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Williams and Cusk on Technologies of the Self

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Abstract

The rejection of a “characterless” moral self is central to some of Bernard Williams’ most important contributions to philosophy. By the time of Truth and Truthfulness, he works instead with a model of the self constituted and stabilized out of more primitive materials through deliberation and in concert with others that takes inspiration from Diderot. Although this view of the self raises some difficult questions, it serves as a useful starting point for thinking about the process of developing an authentic moral point of view in the context of contemporary living. In what follows, I begin to fill out and extend this picture of the self and its related notion of authenticity by exploring some of the “technologies of the self” at play in Rachel Cusk’s recent work (primarily, the Outline trilogy, Coventry, Second Place, and “The Stuntman”) that ask us to rethink the possibility and importance of stability; seek a way of constituting oneself and one’s values outside the confining structures of traditional narrative (focusing instead on a framework that might be provided by the visual arts); and give a different role to the sort of internalized other Williams sees as being at work in the mechanisms of shame.

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Notes

  1. See, e.g, (Williams 1993, 94–95) for a discussion of this conception of the moral self.

  2. See (Smart 1973,  99ff).

  3. See, e.g., (Geuss 2008) for more on political philosophy from this kind of realist perspective.

  4. See (Fricker 2020, 921). If Fricker’s notion of “ethical freedom” is as closely tied to the rejection of the characterless moral self as I’m suggesting here, the characterless self may also be related to “internal reasons, the relativism of distance, and the porous borders of philosophy and history” in roughly the same ways Fricker suggests.

  5. Or to think that politeness is the supreme virtue (Ernaux 1998, 55).

  6. See, e.g., (Williams 1985, 116–119).

  7. See (Williams 2002, 180).

  8. Cf.  (Williams 2002, 200).

  9. This phrase is from (Foucault 1988).

  10. I’ll be drawing on The Last Supper (2009), the Outline trilogy (2014, 2016, 2018), Coventry (2019b), Second Place (2021), and “The Stuntman” (2023).

  11. See (Dover 2022) for an interesting discussion of a wide range of views in the vicinity of the “conversational self.”

  12. Cf. (Williams 1993: 103, 219–223) for Williams on shame.

  13. See (Williams 1985: 3, 28) for discussions of these two aspects of the status of Socrates’ question.

  14. (Williams 1985, 127)

  15. For some questions about the historical accuracy of Williams’ attributing this conception of the moral self to Plato, see, e.g., (Long 2007, 174–175). Kant’s distinction between “temperament” and “character” in the anthropology lectures may also be thought to provide valuable tools for the Kantian to respond with. See, e.g., (Kant 1974, A285–287).

  16. (Williams 1993, 94–95)

  17. See (Williams 1993, 158–159).

  18. (Williams 2002, 184)

  19. See (Cusk 2019a, 41) and (Cusk 2014, 43).

  20. See, e.g., (Cusk 2014, 105, 209).

  21. Similar imagery appears in (Cusk 2016, 141).

  22. (Cusk 2019a, 42)

  23. Another interesting aspect of the appeal of the ideal of the characterless moral self in Cusk’s work can be connected with her themes of the “virtues of passivity,” wanting to vanish, be invisible, not to burden anybody, etc. (Cusk 2014, 170), (Cusk 2018, 117), (Cusk 2021, 5).

  24. (Williams 2002, pp. 172–173)

  25. According to Williams, Rousseau himself eventually comes to believe that the project of self-discovery is not quite so simple near the end of his life. See (Williams 2002, 175–176).

  26. (Rousseau 1789/2012: 7), cited and translated by Williams at (2002, 174).

  27. Cf.  (Williams 2002, 175).

  28. Cf.  (Williams 2002, 179–180).

  29. (Williams 2002, 179)

  30. “When one has no character one has to have a method.”

  31. See, e.g., (Hegel 1807/2018: §§306-307).

  32. See (Dupré 1993, 117–119) for more on the expectations we can have for explanatory theories of capacities vs. actual behavior.

  33. (Williams 2002, 189)

  34. (Fuller 1662, 82–83)

  35. (Williams 2002, 189)

  36. (Williams 2002, 190–191)

  37. Diderot’s description of Lui suggests the notion of frantumaglia employed by Elena Ferrante (2016), and her desire to bring order to this “jumble of fragments” through so-called entrustment also recalls Diderot’s aims in steadying. See (Shpall 2021, 2022) for discussion.

  38. These options may be compared with those Williams sees Ajax as potentially choosing between in his discussion of Sophocles’ play. See, e.g., (Williams 1993, 73).

  39. Wittgenstein’s analogy of the shifting sands of a riverbed is useful here (Wittgenstein 1969: §§66-69). See (Martin 2022) for an interpretation of this metaphor.

