal of the Const tive Claim may draw stength from such cases, but they cannot be said to characterize poychologial fe generally 2.4 THE DHOLE PERSON'S DISCRETE STATES The privilege accorded to 4 person's own interpretation of his state ned Ho be etic to those cases where the consitaive res ion involves the aes conforming othe person's interpretation ‘Fi, Even an interpretation whieh ie, onthe outside, can sce as Imponanily mbstaden may nonetheless have a clam 0 defining his state overal, na way chat in shared by an outsider’ ince pretation of it. Seeing one's own pride as sinful constintes i as linporcanily deren rom what i would odewise be, since co dons ike pride are orietations ofthe person and not atariaie particu 2.4 BELIEF AND THE ACTIVITY OF LNTERPRETING Verbs such as “interpreting” and “describing” can denote ordinary ac Lies tha canbe pesformed a will but in tha sense the atv fof merely describing” one's sate a certain way will got be ex: pected 6 consutute ita diffevent, any more than mere describing rakes 4 constiutive difference to othe things in the world. Lather, the examples that make the best sense of the Constiutive ‘Cain. concem the seiteypretaion of one’s emotional state ‘where “interpreting” ita certain way means acwally taking It 10 be that way. This involves cognitive coramitment shi, like be lif, ts noe something that can be undertaken at will And this begins to clay hy reflection on one's own intentional tes shoul be inked! the transformation of dei earacter. 2.5 THE PROCESS OF SELF-CREATION THEORETICAL AND DELIBERATIVE QUESTIONS Sometimes election on one’s state of ind a purely theoretical a ter, where the question i how some Feature of one's mental ie isto be comectly identified. But often one’s reflection mote “deliberative” in spirit and sccks to bring one’s sate of mice 4 some kind of resoltion. This som of uncenainy is answered by something more like « decision than a discovery. The dh Derwent don't know what to feel here" and I don't know what ‘tis that {do fel bere the situation of deliberative, sther than theotetial, reflection on one's state helps to account for why i should be selfineerpretationlone that i said to “help shape the emotion ite” and why, ‘eve on a commonsense “realism” about menial ie, we should spect selfeterpretation to p this special oe 2.6 RELATIONS OF TRANSPARENCY Its scimetmes claimed tht, from the frst person point of view, the ‘question “Do I believe tha P” is ransparent toa comesponding question “Is P tue” 4 question which involves no essential reference to oneself atall.“Tiansparency” here means not redue- on, but thatthe former question is answered in the same way asthe later, Hut what isthe bss for auch transparency, when it obtains? ‘here do seem t be situations where the person can or must saswer the psychological question of what his atatude iin away that is not wansparent inthe relevant sense father than being guaran eed by’ log, the claim of tansparency is grounded in the de- feral of heretical reflection on one's state ta deliberative reflec- tion about Conforming to transparency asa norutive demand oth the “transforming” character ofslfncerpeetation and the “tans: ppareney" of one's prescat thinking ave grounded inthe interac ‘don hermcen theoretical and deliberative reflection on one’s tate of mind and the primacy ofthe deliberative stance within the frst person CHAPTER THREE Self-Knowledge as Discovery and as Resolution 3.1 WITTGENSTHIN AND MOORE'S FARADOX Why ordinary self nowedge should be "nonevideriial” rather than a matter of theorecal stron to onesel, and hy thie dif ence matters. Moore's Parad a a way oF desexibing situations where one’s stribution of an ate 1 oneself doesnot mat the attiude one sould explicitly express or endorse hence ‘where the Transparency Condition s violated) ‘What is paradoxical in Moore's Paradox fs not restricted wo situations of speech or the pragmatis of asorion. ‘The Presentational View, whereby the fins-person presenctense of tpelieve’ does not have any psychological reference, but onky serves 10 present” the embedded satement (eg, saving “he eww i's golng to rain’ as expressing uncertainy about the rain). Rejection of this vw, and is ateibution to Witigenssen, Fis person authority and fist person subjetton; blips. ow is transparency consistent wid the fet of the diferent subject matters of the two questions (4 site oF mind, & shite oF the ‘weatheny Belle as empirical psychological fact about a peso, and bell as commiument to state ofafats Beyond! the sll Inferring from someone's having some belief tothe ruth of at belie, vers the categorical relation between belief and “taking tobe tue” inthe stepson, 5.2 SARTRE, SELF-GONSCIOUSNESS, AND ‘THE LIOMTS OF THE EMPIRICAL “The "sofas" (seeing belie asa psychologial fact abouc one. self) ancl the“ Fas transcendence” (seeing belie as 4 eomrnt- ment of oneseD. The case ofthe gambler a6 ilusuating conic, berween hese wo perspectives, nether of whose chins sai able. One (ype of “bad fat” as the exploitation of the purely eoretical perspective on oneself anther type asthe empty tran scendental asertion of one’s freedom and clean slate, For the fist person, the sense ofthe primacy of the practical, deliberae live question over the predictive, theoreucal question 3.5 ANOWAL AND AUTRIBUTION “Transparency” a8 normative requitement on rational agency Reporting one’s sate of mind, where this isan evidence-based atvib tion, in the sevice of psychological explanation, versus expeess- ing or avowing one’s atiude, where this isa matter of one's de «lared commitment. The description offs of psychic conflictCHAPTER TWO Making Up Your Mind:Self-Interpretation and Self-Constitution Tes fens that the af eto es the fat of cons on which i ects ‘Werhave seen how natural its to think that if self-knowledge is some thing substantial at all, must be soxmething tha coresponds a es roughly to the Perceptual Model of. We speak of the “teal” ofthe imental, and one of the more innocent things suggested by this way of speaking i that sf we are to speak of awareness here, must be lke any other awareness of any cer team of empirical phenomen. At this point in te argument i hardly mates whether we think ofthis real as containing states, processes objects, o whatever. We may be willing © countenance cenain apparent peculiar the first-person access (eg, privacy, author, immediacy), but if the appearance of knowledge of awareness ot toe a sham, seems we mist Some how accommodate such pecullarties within a mote familar picture of ‘observational knowledge. Hence, the recent attractivenese of the picture of something ike a sealed room, to which only I have access ut which Tam azo unable to leave) Some version of this picture may seem 1 be required by even the most modest or of cei about mental if. tn pe case of amy given ‘person, the thoughts, dhe menial phenomena, are there; and wil ‘most people have only a ind of external accesso them, one person ‘has an inumediate internal access w this realm. When this piture 5 ound extravagant itis usually by way of rejecting eliber the presunned substantially of seiknowledge othe supposedly special features of the first-person poston, By contrast, iter than crezing Rasa meta physical exuavagance, hope to show how this picture radically ter derdescibes the differences between sel- knowledge sn the kano ‘edge of ethers. What lef out ofthe Spectator’ view is the fact that fot only have a special acces to scmicone’s mental ie, but that it ‘mine, expressive of my elation to the woud, subjectto my evaluation, ‘conection, doubts, and tensions, This will can that i isto be ex pected that a person's oxvn auazeness of is mental life will make for differences inthe coasttution ofthat mental if, cifrences that do rot obtain with respect to one's awareness of other things or other people, For this reason, introspection not tobe thowght of as kind of light cast on a realm of inner objects, leaving them unaltered. Jooked briefly atone aspect ofthis ference with respectto the notion of'conscious belie, but there are several aspects off One or another _sech aspecthas been taken by various philesophersto be incompatisle ‘wth the ordinary assumption of ether an everyay realism about mner> tal fe, or the idea