香港人文哲學會網頁　http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/~hkshp 研討會哲學論文選 編者案語 　自九二年開始，本會與香港哲學之友便共同主辦每年一度的哲學研討會。 由九二年到九六年，我們已合辦了五屆，首三屆命名為「大專哲學研 討會」，後二屆改稱為「中西哲學研討會」。由於人力及時間所限， 我們無暇於每次研討會後都將研討會的論文整理出版，這是本會一直 引以為憾的事情。自本期《人文》開始，我們將補此遺憾，陸逐將過 往多界研討會的優秀論文整理刊載，希望各讀者留意。 The Personal And The Impersonal (II) 李敬恆 B. The Insignificance of the reconciliation between the Personal and the Impersonal Standpoints >From the above, we see how the reconciliation between the impersonal and the personal standpoints can be significant for the validity of a political ideal. The personal standpoint must be the sole ground for the practical possibility of any political ideal. If we can prove that the sort of demand of the personal standpoint that should be considered in the evaluation of a political ideal can all be accommodated from the consideration of the impersonal standpoint alone, we can reasonably claim that the claim of our personal standpoint is not the sole ground of practical possibility. If we can prove that our impartiality does have a motivational force on us, we can reasonable say that it is a ground for the practical possibility of a political ideal. If we can prove both of them, we can reject the claim that our impersonal standpoint cannot he the ground for practical possibility. In this way, we have no reason to assign such a great weight to our personal standpoint as Nagel does. It follows that the reconciliation of the personal and the impersonal standpoint is not necessary in establishing the validity of a political ideal, and so when the two standpoints conflict, we can simply ignore the demand of the personal standpoint and follow what is demanded by the impersonal one. 1. Personal Standpoint and Practical Possibility A valid political ideal must be practically possible, i.e. it must be psychologically acceptable. Therefore, it must accommodate to our personal interests, for no one would be motivated to accept a social arrangement which completely neglects our personal interests. The individuals can reasonably reject the form of social arrangement which give no expression to their personal interests and so it cannot be valid. However, it is not necessary and not reasonable that all the demand of our personal standpoint must be accommodated. On the one hand, it is impossible since the our personal demands conflict with one another. Given that the amount of resources is limited, it is obvious that if all the people want to maximize all his own personal interests, most of them cannot do so, no matter what kind of social arrangement is in effect. On the other hand, not every single demand of it should or is needed to be considered. My personal standpoint may require that the social distribution system should be arranged in a way that can maximize my own wealth and properties, even in the expense of all other members of the society. However, no one would think that this kind of requirement should be given any significant weight in the construction or the justification of any political ideal, since every other individual will reject it personally and impartially. In other words, though, in order to be practically possible, any valid political ideal must to some extent accommodate to the demand from our personal standpoint, it needs not satisfy it completely, i.e. it can ignore the unreasonable one. (Note that it is not contradictory to say that a demand from our selves is unreasonable. The fact that a certain demand comes from our personal standpoint does not entail that it is reasonable; otherwise every demand of every human being would be reasonable). Accordingly, two sorts of demand should be accommodated: the one that is reasonable and the one which is not unreasonable (let us call it the non-unreasonable demand). The former is that which is supported by sufficient reasons, e.g. the demand for not being killed innocently without our consent. The latter is that which cannot be rejected with sufficient reasons, e.g. my demand for singing in my own house without disturbing any one else. The former implies the latter, i.e. demand which is reasonable must be non-unreasonable; being non- unreasonable is the necessary condition for being reasonable. Since the set of reasonable demand is a member of the set of non-unreasonable demand, if we can prove that the non-unreasonable demand from our personal standpoint can also be derived from our impersonal standpoint, we are then in a strong sense justified in asserting that the satisfaction of our demand of the impersonal standpoint is sufficient for practical possibility. Even if we are unable to do so, we can accomplish the task in a weak sense by proving that all non-unreasonable demand of the personal standpoint must be in accord with our impartiality. If we can justify the claim either in a strong or a weak sense, we can dismiss the importance of the personal standpoint in the establishment of the validity of a political ideal. 