Abstract
One of the merits of practical rationality is to organize our practical tasks effectively and to put practical activities in order, such as plan-making, which includes prioritizing, instrumental calculation, strategy-adapting, etc. In this chapter, starting from the B. Williams’ critique to John Rawls’ notion—taking life plans as “an external view of one’s own life,” the author establishes the external view of rationality and internal view of rationality in contrast. The author holds that practical rationality not only means pros-cons weighing or strategical manipulation, but also is one kind of internal power, which can hold oneself as whole and go through our inner emotions, perceptions, desires, and even the deepest dimensions of our structure. With internal rationality, the agent could reconstruct personal beliefs and be oriented again in the absence of orientation.
In SoSe 2014, there are circular course held in Freie Universitaet Berlin about death and dying: “...dass es ein Ende mit mir haben muss. Vom guten Leben angesichts des Todes.” One of the public lecture is given by Prof. Stefan Gosepath; he develops the subtitle “Gute Leben” further as “Gute Lebensplan”: “ein Ziel zu verfolgen, einen Gang zu haben, Gründe angeben zu können, rational rekonstruieren zu können…” (according to speech of Prof. Sybille Krämer). While Prof. Sybille Krämer delivers an opposed response, “das Leben immer auch ein Geschehen ist, ein Widerfahrnis, nicht nur die Erfahrung von Macht, so wie der Tod, ...dass es etwas gibt in unserem Leben, das nicht in unserem Plan steht.” It is a very valuable comparison here, especially when we consider Kantian-Rawlsian background of Prof. Stefan Gosepath and his research in “Praktische Überlegung und Entscheidung.”
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Notes
- 1.
I would like to acknowledge Struan Jacobs’ conference paper, in which the author systematically sorts out the theory and conception of life-plan in contemporary, see Theorising life plans, TASA 2001 Conference, The University of Sydney, Dec. 2001, p. 13–15.
- 2.
Royce (1971).
- 3.
Berger et al. (1973).
- 4.
Giddens (1991).
- 5.
Pollock (2006). Esp. Chapter 10 “Plans and Decisions”.
- 6.
Bratman (1983).
- 7.
Just as Charles Larmore rightly points out, “Today the idea of a life-plan is rightly associated with John Rawls and the systematic exposition he gave it in his A Theory of justice” (Charles Larmore 1999). Beside this, I believe that this notion plays significant role in Rawls’ total philosophical project, while functioning as juncture between personal good and social good.
- 8.
To term it as “side” is rather to make a distinctive reading than to make them either of two opposite, conflicting or contrasting extremes.
- 9.
John Rawls traces back the notion of life-plan back to Aristotle and take Aristotle’s deliberation as a support for his practical rationality, I think it is problematic here: “It is a familiar one(theory) going back to Aristotle, and something like it is accepted by philosophers so different in other respects as Kant and Sidgwick.…The main idea is that a person’s good is determined by what is for him the most rational long-term plan of life given reasonably favorable circumstances” (Rawls 1999, p. 15). I question this statement by reciting John McDowell’s critique. In another context of examining the conception of “eudaimon,” John McDowell critizes a modern reading on Aristotle which ascribes an universalism understanding to Aristotle and misinterpreted eudaimon as a “blueprint of life” for doing well and standards of correctness. We can compare it with the statement of John Rawls’ understanding on Aristotle; this suggests that John Rawls possibly belongs to the group of “modern commenters” who holds the stance of eudaimonism John McDowell critizes (John McDowell 2009, p. 23).
- 10.
Neill, Onora (1996).
- 11.
In the case of Gauguin who takes “becoming a great creative artist” as his purpose of life project, after discussing the possibility of justification in these beliefs by theoretical framework with several rules and subsidiary rules, Williams says satirically, “Should Gauguin consult professors of art?” (Williams 1982, p. 24), but John Rawls’ plan seems worse than an advice from the professor of art, since the in the professors’ advice might contain some substantial experience, while Rawls plan intentionally filtrates substantial information about one’s capability, identity, and circumstance. For Williams, both of personal advice and Rawls’ unconditional plan are not the right way that one is convinced he is potentially a great creative artist.
- 12.
Just as the title of his essays suggests: “Making Sense of Humanity” (Williams 1995).
- 13.
This statement is a very simplified summery about Williams’ preference to self in his series of discussions; e.g., in his initiative probe about “internal and external reason,” he strongly questions the external statement as independent truth and says “the only real claims about reasons for action will be internal claims” (Williams 1982, p. 111).
- 14.
Williams (1982, p. 11).
- 15.