that the phenomena of sclkoowledge do indeed Involve the awareness or detection of some act of fits, The assumap- tion is tht ether ealism ora substantial epistemology has got to ge. What t hope to show is that, we begin witha kind of commonsense Coxpethaps simple-minded) realism about mental life, den the wares‘ways in which seltawareness and self-undersanding make a difer fence tothe chanicer of ane's mental fe are just what we should ex- pect. Seong mone deeply into hy we should expect this wil take as fotherinto the question of why there should be any apparent pecs fies of fst person access inthe Fit place; and why the language of specitl access” sides us with a misleading, too purely epistemic idea ofthe: sponsible ofthe fist person posit 2.1 SEL-INTERPRETATION, OBJECTIVITY, AND INDEPENDENCE, The dlference sel-consciousness makes is bound up with a related, fise-person diference, whieh has received less attention witha phi losophy of mind than ip certain forms of social theory (particulasly ‘with a Hegelian provenance), n any even, there i a general Ke, Found ia both Continental as wells Anglo-American philosophy, that the way in which a person conceives, for example, his own emotional state pantally constitutive of what that state 1s. Sillag to what 1 hhave claimed about the altered character ofa belief that becomes a ‘conscious on, is claimed that, fr example, for someone to interpret his own response as say, ether righteous indignation or as mere pee vishness constintes hs sate as being of a different kind. The Fist person interpretation of an emotional sate is spposed to play a role in constcwing the identity ofthe sate that snot shared by interpreta- ‘ions Fiom the outside.” This claim soften part ofa lager argument ‘gains the application of ordinary notons of objectvky o¢ ream to contain aspects of psychological and social ie. For instance, Chasles Taylor has argued in a series of papers thatthe ontinary notion of representation cannot apply to various important situations of el vondertncling Lihat ito the notion of representation in this wiew isthe idea that representations ate of independent objects | frame a represeate ‘on of something which is there independeenly of my depicting, and which tans standard fortis depiction. Buc when we took ata certain range of formulations which are crucial to hurman contriouaess the aticulaion of our human felings, we can see that this does not hold. Formulating how we feel, or coming to adopt a new formulation, can trequently change how we Fee ‘When come to see that my feling of gull wasfalse, or my feeling of love selfdelded, the emotions theme! are diferent. ‘We could say ‘or the interpretations we accept are constiutve of the emotion, ‘The understanding helps shape the emotion. And that why the later cannot be considered a fully independent object, and the traditional theory of consciousness as representation dees not apply here 91 for these emotions, our understanding of tem ‘rape 18, pp. 100-200) ‘We can see how a snillar question might arise with respect tothe claim that ‘conscious’ as applied to belie indicates a difference in the hracter ofthe late itself. It was sil that the relation here is not like ‘hat ofan objeto the observation ofl. And one Flat way w spell ‘out dat relation would be to say dh, for Hasiance, a wee i veal independent thing whose existence and quales are not dependent ‘on being observed It has full, eal, objective existence. So, then, whut about the facts about one's rental Fuca wel, oF is even ordinary objectivity 4 misguided aspiration when sejcknowledge isn question’ Against this suggestion we ight retinal ourselves ofthe fat that we commonly take the question of ‘what someone eles belief isto be an ordinaty objective mater, CObvi- uly we cant be thinking of ‘objectvky i tes of ind indepen dence’ here, Mindless enites don't have belies, ye bu this does. make the facts of someone's mental fe any les: real.) Thinking doesn't make itso inthe “extemal wore no more des it do so i the world” Hence, one might ins, ear my particular mental ray moment is someting independent of what I ink about i, Interpret it, or inded whether am aware of iin any way ata. IF we 2 Are they not real and objectiveare commonsense realists about wrens and writing desks (where this ' intended as 3 vernacular commtiment, wth minima philosophical, baggage), then we are, or ought to be, commonsense realists about urbeliefs and csher aides a well In addition, apart from any isues inthe metaphysics of mind, we ‘might alia be concerned io preserve some sense of objesivity here ‘rer to make sense of vatlous Feanares of the ordinary phenomendl ‘ogy of self knowledge, Here we may think of such qualities as the aff involved in sel reflection, the struggle to get someting right and the charactenise risks of being wrong, Bven though introspective awareness does not base iuelf on observation of belvior, and even alier we have weaned ourselves from the picture of observation di rected to an Interior, there remains the sense that one’s reflection is ansuyrable to the facts about onesel, tat one is open to the noma ‘epistemic risks of enor, blindness, and confusion, Doesat ths sequire the idea of “fully independent object” and the notion of “conscious ‘ness representation’ that goes with iI ean make sense of my own fons at traf seiinterpretation i | take my Interpretation be consttuively selling, making itself rue, Unie the claim of concephial dependence we e dined in Weigh, Use clita here—that one’s sate of mind is a Some way conceptually dependent on how one intespets tdoes explicitly restr set 3 frstpersom phenomenon. No one els’ interpretation of my mood i ‘ante this constitutive role, thus i ntrinsle tothe clam self chat A describes seme asymmetry between self and other. Butts nonethe- less cea with many stands, not commonly distinguished. For one thing, we must distinguish the kind of phenomenon described inthe ‘quotation from Charles Taylor, which concems the roe of specie self {aterpretations, from another faillar claim about the role of general conceptual capacities, It is hatd to deny, for example, that a shally ‘oF impoverished vocabulay for emotional sefcescription makes for 4 sallow emotional life and, conversely, that sicher conceptual ro sources make for correspondingly eavched possbilies of emetional response. person whose conceptual universe of the emotions i lin hed to the two possibile of feeling good and feeling nct-so-good. ill enalnly fall to be subject to (and not us fall © novice he range ‘of responses possible for some other person wth the euotional vocal lay of Henry aes, Thi sense of conceptual dependence isnot only properly fs persona but also restrict elf othe range of phenom ‘ena we have identified as posing the plilesophical problems of sel knowledge: roughly, psychological phenomena identified under cur ‘icinary psychological concepts (and not what might be descibed as thei “subpersonal” components). That is, there #8 no tempation to tnvoke any such conceptual dependence when itis. mater of know Jgother sont of ics about oneself. Someone who cannot disting th shame fiom embarrassment (or better, someone who reeagaizes no such distinction in principle, seeing only various forms of discomfon) ‘sll not he our best candidate for either emotion, whereas someane ‘who cannot distinguish heart murmur fom heaabuen could aonethe- less tnambiguously have ether the one condition or the other! Myr Ding ina panicular medical Cincluding nevrotogicaD condition does not depene! on my conceptual capacities for understanding my con ion. Why shoul ibe eferent inthe case of my envy or gruinie? ‘One basic reason for thisilference that somecne’s envy and grat tude are themselves ats, modes of understanding the world 35 wells oneself. We should expect th, unlike a medical condition, a ppicular mode of understanding the work! will only be available 10 ‘someome with particular conceprual resources. We presume a buck round of such resources when We routinely talk about anyones exer ‘ike of some intelligent ability. We unkestatingly tee 10th sorting blocks by color. But then we look closer and find tat the hkl as _groupings ae really enly into what we would call ighter and darker coos, So maybe Is not