2. Impartiality and Practical Possibility 2.1 Rejection of the personal standpoint as the sole ground of practical possibility Can the non-unreasonable demand of the personal standpoint be derived from our impersonal standpoint? One can reject the claim that they can by appealing to the difference in the nature of demands from the two different standpoints. As mentioned in Introduction, demand from our impersonal standpoint is impartial, ignoring the personal interests of oneself, while demand from our personal standpoint is partial, giving priority to our own self-interests. How can the demand which is partial and particular derived from the impersonal standpoint? The validity of the objection seems doubtful. How about the demand for promoting our self- interest within a limit with which we would agree without knowing who I am? What is concerned is our own personal interests which is conceived front the impersonal standpoint. What is said above may not be convincing. Nevertheless, we can argue in another way. Assume that the demand from our personal standpoint cannot be derived from our impersonal standpoint. Moreover, as I have argued in Section B 1, only the satisfaction of the non- unreasonahle demand is relevant to practical possibility. How can a demand, wherever it emerges, be non-unreasonable? Though it is a very complicated and difficult task to specify the criteria for the classification of demand, which is not supposed to be taken up here, it is sufficient to see that it must at least be in accord with our impartiality derived from our impersonal standpoint. A demand is unreasonable when it fails the test of our impartiality, since those suffer from the partiality imposed on them can justifiably reject it. In other words, our assignment of significance to the demand from our personal standpoint must be carried out from the impersonal perspective. We can then formulate our argument as follows: 1. A valid political ideal must be practically possible, i.e. at least motivationally possible. 2. An ideal which fails to accommodate to any demand from our personal standpoint cannot be practically possible, since we have no motivation to accept it. Therefore, 3.A valid political ideal must meet as least some sorts of demand from our personal standpoint. 4. There are different sorts of demand from our personal standpoint: the reasonable, the unreasonable and the non-unreasonable (in a narrow sense). 5. It is intelligible that no unreasonable demand needs to be accommodated by a valid political ideal. Therefore, 6. The greatest respect we need to give to the demand of the personal standpoint is to take all its non-unreasonable demand (in the broad sense) into consideration. 7. All non-unreasonable demand of the personal standpoint must at least be in accord with our demand from the impersonal standpoint, i.e. our impartiality. It follows that: 8. What make a demand worth consideration is not that it comes from our personal standpoint, but that it is, at least, in accord with our impartiality. It implies that: 9. If a political ideal can accommodate to the demand of our impersonal standpoint, it will also accommodate the demand which should be accommodated as far as possible, namely the non-unreasonable demand, of the personal standpoint. Therefore, 10. The importance of our personal standpoint can be dismissed, and only the demand of the impersonal standpoint should be considered in determining the validity of a political ideal. 2.2 The motivation of impartiality The argument for the conclusion that a valid political ideal must accommodate to the demand of our personal standpoint can be stated as below: (Nagel has not give an argument in the form of mine, but it is the only possible one if his claim is to be justified.) a) Accommodation to our impersonal demand, i.e. impartiality, alone implies the total neglect of our personal demand; and b) A political ideal is motivationally possible only if it accommodates to our personal demand c) Any political ideal is practically possible only if it is motivationally possible. >From premises a)-c), we can validly deduce that d) If a political ideal accommodates to our impartiality alone, it is practically impossible. Since the above argument is valid, the conclusion d) can be false only if at least one of the premises is false. Since the truth of c) is obvious, we must refute either a) or b), or both. In Section B 2.1, we have proved that a) is false, i.e. accommodation of our impartiality implies the accommodation of our non-unreasonable personal demand. What I want to argue here is that b) is also false, even if a) is true. All demands from our selves are by nature motivational to us. It is unintelligible that while we have a demand for X, we can at the same time have no motivation to obtain or achieve it. If what Nagel says is true, both the personal and the impersonal standpoints are parts of an individual self. In this way, the demand from our impersonal standpoint should be as real as that of our personal one. Then, it is rather doubtful that while the latter is motivational, the former is not. In addition, it is conceivable and empirically possible that our impartial demand does sometimes override our partial one, and is capable to motivate us to act. Therefore, given that our impartiality has a motivational force (which is sometimes very strong) on us, it is difficult and groundless to believe that a political ideal is motivational possible only if it accommodate to our personal demand. Seeing that our impartiality does have some motivational force on us, and the accommodation to it embraces the accommodation of the relevant demand of the personal standpoint, i.e. the non- unreasonable, we can reasonably dismiss the importance of the demand of our personal standpoint, and thus the significance of the reconciliation between the personal and