Williams himself gives the example of Gauguin, one bohemian artists who takes artistic creation as his personal project, but Williams takes this example and discuss this topic in moral atmosphere; what he inquiries is that the relationship between personal ethical concern and the other aspects of human life broadly: ones’ other concerns, needs, purposes, and projects. (see, Williams 1995, “Moral luck: a postscript”, p. 244). But this thought is not restricted in the ethical issue. In terms of the pattern of individual life and the personal choice in it, there is still this kind of relationship: deliberation is not only a static or abstract strategy or calculation in construction, one planes or goes with his plan almost among many other aspects of life, one’s own decision and its potential implication for others, and one’s self-devotion to science and the family life. One should relate all of the matters together in his deliberation. This consistency can be attested by Williams words when he remark “retrospective justification,” he says, “……because it (the question of retrospective justification) can arise beyond the ethical, in any application of practical rationality” (Ibid., p. 245).
- 16.
Williams (1982, p. 25).
- 17.
Nagel (1979).
- 18.
Williams (1982, p. 30).
- 19.
Malcolm (2001). Norman Malcolm describes this as a “strangely moving utterance.”
- 20.
Russell (1998). see “Prologue” to his Autobiography
- 21.
John Rawls (1999, § 64).
- 22.
Bloom (1975).
- 23.
Ibid. p. 659.
- 24.
Ibid. p. 658.
- 25.
Ibid. p. 660.
- 26.
Rawls exercises his life-plan largely in this position and almost equate planning as scheduling: “Thus planning is in part scheduling. We try to organize our activities into a temporal sequence in which each is carried on for a certain length of time. In this way a family of interrelated desires can be satisfied in an effective and harmonious manner” (Rawls 1999, p. 360).
- 27.
English translation: “This man who had returned could not remember any time in his life when he had not been fired with the will to become a great man; it was a desire Ulrich seemed to have been born with.” (Musil, Robert., 1996, The Man Without Qualities (Vol. 1): A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails, translated by Sophie Wilkins & Burton Pike, New York: Vintage International, §9, p. 31).
- 28.
English translation: “And one day Ulrich stopped wanting to be promising…Finally, Ulrich realized that even in science he was like a man who has climbed one mountain range after another without ever seeing a goal…“God help me,” he thought, “surely I never could have meant. to spend all my life as a mathematician?” …All he could say was that he now felt further removed from what he had really wanted to be than he had in his youth…With wonderful clarity he saw in himself all the abilities and qualities favored by his time—except for the ability to earn his living, which was not necessary—but he had lost the capacity to apply them.” (Musil, Robert., 1996, The Man Without Qualities (Vol. 1): A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails, translated by Sophie Wilkins & Burton Pike, New York: Vintage International, §13, pp. 41–44).
- 29.
As a philosophical conception, there are wide discussions about “Widerfahrnis” and its relation with “Selbstverständnis.” Its specific position is made distinctly by comparing with objective perspective which is presented by modern science. But at present writing, I just want to stay in the “interface” in comparison between two ways to conceive the rationality, being not able to go into the discussion about “Existential Krisen” or “Seinfrage.” See Bernd Amos, Widerfahrnis: eine Untersuchung im Ausgang von Martin Heideggers Sein und Zeit, MV-Verlag, 2006.
- 30.
See Stegmaier, Werner (2008). Esp. “3. Vorgeschichte: Evolution des philosophischen Begriffs der Orientierung”.
- 31.
Luckner, A. (2005, p. 10)
- 32.
It should be acknowledged that neither Wittgenstein’s inner sense of “instinct” nor Tylor’s “orientational structure of the perceptual field” pointe directly toward Rawls’ notion of life-plan, in like manner, not the straightforward interpretation of the notion of “Selbstorientierung.” I should stress that they work here as “analogy,” and perhaps very persuasive and telling one, especially when we consider the comparison between “drawing a fully or minutely detailed map” in reference external objects, and the “perceptional innate sense of direction” is very compatible with that between the Rawls’ idea of constructing blueprint with explicit knowledge and inner motive in keeping consistence which is expressed by the notion of “Selbstorientierung.”
- 33.
“Wittgenstein’s low estimation for ‘tourists’ is reflected in his reply to a student who wanted to attend some of Wittgenstein’s lectures. But not all of them: ‘my lectures are not for tourists?’ (Malcolm. Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. P.28. Oxford University Press, London, 1958.1)” see, David Blair, Wittgenstein, Language and Information: “Back to the Rough Ground!” Springer, 2006. He uses the comparison between drawing the precise map and reorganization of the personal ways as the analogy between the linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, as a map of language) and the silent practice of language as native speaker.
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Yuan, C. (2018). Plan, Rationality, and Self-Orientation (Selbstorientierung). In: Practical Intellect and Substantial Deliberation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8651-9_1
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