cars that are being sonted. Or we find that the chil cannot o wll not sort anything other than blocks (ot sticks for instance, or only locks of a certain size; nothing elses teatel as Se Willan (955 peoples mons ae depends aie oa -nhathey ke them to be 4p 90, whee tes Can! 9, ep caper 7,having a “color.” So maybe the child isnt relly sorting anything at all. ‘When the background of conceptual capacities i east into doubt, so ‘sthe orginal atsbution ofthe acy or aide thats the expression Cf those capacities. By conta, although someone's ulcer may well be the symptom or by-product of his resentment, we can identify the condition of his stomach ining without making any assum pions about his conceprual capacities. Ths i 30 because the ulcer self is not a atitude or way of seeing the world. CThisis but one ofthe competes le by the idea of ‘meatal ines,” and the whole nedical model of emotional disturbance ) ‘Of course, wo say thatthe identity of one's ate of tind depends on ‘one's general conceptual and descriptive resources isnot to say that ‘one's interpretation of i males it what iis, nor even that, for example ‘one must conceive of oneself as Feling precisely shame in onder to be ina state of shame. The idea ofthis varity of concept dependence refers to conceptual eapacitios and tele implications for & person's ‘emotional life, and does not itself ental anythingat all about the conse ‘quences (causal ological) of any particular interpretation one may audope. That i, the claim about concepsua resources does aot rll us that any particu selnterpretaion made by the person must cou 1s right, or even that altering the conception ofhisstate hus any conse ‘quences tall forts identity. Foralltat hasbeen sal fut could be that someone's sophisticated vocabulary fr sel-interpretation coexists ‘wit, or even contibutes to, elrnie ilusion on his part about his ac tual sate of mind (a Jamesian theme of ts own.) And nt oy nay his sel-interpretations ail to be consitutvey selling, we could also Imagine tha his shifting sel-conceptions make no diference at allo the underlying mood he is presumably eying to capture, 2.2 SELE-FULFILLMENT AND ITS DISCONTENTS To move, then, tothe level of particular selEinerpretations, i may be aimed that conceiving of oneset in a cr way is nocesary for bing ina certain emotional state, And there are two versions of such anid, The stronger idea hast that fa person isto count as being in 4 sate of, say, envy oF indignation, she must sce herself under the concept of that emotion. This is normally an idea entertained only about some range of the more socal, sophisticated emotions, andl cles ‘not suggest sel with respect to various states of ear or age we take ‘ourselves to stare with those humans and other creatures who dont {90 in for selt-nterpetation inthe first place. But even with the conceptually complex responses of envy or ui we may have our ‘doubts about sucha claim of necessity, since such an ie amounts the chim that one could not be in 4 state of envy unknowingly, oF while fling to understand oneself Wat way. Hence, 4 more modest aim about necesiy on this level would claim tha, for instance, being ‘envious requires thatthe person havea certain rnge of thoughts about herself and her susaton, which may or may not include the specific thought tha she is envious. Fora least range of cases, such an idea semis unkleniable, and aot without its importance forthe moeal psj- chology of understanding oneself. What is less lear its relation 19 ‘the dea of selF-consitution’ and the related doubis we've encounterel bout the idea of feel] consciousness as representation’ It doeseit seem that tis more meses lam of necessity should have any such epistemic or ontological consequences. Rather, he language of 'sesconsittion, in Taylor and elsewhere, ‘suggests thatthe logical relation in question i one ofsuficieney and ‘ot necessiy. The idea s that adopting different fo state constitutes ita different, that i, suffices fra new description 0 bbe tue of and this is importantly ‘people and othe things, This chought can also be teal in more than lation of one's ke one's tterprtatons of other ‘one way either as claiming that the self-aterpretation const state 50 a to conform o that interpretation, thus making itso tue; oF more modestly, as claiming that adopting new interpretation of ones ‘emotional sate suffices to constiut the sate 3s somebouw diferent, row requiring a diferent characterzation from anyone. These ideas are not alvays distinguished, and itis not obvious that ether one of‘them by tself should threaten any ordinary ideas abou truthfulness of ‘objectivity about ourselves, or the phenomenology of slP- knowledge as tho efor a the “representation of something independent” Here again we'e presonted with an appareat tension beeween 3 common: sense realism about mental ie (ora “substaniial epistemology” for selFknossledge) and some special feature of the fist peson point of view, Taylor and ether wrens who purse the ia tion’ have drawn aitention to genuin oF se.consti ul porta asymmetries be ‘ween the understanding of oneself an others, bu they nd hee pil ‘osophical opponents sect to share the assumption thatthe idea of such asyrmeties és incompanible with the “substantial” of se: knowledge. OF the two versions of ‘self-consttutio’ involving kegel suf ‘iency, the more radical one clams that, at east fora cestain range of ‘eases, te pesson's own Inerpreation oF his sate suices forts hein, tt very way. On sucha view, imespreting mysea, cay, ambivalent, sists, orillal ease makes ithe case that am comectly character ‘aed in those very tems. In eases lke these, we may fel that “inking snakes it 0” beciuse there's simply nothing to choose beeween, sy, ‘aking oneseftobe lat ease and really being so, One condition i as stressing asthe ote, ale all and perhaps this is because the ome simpy isthe same thing as the other (ora sufficient condition fori. But what makes for such eases, and how special are they within the ener field ofthe psychological Consider a nonpsychological ‘wih snl sel ullling character If someone Sees his mariage as flue we may well fee that in witue ofthat fact alone the muniage 'sindeed, to thatextent, some kindof fale, To say itis "Yo that eaten a Tile expresses he sense tha for one partner ina manage to feel iis a falure i, for logical reasons, a constivent of faire, and pethaps a decisive one. No mariage can be a happy or suecessfil fone if one ofthe partners sces it 5 a mistake ofa tap. Thus, certain possibilities of simpy being wrong, just mistaken in the apprehension ofthe ease, are not available hete, At ue sae tine, of course, there ‘ill always be logical oom for hysteria and ov reaction, and things don't have to be a disastrous asthe person takes them tobe, But even someone's exaggerated reaction makes it Ube case that not ‘Ad the fact that this conceptual dependence willbe common know! cecdge between the two people create its own depressing and intrig ing possiblies for unhappiness. The chronically or neurotically ut and dissatisfied person knows that here he cannot be metely oi ‘wrong, and hence le knows that eeueating to this postion a pexma- ‘nent possiblity open to him, and one that he canaot be brought back from inthe ordinary ways Ce, by someone trying to show him that he fs mistaken, that in reality things are quite different from how he secs them), Heace, the logically slF-ulling character of the belct can be exploited o produce consequences that take i from a partial truth to something closer t the whole th (hen the breaking poise {5 reached afer the long sulk, ke unreachable withdrawal, and the partner capiulates with “Fine thea! You'e quite ight” Bargaining rela- tons in general prove ich opportunities for the constiuting self assertion ofase)? Naturally, nor every’ selFintenpetaton wll ook this ay. ink {ng about shat makes forthe sel falling charicterof such deserip- tions, both psychological anc! nonpsychologicl, i hard not to be. ssnick by thelr “negative” or undermining character. taking onesell {tobe ambivalent or mistrust sa decisive constituent of acualarbiv- lence of mist this must be because the contrary’ slates of Whole ‘well hheatedness or ust are themselves actly defined by the atence ‘eran