  40. (Williams 2002, 204)

  41. Cf. (Williams 2002, 189–190).

  42. (Williams 2002, 200)

  43. (Foucault 1988, 18)

  44. (Cusk 2014, 240)

  45. See similar sentiments in (Ernaux 2016, 26): “no defined self, but ‘selves’.” Rosi Braidotti also cites Laurie Anderson, “moods are far more important than modes of being,” and Virginia Woolf from The Waves, “I am rooted but I flow,” (Braidotti 2002: 2,1) in the same vein.

  46. Cf.  (Martin 1988, 13).

  47. (Cusk 2016, 165)

  48. This phrase is from (Geuss 2017, 111).

  49. (Cusk 2023, 53)

  50. See (Cusk 2021, 96–97). This marginalized perspective is partly why the women in “The Stuntman” feel as if D has appropriated something from them with his new style of painting.

  51. (Nietzsche 1882/2001: §4)

  52. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/24/rachel-cusk-interview-aftermath-outline (Accessed 14 July 2023).

  53. Cf.  (Ernaux 1998, 33).

  54. (Williams 2002, 205)

  55. See (Adorno 1959/2001, 55), (Horkheimer and Adorno 1947/2002: 23). Cf.  (Thornhill 2005, 122–123).

  56. See (Deleuze and Guattari 1972/2009: Ch. 1) for other worries about fixing one’s identity in this way.

  57. (Cixous 1974, 387)

  58. (Williams 1993, 166)

  59. Cf.  (Williams 1980).

  60. See, e.g., (Nietzsche 1883/2006, 88–90) and (Pippin 2010: Ch. 6). See also (Lear 2011, 65) for related thoughts.

  61. (Cusk 2009, 8)

  62. (Cusk 2021, 3)

  63. See, e.g., (MacIntyre 1981, 219) and (Ricoeur 1992, 140–148). Ricouer’s distinction between idem- and ipse-identity (1992, 1–3) may be useful in further elaborations of some of the ideas under discussion in this essay, but because his view is so closely tied to narrative accounts of identity, which Cusk steers us away from, I’ve not explored the possibility here.

  64. (Cusk 2019a, 29). Cf. the question early in (Cusk 2021, 8), “Why do we live so painfully in our fictions?”

  65. Cf.  (Brooks 2022: Ch. 1). See also (Sehgal 2023).

  66. (Cusk 2014, 99)

  67. Williams is less of a narrative skeptic than Cusk though. See, e.g., (Williams 2002: Ch. 10.1).

  68. Cf.  (Pippin 2010: Ch.4).

  69. Cf.  (Shpall 2021, 683–684).

  70. (Heti 2020)

  71. Cf.  (Sehgal 2023, 70).

  72. And it’s not just sentences that must be overcome if Hindemith is right: “The initiated know that most of the music that is produced every day represents [...] above all the obstinacy of the tones themselves. Our principal task is to overcome the latter” (Hindemith 1942, 12).

  73. (Klee 1925, 6)

  74. E.g., perhaps through the experiments in “ekphrastic” writing discussed in (Dutton 2022).

  75. The further thought expressed by Marcuse with the phrase, “Unclarity is a virtue,” is relevant here. See (Geuss 2022, 154–157).

  76. (Lear 2011, 47–50, emphasis in the original). Compare with (Moran 2011, 114).

  77. See (Cusk 2019c, 161–162). The discussion of Norman Lewis’s “Cathedral” in (Cusk 2023) and its “summoning of obscurity” is another example worth considering here.

  78. See, e.g., (Cusk 2014, 19), (Cusk 2016, 7).

  79. See, e.g., (Williams 1993, 94).

  80. (Adorno 1997, 36)

  81. (Adorno 1991, 248)

  82. An internalized other also plays a major role in Williams’ account of shame (Williams 1993, 219–223). The figure I’m considering in this section isn’t meant to be identical to Williams’ but they could be considered to be overlapping. The role this figure might be made to play is more important than its strict identity for present purposes.

  83. (Cusk 2023, 55)

  84. (Williams 1993, 93–94)

  85. (Cusk 2023, 55)

  86. (Cusk 2021, 105)

  87. (Cusk 2023, 61)

  88. See (Schwalbe et al. 2000, 425–426), where the authors discuss homeless men calling other homeless men “lazy bums” and a few other examples of the practice.

  89. The difficulty of avoiding this kind of imposition is one manifestation of the tensions between what we owe to ourselves and what we owe to others mentioned at the end of Sect. 4.

  90. See (Cusk 2023, 59–60), where the narrator suggests that most of her felt as if the attack was deserved.

  91. Cf.  (Williams 2002, 195). See, however, (Beauvoir 1949/2011: Introduction) for questions about how consistent this voice can be.

  92. (Williams 1993, 13)

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  1. Western Michigan University, Department of Philosophy, Kalamazoo, MI, 49008, USA

    James V. Martin

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Martin, J.V. Williams and Cusk on Technologies of the Self. Topoi (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-023-09976-5

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