the impersonal standpoints. I don't mean that demand emerging from the personal standpoint is not important, but it should be considered from the impersonal standpoint. Whether a political ideal is valid should then depend on whether it can accommodate to our impartiality. II. The Significance of the Conflict within the Impersonal Standpoint In Part I, we have dismissed the significance of the conflict between the impersonal and the personal standpoint. When the demand of the two standpoints conflict, that of the personal should give way to that of the impersonal. The real problem in political philosophy is then the reconciliation of the conflict within our impersonal standpoint, i.e. the conflict between the different demands of our impartiality. Since the purpose of this paper is mainly to shift our forcus from the conflict between the personal and impersonal standpoint, which is stressed by Nagel, to the conflict within our impersonal standpoint, we will only draw a brief outline of the conflict, and the discussion on its solution will be left out here. What sorts of demand would arise from our impartiality? Let us first recall what characterize the demand from our impersonal standpoint. From the impersonal standpoint, we view the situation of the community we are in externally, in abstraction from our particular position in it. In doing so, we are impartial and objective, in the sense that our judgment is focused on the situation of the particular individual, rather than who the individual is. Thus, the demand of our impersonal standpoint is distinctive from that of the personal, in that it is situation-centred, rather than agent-centred. Our impartiality can be distinguished into two sorts, according to the different aspects of a community each focuses. When we focus on the microscopic aspect of the community impersonally, the demand arising from the impersonal standpoint can be called the individualized impartiality. Our individualized impartiality requires us to assign equal value and demand equal treatment for any individuals in the community who are in the same situation. Under its influence, we have a strong demand for equality. On the other hand, when we focus on the macroscopic aspect of the community, our impersonal standpoint generates a concern for the community as a whole, which can be called holistic impartiality. Our holistic impartiality requires us to demand for a social arrangement which can maximize the interests of the community as a whole, even when my personal interests are not to be promoted. In ignoring one's own self-interests, such demand is also impartial and is not merely a concern for efficiency. Although both the individualized and the holistic impartiality arise from our impersonal standpoint, they are liable to conflict with each other. If we follow absolutely the holistic impartiality, inequality is likely to he resulted, as we can observe in the capitalistic societies. On the other hand, if we follow our individualized impartiality absolutely, the interests of the community as a whole are highly unlikely to be maximized: Can this conflict be dismissed as that between the personal and impersonal standpoints? That is, can either one of them be reasonably ignored? It seems not, since a valid political ideal must accommodate truth of them. We can reasonably and rationally reject an arrangement which fail to accommodate both of them. Therefore, the conflict between the holistic and individualized impartiality is real, significant and must at least he reconciled to a certain extent. The problem then is how to achieve a proper balance between the two. Since neither of them can be dismissed, we must try to find out 1. under what condition and to what extent the interests of the community as a whole can be justifiably sacrificed for the sake of equality, and 2. under what condition and to what extent should equality give way to the promotion of the interests of the community as a whole. This, rather than the reconciliation between the personal and the impersonal standpoint, is the central problem in political philosophy. Conclusion To conclude, I agree with Nagel that the central problem of political philosophy is essentially the conflict within the individual self. However, I don't share his view that it is the conflict between our personal and impersonal standpoints. Nagel has mistakenly granted the demand of our personal standpoint the same importance as our impartiality. As we have proved, not all personal demand needs to be considered, and that which does can be accommodated through the accommodation of our impartiality alone. This point dismisses the importance of our personal demand and thus refutes his view that the reconciliation between the personal and the impersonal standpoints is of fundamental significance for the validity of a political ideal. Instead, what is really crucial and central in political philosophy is the reconciliation of the conflict within our impersonal standpoint, i.e. the conflict between the individualized and the holistic impartiality. It presupposes the specification of the criteria for the reasonability of demand. They are the two most prominent problems which every comprehensive political theory must tackle, though the solution of them is beyond the scope of this paper. (編者按：本文作者為香港中文大學哲學系碩士) Copyright (c) Hong Kong Society of Humanistic Philosophy. All Rights Reserved.