thoughts. Any conliion defined in such a way ean be under- mined by the presence of thought og ter paradoxes of deliberate sponta cally excludes (asin the fail ay oF unselconsciousness). Cer lain asc forms of must are defined by the absence of comtesponding ‘doubis, comet doubt my trust, und conceive of myself "negatively? as lacking tras, or as ambivalent, then Lam misusful or ambivalent, ais he ate tly baer; ence, th dng the ans tat bem dec ght aU engl enya is ing te se cs nko have comespondnee ihe cn of endingat least to the extent of being prone 0 such thoughts, We may note 48 a piece of inctaphysical unfalmess, that the coavene ‘postive™ ‘aims do not hold. A person will not he wholebicated about his work justin vitae of his conceiving of himself that way, nor willis mariage be successful justin virtue of his interpretive say-so. The possiblities Forselleception and plan leception ae allto falar hve. la some ‘cases, some such “positive interpetaion of one's situation may well ‘hea necessiry constituent ofthe sate in question, but will ver be sufficient. Ths, as far asthe capac for self constitution’ goes it will lay he ese to constitute oneself in compromising and undeemin- ing ways than to constute oneself us unified and whoeheased, There is an asymmetry of entalments lee, whitey its only fx ‘he compromising” states that their sel: nomination has ase uliling ‘character. But what sor of unfainess is his realy, and where should ‘we hy the blame? Coniltions like wholeeattedness or confidence are nally understood absolutely, as the compete absence of any eon tury altudes, whereas condition ike ambivalence is understood 10 be partial a matter of degree. (What, indeed, would It even mean to speak of otal ambivalence, undiluted by anything else? If we conceive of the two oppaved conditions inthis way, then it will be a mater of logic alone tit the absolute ove i dificult to attain and easy t0 undermine, whereas the paral one temains as kind of permanent possibility, easy (fill back into and dificult wo emerge fro? Inter reting oneself as wholehearted wall not sufi to make one 3, be ‘cause wholehearteuness isa complete state: it isthe alvence of any ambivalence, whether conscious oF not. By conta, vein oneself as ambivalent will suifice 19 make one ambivalent, cause anbivalence 84 pata! state, defined by the presence of any degree of dou, an ot itself incor patble with the simultaneous presence of contrary thoughts. Addo this te fat that conceiving of oneself as ambivalent ect Wide Ly Bane: de ak appens of any Ha apes wide ‘om! gprteetgwrance ke et ea ut ach the len |s tse a kind of selEdoubt, and we get the result that only with e- spect tothe “compromised” condition can thinking make i 0, On the other side, there is no similar bootstrapping oneself inte the states of ‘wholchcaredness or tust one may associate with one's beter selF AS Fars this sot of 'ef-constinion’ goes, the only possible direction is downwards. ‘ut ast becuse conan ie ambivalence andl miss are pai or mixed” sta ‘more slfinficicd). For it remains an open question preeisly bow far we have deviated from the concliion we have defined a. "complete ‘one, as well as fst how much this asters. Ic may oc be very far at all indeed, in given case itmay be just far enough, perfectly appro priate, The asynmetty depends enavely on one condiion being de Fined as the total absence of any competing thoughts, There would be fo aytnctry, no metaphysical unaimess, i both sates were cor ceived of ether absolutly or patty. And i only seems depressing, lr unui, because we fonget tht the fragility of the one state ancl the ‘rua inescapabiity ofthe other depends on Ue fet thatthe inescap- able sate is conceived of as a pasta one, and thus, as far as any a prio! argument can show, may approach asymprtially tothe fragile positive” state, so closely a to make the diference beeween then rneghaibe, Exling oneself fiom whelebeartedness may well be 100 cusly a mater of selling interpretation, but may aso be eck tively shallow: Despite the imagery of contamination here, the depth of one's ambivalence may on this or that occasion be no grater than. that of a passing thought I here i, for sacs logical seasons, a selling character to sel interpretations ofthis Kind, we shoulda expect ito apply to maxe than a special range of cases These will be, roughly, “pata cond tions (lke ambivalence), which ate defined as the contrary of some “absolute” sate, which & defined $0 as t be incompatible wit compromising doubt about tsll. This s nota tivil range of cases, butarthe sume time we certunly do not conceive of most of psycho logical life in this way. For the rest of mental life, the iden of “Se this unfaimess may bee mone apparent dha eal Cor‘constitution’ wil have to ave some other maning, iit has any appli cation a al, 2.3 THE WHOLE PERSON'S DISCRETE STATES | mentioned amore modest version ofthe kea of sel-consttution, and this isthe Kea that for @ person to aller his conception of his own neal ie logiealysuices for some sigpicant difference in the rth shout his ate, though perhaps not uch as to make tht very inteqpre- tation sel falling. There ae a number of ways in which a person's econcepdon of his tate of tind wil require an aller description of his state, and for reasons that are fist personal, not shared by anyone else's conception of him. There i a sense ip which such an id cords a special “privilege” to the person’ selF-conception, since it 8 ‘only his own conception of his state, and no one else’, that eained to have this logeal eluaructr. But the ide of “privilege” here should ‘hot prevent us from seeing that this status given tothe person's own ‘conception does not depend om his interpretation being fue, et alone ‘ove because its velF-consiuting. One reason for this & simply that ‘even someone's fale conception of his sate is pat ofthe very person Wwe want to understind, and so, for example, i at Least relent to Understanding the emotion ip question Cwhat must his envy really be Like if he's inlined to misdeseribe it in this way). Even someone's {aidy gross mistecognition of his desi o fear will nonetheless be aa {important indication ofthe nature of his aitude ise But we can see ove import reason fo allowing even fase sconce ake a dillerence to what they'e directed upon, once we drop the pretense that an emotion of other attitude is somthing lke ‘ic particular. For consider two people who both feel gratitude toward ‘some benefactor. We might think of ane person a8 more naive, since hie sees his gratitude as something simple and free of any ambiguity, whereas the sud perhaps grattode, as bound up wit resentment and aggression toward the benefactor, These two people may both be grateful, but they will undoubtedly fel and think and act cifeenily inthe expres- stn oftheic gratitude, and we would expect the histories of their emo. ‘ions to follow different courses. Any description of them which Te ‘out of account the diferences in how they conceive of thei gratitude ‘would aot simply be incomplete, but would be seriously misleacing, Adaittng allthis, however, aed not prevent us fom imaginings the ‘ive as one in which the sophisticate i seriously wrong, or misguided about himself, There isl room forthe idea of accuracy and tuthtul- ress in this domain, and forthe atendlant risks of error and lusion. is intespetation of is gratin as esenfol does not constitute Has such, any more than the naive persons self understanding makes it ‘the cave that his gratitude sinnacent. (And ifwe do seea sal fulling, aspect to the “sophiscate’s* compromising understanding of his rat ‘ude, this willbe, T suspect, under the illuence of the metphor of contamination discussed in the previous section )Butin both cases we can aoe that while we retin the applicablty of nouns of esr and ccuracy, i sat the same te tue that proper account of the per son's tate, ether from the “ins” othe “outside,” cannot be indifer- tent to his own conception of i, cannot just dismiss tas one more flawed opinion, Retaining the possibilty of Being wrong does not mean that we abandon the appearance ofa seFother asymncty bere. A false con- ception of one's sate can constvate a eilfeence ints total character, ng stil be fabe fo all that. Someone may see his pride as sinful, but Af here i no such thing as sn really) then surely his conceiving of his pride this way cannot constitute tas such. Nonetheless, it will re- tain tae that the presence of this seinterpretation sufices for his pride 1o bec an essential diferent nature from someone else's pride, ‘or from his own pride before he came 1o se i that way. And this wall be tre for reasons specii to its being his interpretation of his pride, and not someone e's, One reason or this anticipates a point to be‘developed shonly, concemingthe “outward” 25 wellas “inva dcc- ‘don ofthe sel tcrpreters gaze. For he person to see is os pide In hese ters means for him to see the things he s prow of in ceetain comesponding tems. For him to interpret his pride as sifu Fr him 1 see his wealth, his power, hs beauty as essen wauorthy, and tw see ther allure as so much texspaion, appealing wo spiritual weak: ess. The more seule and nsambiguous his lispariging estimation of these things i, the loser we as intexpretes wed come to incoher fence in out uv description of him, if we bithely persist in speaking. of his “pede” when by our own lights this atitace hs lost any connec ‘ion with the ordinary requirements of seeing te object of one’s pride as valuable, admirable, distinguishing, Selé-nterpretaions are box Lup with the ratonal-conceptual grounds of the particular atiudes hence, past a certain point of apparent iationality in the state we may ascrbe tothe person Ce, "perverse pre), wil be the retention of the ascription of pride that ecomes incoherent, But well before tis point is reached, remains true thatthe specific terms in which the person understands his own sate playa rle in making tthe kind of Mates Hence, contrary to what iusually assumed, the hermeneutic privileging of sclEimerpretations (whether individual or socaD does ot requte the assumption of their truth, Any outsider who wishes to Understand or even 19 deseribe this person's pride at all accurately rus incluce the Factshat he iterpets ian these tems, that he expt ences andl lives our his pride under these patcular concepts The outser must include these facts not only in anticipation oftheir Licely tsluence on the person's pride or gratiide, but also for the logjeal reson that the condition he sees to descibe is colton of the whole person. "That, te very object of the ouside’ interpret ion iseudes the person's secondonder as well sfir-order atid. “The itcrestalcen in someone's grade, whether by himself or by nother person, snot an interes in sone cseret tte, Rather, Interest inthe toa orientation of the person toward his benefactor |We would have no wse fort notion of a sate of gratitude about which it could sensibly be asced whether Wt remained the same when twas regarded by the person himself as dominated by feelings of resent meni, unaccompanied by any desie to acknowledge the benefit re ceived, or as the expression of kind of shameful neurotic depen dence. The original ascription ofa ate uch as gratiude is already intended to take into account such aspects ofthe person's total out- look. This showsthatihere sa putely logical dimension tote idea that 4 lference inthe person's own intespresaton of his aide makes 2 Uifeence to what his stud actualy that che self interpretation ts ‘pastilly constiwtve” of ts object. This is due 10 the fact that, in the condinary case, the total sate of the person We want to charaeterize Inchides the teconception ise 2.4 BELIEF AND THE ACTIVITY OF INTERPRETING However, in speaking of ‘self consituion’ Taylor and others clearly thave something other than this gical clam in mind as well The gen= ceri dea i often ilustated by reference tothe situation of a person aniulating his emeiional state and nd of causal language is ine ‘ok! to descabe the phenomenon. Adopting a new description of ‘one’s state sued to ater “The under tion, changing how we fee And indeed, theFalureto get dear about the difereace between causal and lial aspects of sell-consttution contibntes tothe appestance of mystery about the wile phenom on, matter of word magic or “the power of naming” Presentations ofthe idea ofthe special satus of sel-inerpretations will sometimes make itappearasif the ree actofredescribing something e.g, some aspect of one's own sate) were being ceded with the power to wans- form it Not only would remain mysterious us what son of proces tng helps shape the emo cnutng how wel coming ay onan, a eageny change ow weet yon 1h, pH, Mereeence wot tegen” ape iste ea aga tea atest nc bethis i, but suet a picture has voluntaritie implications fn which Taylor himself s concerned to dstance himself? ‘These unwelcome implications are a eansequence not oaly of une larity about the exmbination of causal and logical considerations, bout also ofa peculiarity in the description ofthe panteukar cognitive act involved, Taylor and others use a host of tims for the el Aneapre- live activity that is said to be constitutive of our emotional responses: ‘we adopt new formulations, vocabularies, or languages For our emo lions: we interpret or atculate them eliferentys we *see" them his ‘way oc that. What is striking abour this isi hat, eile these ze all cognitive actvitics, the basic ion of “belie” is consistenly avoided Uroughour the discussion, And its avoidance highlights the fat that the remaining favored ters interpreting” “describing et all refer 10 what are plainly actions of one som or another, and hence which cam be performed for more than one Kind of reason. The reason an acct "deserting" can be undemaken “aritarly” that one can Ldeserbe or interpret something his way’or that, without assuming any ‘comitment othe way things actualy ce can describe the Vermeer before me as a Rembrancl, perhaps as an exercise Lam given to do, and pertaps even learn something there, without any change of mind asto who did the paining, Or Lea se the figures in some cia fram as ether receding or advancing, and switch back and fon at ‘wll, without altering my judgment about anything, In this way, “de: scribing” and so on is lke "saying," which need not even ineove the pretence of expressing ones actual thought. By contrast, “believing does not describe an action that can be arbisarily undenaken, pre bly hecause i docs involve such a commitment. A belie as such is answerable to one set of reasons, easons connected with strat, a Isnotan action performable in esponse to a requestor as an exerise ‘This is why Insofar asthe idea of sel-consention 8 cas in terms of, of core, ths sno ay that we can change or emo sbi by phn ist nares 0 em We ae ot lig abo a pros ak el Be by ete” Cle 1774 pT sep 8, genuine activites tke ntepreting or describing. it will persistenly rive the question of Voluntarism and arbitasines, For as ar a8 mee descipon goes, a pero cin dserthe his own state any way he may choose, for host of ciferent kinds of reasons. And if hissort of ity is said to have the power to alter the state ise, then iis hard to see this as other than a special ably each person is eedted with to be exercised a wil will serve nor only 0 demysify this ast version of the Mea of sell constiution, but also sine i wih fof sefndersanding, o show how any genuinely uansforming role for the interpretation of ene’s sate depends precisely on an unde -@anding of iterpresaion’ an the like which does not denote a volur= tary capacity. (And conversely, 1o the extent that we ave talking about an active or abit capacity, it willbe one without any special power twaker anything.) Verbs suc a ‘describe, interpret and the hike are fate! 0 equlvocate between use that expresses one's genie sense ‘of how things are, with the same kind of commitment as belief, and a differen, noncomsital use denoting an ordinary activity. Favocing verbs inthis ater sease serves bes to dramatize the idea of se-rans- forming redescripion, and to obscure as genuine bass. Yet, atthe ‘sane tine, the presentation ofthe idea also requires the othe, fully cognitive or ‘committed sense ofthese vers fo playa tat ole. When “Taylor speaks inthe fst passage quoted of ‘coming to see that =y Feeling of gl was alse, “he issurey talking aboot changing hs belie about it, coming to beleve that twas false or baseless, Ye, believe this about one’s feeling of gt would zequle the same sort of reasons thing else and isc something some of the ordinary probless ‘one would require for believing be perfonnic at wil In one way, its jase what we should expect that when someone comes to believe that his feling of gut was fale, the emotion tself changes. Not only does his understanding of st change the may now think oF as compulsive or newrotie), but what he feels changes, to, He may aow acaionish bimsel forthe gult tel and feel a mixture of relief and eabasrassment. But in such a case the identity of what heid fea before he changed bis mind abou ts nature not constitute ‘or even alerted by the understanding of i that he ater comes to a ‘cep. This change doesnot challenge the status of the orginal emeton a a “ully independent object only i has now been replaced by a lferent one, And insolur as we want to tall about “objects” here, it eautins tue that ao object sso independent that remain unaffected regardless of whatever ese goes on in the world (including the “inner world. The Lact that mere beliels about my emosions can alee what fel ‘would be surprising i the emotions themselves were not atte di rected toward someting. Coming to belive that some fear of mine is unfounded wil normally change my emotional state, replacing fear with something ese, pertaps rele, My ear was about scmething and ‘dependent on my belies about that thing, This eogniivty i also the teason why noncognitive ates, such as physical pain, are Gregrta- bly) considerably les sensitive 'o ou beliefs orto our understanding lofthem, One needn't claim tat emotions simply area species of belle ‘inorder to view them cognitively and as alin under atonal ris. | familar fact about some emotional states is that they do nor alter ‘when the beliefs on which they ate based ate sincerely cena by tf person in uestiop—for instance, phobias tat the person aware of 1s such and which survive the person's recognition of th Fears. is, of course, equal fami state as ational.) 0, if we can think of altering the intespretation or aniculation of an ‘emotion as involving a conmiteuent akin to changing one’s ele about it and we view the emotion itself under its aspect as an atte, we have something bele-ike on both sides ofthe relation. In this way Je may hope to shed some light on the ‘self-lering” crater of ‘certain slfintespretations by consideration of what are called second- force’ attudes, for example, bebe about one's own helt, Now ‘these are certain familiar situations of self-eletion in which determin- Jing the character of one’s state f mind exhibits a pec nasloaeless that we often excze such shines In such eases, the more one ties 1 focus direcly on one’s current thought and feeling (©, about last nigh’ quar, movie, phone call, theless definite or constant one's state of mind seems to become. I ve picture what one i doing here as tracking down aa inner sate, then it can seem lke a search whose object mysteriously ch as one’s introspective gaze 4 dceted upon it But even itis is ‘misleading picture, something like this general phenomenon with re ‘gard to bets is what we should expec. IFa person sa all rational firs-ouder beliefs wil indeed he sensitive o his second order be- they will change accordingly. He may, for in stance, discover that sone set of his blll inconsistent, or suspect that panicular belle of his isthe product of prejudice or cuelessness, ‘case, that it ss plain false, His rstoder beliefs wil ‘then normally change in response to is interpretation of them. Here the misunderstanding involved in ptng such facts of change simply In terms of offering new descriptions of one's emotion becomes cleat, For 4 new description of my emotion or belle s powerless to alter it unless Idole the description. Gea, it isthe actual believing that is «racial this change, and not the activity of naming or describing, ges just 2.5 THE PROCESS OF SELF-CREATION, THEORETICAL AND DELIBERATIVE QUESTIONS, Such redescriptions of one's state of mind may be ative at ia more than one way, and only for sone of them will descriptions of psycho logical life fuction diferent in the fust-person and the thi: person ceases, There s mote than one spit in which a person may reflect on his psychological site, and these involve cotresponding dilerences {in how such understanding may contibute t an altered state of mind For example, with respect to knowledge of one's own intertions, phi Tosophers sometines invoke a distinction between certalny that i based on evidence or discovery and certainty that is based on a deck sion made by the person, According to this distinction, uncertainty about what one intends to do is normally a matter of ones having notYet fully formed aa intention, and this uncertainty is ended by a deck sion about what to do rather than by a discovery of an antecedently Formed intention The question expressing tis uncestanty will not indicate situation in which there is something I intend 10 do but ‘dont yet know what tis. Rather, the question expresses the fact Ut ‘ny intention itself uncertain, This is practical and aot theoretical ‘uncertainty, and the resolution ofits a decision, rather than a predic- ‘ion of what [illo Ending my uncertainty about, for example, what [rill wear is indeed coming o know something; and, hike other things "enows, I can wl to someone else so that they know i, 100, But in ‘ther ways, although we righty speak of knowledge here, itis not purely theoretical oF epitome mater. My knowing what I wall do next isnot based on evidence or ether reasons to believe something, ‘somuich asit based on what tsee as easonsto do something Hence, 4 person's statement of intention is not o be challenged by aking for his evidence, When I make up ayy mind about what 10 do, and ‘someone else | do indeed provide him with a reason to expect some thing. a very good reason if Ym noe too vacating, or Har; but what {possess myselfis not anexpectation, based on evidence, bata inte tion, based on a decision “The question, “What am 1 going to de?” may seem w have onlya practical and not a theoresical application, tht i, newer w express Inguiry into some antecesently formed intention, I this is 80 wil be due only to the dificulty in imagining situation in whieh @ person ‘would oth need co seek wo earn what his intention sad have good “ror his don see ape a Ha (95), anda ier dcasion by ce ‘crit which eta ae Corto predictions to wich we bare» waning hee have daw o Hams), vst fortnking shoe thes es. 1 semen ged that nove of one's fur acon deed mere ett sac mu eon cdany induce viene, leg woe bie, {he empl esses of th wd one rele on planing, But he cn tae eve not tht ndtv tag kt sing pon ‘enough reason to believe that he bas some setled intention in the rater The elificuly here is a function ofthe Fat that even when we ‘an imagine a sation of theoretical blindness to. one's own intention, ‘twill be hard to see this as someting lke mere ignorance, a gap awareness which reflects no (practical conflict i the intention ste. “The problems withthe idea of blindness to oneself ofthis sort clo not ‘depend on Cartesian assumptions about the mine! se Even within a psychoanalytic explanation will normally he the exse that the contracy thoughts and attitudes which explain the subjec’s blocked aasarenes ofthe intention will dhemseives be reasons for am- bivalence this overall intention; that i, te intention itself will not be 4 wholeleuted one, Ignorance in such a case will not be mere ign ‘ance, not only because it wil be ieresisible to look for a mativaifon ‘of sot to explant, but because the motivation we then inpute tothe person must qualify the orginal ascription of the Intention (as eon: Aicted oe pata. ‘With respectto states other than intention, in any'case, ts clear that the same words may expres ether the aim to kdentily a cestain state ‘of mind, orthe desire t make up one's mind about some mater Thus, for instance, eying “I don't know what I want” may either express 8 divided consciousness containing certain definite though repressed desires, may express sonteone deliberating about wha's desirable, choosing between cern options. Inthe later sort of ease, the uncer- tainty hour one's desires fn uncetamty or indefniteness in the de~ sires themselves, and resolving the uneerainy I a matter of forming ‘one’s desire? And with respect tb one's emotional life, a person may ‘want to know what his ue feelings about something ae, of he may be engaged in making up his mind, coming to some seed response Ihe can respect, of at least make sense ofthat i, his inquiry may be either a purely theoretical one about his psychological tate as itis, oF art of the process of forming hisfetings seansparence *tanpbire deste the sation of wch pen, which he concson of Iie comida le econ om whic dete dee em. HeWhat we're calling a theoretical question about onesel, then, one that is answered by discovery of the fact of which one was ignorant ‘whereas practical or deiberatwe question is answered by a decision ‘or corumitment of some som, and its nt a response to ignorance of some antecedent ict about oneself. When self-eflection conceming, ‘one’s emotional response of this ater sor, the declaration *T dont know ow I feel about that” is equivalent 0 °t don't know what to feel about i thats, how o ste and aor out he various coating cements of one's immediate reaction. The covresponding Uieortical question would be ofthe fox, “Tdon' know what itis that Ido fel” ‘where dis sequivaten othe ind of question thar a frequent occur renee in the Iterature of tomznike love, “Whats this that | fel” "The person asking this aight think co himself fo instance, that previously the never thought he nad any particular felings for a certain other person, though sometiaes he elt self-conscious in her presence; bu nose both these felings to which he attending and his past behavior ‘make him beiove that he bas some definite emotional response, but he isnt sure what to cll Perhaps when he sees ler with ther es ple, or just with certain ethers, he finds hinsefFeling something that could only be eslousy, bur ar fast he can see no reason why he hou feel anything ike that Naturally, if this inquiry remains a peavey the retical one for him, separate froma the question of what he # 0 fel, his emotion ts key 10 he impr or fixated, whatever & uns out to be. ‘This would! be to reduce the emotion tan interior occurrence which the is pasvely subject. This too, ts familar lathe hterature of romani ‘ethe's Young Werther isa sub and discerning observer of the movements of own mental sates, Hisinterestin therm, however, is primarily a theoretical, contemplative one, separate from questions out the world that hose states of his are presumably dected upon. When the aticulation or interpretation of one's emotional state plays role in the acral fermsanion of that state, tis will be because the ‘ions wha be was wd face fe it Yo ds and ae Taine en os oper de Be aed 1975p 52 interpretation is part of deliberative inquiry about how to feel, how to respond, And there one's attention wil be diected at least eclly ‘outa, toward the object of one's response, ast is duected toward ‘oneself, The idea of “elberstive”seflection about one's response is meant to denote something more than simply the nouative appraisal of the sot of reflection that would terminate sn some see assess- tent off. For the mere appraisal of one's attiudes, however norma live, would apply equally well pastas well as to current atitudes, and indeed may have just the sime application to anther person as to oneself In tet, such assesment not an essentially fis person Mfc. Rater, “deliberative reflection a8 intended bere i of the same family of thought as practical refletion, which does not conclude with normative judgment about what would be best 19 do, bat with the formation ofan acts intention 1 clo someting Sina, the sor of cases mentioned whete seeing one's feelings of guilt as false, of ‘one'sangoras chilis, “helps shape the emekion, "this will hebecatse the “seeing” in question is nat purely theoretical or desexptve Ceven ‘where such description includes evaluative assessimenD, buts rather an expression of the ordinary deliberative reflection about how to fel, This tinction between theocetial questions and deliberative ones introduces «new dimension othe issues we've considered concerning the objectivity ofthe mental and dhe substantalty of self-knowledge “Weare nov in a poiion io see how there is indeed dja oF sel transforming aspect 10 «person's rellecons on his owe state, and this fsa function ofthe fact that the person ie playsa role in Formula ing how be thnks and feels. Much resins 1 be said to clarify jus ne ‘objective toward onesel” sn the sense pertaining to mocal psychology rather han metaphysics and epistemology. But we should not confuse the iniroduction ofthe agen in selcelletion wih ether abandoning cordnaty sells about the mental or denying a substantial epider ‘what thisroleis, and the mplicauonsit has for such problems 25" ‘oy for self knowlege. Is ded essential 1 Our nate as persons that we are “sel interpreting sna Un Taylor's phase), and tat the ‘exercise of this capacity plays crucial roe a making us who sve ae.And the sel-consitution’in question heres gomuinety substantia and prodoctive and not merely a mates of something ike Togical consruc- ‘on’ But rather than seeing ths as undermining our ontinary kes out the realy of mental fe, we should wosice at this point that for ‘ay concept of the mental sich enough to incude auitudes toward ‘one's nitudes, this sort of mutual responsiveness i ust what pyycho- logical heath would involve, Hence, the question of the “indepen dence” of the person’ state of mind from his interpretation of now takes om a wer lfeent character Fr when a person's eexional sate f indepenslent in 1 sense from his other aticudes toward i, what this means isthat the wo sets of attudes are cogitvely soated from ‘eh other, and thus tha, for example, one's deliberative election on ‘wha’ desirable leaves one's actual desires unaltered. llbough iis a Samar enough condo in sel, is is a form of impairaent that is not deinanded by either the epistemological o the moral vistues of objectivity 2.6 RELATIONS OF TRANSPARENCY ‘We wil gain « clearer view ofthe interplay between these two types of inquiry by considering 2 elated clam about how a question aboot ‘one's own belie rus presente, fom the fst-person point of view Inthe end this will also help put in proper perspective the sve oF the ‘ole ofthe personas stent inthe Formation of his atu. Ord a person aks himself the question “Do I believe thar," be wilt this much as he woulda comtesponding question that does not refer to hin tall, namely, the question Is P tre” And hiss Hot how he wl, ‘oral late himself othe question of what someone else believes” Roy Hdgley has called this feature the “wansparency” of one's owe, thinking: ‘he quetin, -Do dee cbs beter peda “What oink ey whee eso bnue poy a un panel rope epee [otly own presen thinking, in conteast tothe thinking of others is teansparentin the sense that cannot distinguish the question "Do akc that from a question in which there tno essential eer cence to myself or iy belie, namely "sit the case thar P?* This does not of course mean thatthe correct answers to these tw ‘questions must he the same; only nao! distinguish thee, for in giving my answer to the question "Do thik that "Lalo give Ay ansver, mote of less tentative, to the question “si the cake cha Po 4909, p.90) and more recently, Gareth vans made «similar observation in eon rection with 2 remark of Witgenstoin's dvected against the idea of selekcxsedge a involving an “inward glance” Ula making selfasxiption of belle, one's eyes ae, so 0 speak. for occasionally Mell, drceted ourward—apoa the world. someone asks me"Do you think there i goingto bea thea were ‘a Lu atend, in answering he, to peecisely the same ou ‘ward phenomena as 1 would atend to FT were answering tbe ‘question “Will here be third world a™ (41992, p. 228) To claim that one question is "tansparent to another isnot to cain, tatone question reduces tothe other. The fact hat answers the ques- tiom about the wari differen from the fact about a particular person's bolic. As Edgy points our, the comect answers to the two questions need not be the ime. But ori i right to say, asthe does, that the ro ‘questions are indistinguishable from within the fist person por of view: After al i nt asf although the answers to the two questions are infact distin, | ust remain somehow ln the dare about this, ‘tt cannot see them pointlng in diferent directions. til be com ‘mon knowledge, among anyone with the concept of bei, that al:though one believes something as tue, the fact believed and the fact, ‘of one’s belief are two diferent matters. From within the frst person perspective | acknowledge the two questions as distinc in vietue of acknowledging that what my beliefs ae directed upon isan indepen: et wold, and they may therefore alto conform tot So, rather than reducibilty or indistinguishabiliy, the eelation of tansparency these \witers ave pointing toward concerns claim about bow a set of ques- ‘dons ist be answered, what sorts of reasons are tobe taken as rele- ‘vant The claim, then, is that a frs-person present-tense question about one’s elit is answered by reference to (or consideration of) the same reasons that woul jusfy an answer to the conesponding ‘question about the would, this serves as a casifiation ofthe content of the idea of tanspar ‘ency it ses the question ofthe kindof clam Elgey and Evans ae ‘making, and what reason there may be for believing i 18 ue a a ‘matter of empirical fact tha, as we may putt, the self drccted question, andthe word-lreced question are always answered in (Ors the claim eather tat, for concepnua reasons, we cannot make sense ofthe idea of answering question about one’s present helef ‘without “attending to precisely the same ourward phenomena” as one ‘wold in answering the world-diected question? With respect 10 tudes other than belie, scemed ealler that we could well imagine sitions where the two questions were not treated equivalently Someone may want to know whether iis resentment that he feels, oF “whether any resentments called for in this case, whether tis what he isto fel, Or he may lear of his own dese in a way that approaches the purely Uheoretical or behavioral, and 4s quite liferea from any tefletion on seat in the Word is good oF worth desing Such a divi sion between the two sorts of conskleration may well represent fail sameway? ure of sont of rationality, willpower, of something else), bur none less any equivalence between them 6 not something guaranteed by the logic ofthe first-person, but looks more like a kind of normative ‘dea. Wath respect to belie, the claim of ansparency i that fom within the first-person perspective, I wea the question of my belief about Pas equivalent the question of the wuth of P. What think we «an see now is thatthe basi for this equivalence hinges on the role of Aeltborave considerations about one's attitudes. For what the “logical claim of wansparency requiesisthe defer ofthe theoretical question “What do I believe” to the deliberative question "What am 110 be lieve" And inthe ease ofthe attitude of belie, answering a deliberative ‘question Isa matter of determining wat is te, ‘When we unpack the idea ip this way, we see that dhe vehicle of transparency in each case lies in the requirement that Laddress nyse to the question of ay state of mind in a deliberative spirit, deciding and declaring myself on the mates, and not confront the question &s purely psychological one about the belic of someone who happens also to be me. This i not to say that one normally aves at one's beliefs (let alone one’s fears or egrets) through some explicit process ‘of deliberation Rather, what is esental in all these cases is hat these {is logical room for such a question, about regpet as mich as about belo and thatthe actual fear or regret one feels s answerable to such considerations. may confess that my fear is beyond my control, and that 1 ean belp being afd of something where, by my own lights, there fs nothing vo be feared. But so long a8 1am to understand ny conlionas fear of ny ir, even irrational fear, cannot toaccept the relevance, the force ofthe deliberative question "is there anything to be fear here?" That may not be the only question for me in my ‘uation, but 1 cannot make sense of the point of that question ei rected at my sate, then Teannot make sense of my state as fear of aay kind, however ation In characterizing wo srtsof questions one may dict toward one’s state of ein, he term ‘deliberative’ s best seen atthis point in contrast ‘o theoretical the primary posnt being tomar the diference between that inquiry which terminates in ate deseription of ay tate, anc one ‘which terminates in the formation or endorsement of an atitude, An sotospealcof the person's ole in foming his atiudes is not invoke 2 kind of willful or wishful capacity for selicreaton. A person adopts this role insofar ase can answer questions ofthe srt “What am 1 t0believe here” and thereby come to believe something, oF answer a ‘question ofthe fora “Ls this what I really wand in terms of considera- tions of what is wont wanting, and thereby come to carly the suc- ture of his actual dsies. The fact that we do have this capacity should not be controversial, for amounts 1 the Wea that past of what tis to bbe a rational agent is robe able to subject one’s tudes co review in a vay that makes ference to what ones atte i. One isan agent with sespect to one’s attitudes insofar as one orients oneself toward the question of one's belies by reflecting on what’ tue, oF orients onessif toward the question of anes desires by relleting om whats ‘worthwhile oF divening or sasfying. This is not the only possible stance ane may take ioward one’s belies or ether attitudes, but itis an ‘essential one, and iis hardly the same thing as the free or arbitrary adoption of beliefs fr resons of convenience, fear, or fshion. There isa role forthe agent here insofar as we may speak of a person's re- sponsibility for his utitudes, and we shouldnt expect this sort of re- sponsibility to be any siapler or msmune to damage or evasion than the other kinds Both the sftiness and ambiguity of selFnterpetation noted by Tay- Jor and the “outward-looking” characte of fst person belief reports ‘noted by Eagey an Evans have their source in the primacy ofa deli crative rather than a theoretical stance toward one’s vin state of min. This suggests that the way forwacd on these andl other issues concem- ing the special features of the first-person may be as much inthe area ‘of moral psychology, broadly cousuued, a8 in epistemology or meta- physics The phenomena of selknowledge, not to mention the wider spectunt of asymimeties between the fist an thi-persons, themselves based as much in asymmeuies of responsibilty and com mitment as they are in differences in capacities, or in cognitive access. Conforming tothe ideu of transparency between sefalrected and ‘world rected inquiry thus appears tobe less a mater ofthe Hogi of selfreference ant more a matter of assuming a certain stance toward ‘oneself and one’s atiudes. As such, then, we should expect it to be something that will apply diferent 10 diferent kinds of sates of ‘mind, wit ciferent degrces of suingeney, wth diferent possibiles for and consejuences os faire of deliberate violation, “The succeeding chapters attempt co Mesh out the idea that dhe fami ‘arasymmmeties between the fist and thinl-persons, whether interpre- ted in terms of se-constitution, or the inapplicabliy of ordinary n0- ‘dons of objectivity, realism of substntaity to selP-knowledge, have Dott a broader application and a eifeeat basisthantheireonfinement tomore epistemologkal contexts would suggest, Showing this will en- able us to put some ofthe more faniliar problems of selE-knowkdge ‘within a wider perspective of diferences between possible relations to oneself and to others, and the temptations, philosophical and pet= somal to tr © model one such relation on the poriblities that prop erly belong to the other: In particular, what we've been calling the Spectators picture of sel-knowledge shows iself to bean intellectual expression of the exdiniry, nonphilosophical pressures to adopt purely theoretical stance toward oneself n particular stsations of his, pressures stemming not only from motives of evasion of *bad faith bot also from the moves of moral objectivity toward oneself. "The fle Jowing chapter takes up the dea of te contrat between deliberative and theoretical stinces toward onesclf, nd the ipelininabily of the ‘demands of eter one of them, begining with the relatively staight- forward case of belie