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.As I understand it, second-personaladdress makes a claim on the addressee s will (and not, like advice, onlyon her beliefs about what there is reason for her to do).It presumes totell another person, not just what to do in the way advice does, but also,in some way or to some extent, to do it.Nevertheless, it is a centraltheme of this book (and a reflection of Fichte s and Pufendorf s Points)that such directive claims and demands differ fundamentally from coer-cion and other goadings.Second-personal address seeks to direct a personthrough her own free choice and in a way that recognizes her status as afree and rational agent.It is relatively easy to distinguish between rational and nonrationalinfluence at the extremes.A moral treatise addressed to the public atlarge that aims dispassionately to convince its readers of the justice of itscause by rational argument is evidently trying to guide rather than goad.23A bully whose threatening looks put down challenges clearly goads ratherthan guides.But there are many cases in between that are not so clear.What about an offer that is unwelcome precisely because both partiesknow that the offeree will be unable to decline against his better judg-ment? Even if offers generally guide, this one might reasonably be re-garded as goading.The felicity conditions for offers include that the of-some degree of respect, even for the meanest and weakest of his subjects (1995).I amindebted for this reference to Eric Schliesser.22.Falk wrote this as a response to emotivist and prescriptivist metaethical theories,which he thought were insufficiently insensitive to the distinction, assimilating guiding toomuch to goading.23.This is so even if it addresses second-personal demands.Cf.Kant on the public useof reason in What Is Enlightenment? in Kant 1996f: 17 22.Copyright © 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College 50 The Second-Person Stance and Second-Personal Reasonsferee is free to decline, in the sense that it is presupposed by both partiesthat he may and can do so.An offer made because the offeree cannotbut accept has the superficial appearance of a guiding but the deepstructure of a goading.Suppose, however, that the offer is not unwelcome, but that the offererattempts to induce acceptance by forms of influence that are only inci-dentally related to reasons for accepting.Salespeople learn early on, forinstance, that insinuating a personal relationship that operates under theradar of mutual awareness is usually a more effective strategy thandwelling on features.Charming, cajoling, humoring, dazzling, and intim-idating all aim to persuade nonrationally, rather than (primarily, anyway)to give reasons.That doesn t mean that guiding must consist in simplylisting bloodless facts.There are reasons for example, about what it islike to undergo certain experiences that we can only appreciate by formsof imaginative engagement that alter our usual ways of seeing things, forexample, as by a powerful film or novel, or, as Hume put it, by aneloquent recital of the case (1985a: 230).Coercion by threat is generally thought to goad, but it is worth pausingto consider why this should be so.We must distinguish, first, between rational coercion and literal force or intimidation.The latter seek tocircumvent or undermine rational processes in a way that rational coer-cion does not.When someone threatens in, as it were, an unthreateningway, by saying something like, I feel bound to tell you that if you don tdo A, then evils X, Y, and Z will occur, she may correctly suppose thatthis gives the coerced agent a genuine reason, which the agent may ap-preciate and act on.So why don t threats guide rather than goad? Ob-viously, if someone else were simply to inform the agent of the threat,which he honestly believed to be a reason to acquiesce, this would beguiding rather than goading.Why does it become goading when thethreat is voiced, even unthreateningly, by the threatener?When someone simply informs another of an evil that will befall himif he does something, even if it is the person herself who will cause theevil, the reason given is not distinctively second-personal.It need not becapable of being addressed to exist nor need it be addressed for someoneto come to have it.I may arrange for someone to learn of my intentionto do X, Y, and Z should he not do A in ways that involve no form ofaddress whatsoever (perhaps I get him to read it in my diary).Of course, a threat doesn t simply inform.Perhaps the reason whyCopyright © 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College The Second-Person Stance and Second-Personal Reasons 51threats goad is that they create a reason in the sense that whether thethreat is given or carried out is itself up to the threatener.True enough,but there are many cases where one person creates a reason in giving itto another that do not thereby become goadings rather than guidings.When you order the Eggs Benedict, you give the waiter a reason forbringing it to you that didn t exist prior to your request.But here youare guiding, not goading.The difference is that in this case you and thewaiter both accept the background authority relations that give youstanding to order and thereby create reasons for him to act in this way.Nothing like this holds with pure threats, although it does, of course,with what are sometimes called threats that are backed by mutuallyaccepted law, custom, or morality.If a teacher threatens to give a popquiz unless her students read their assignments more assiduously, and allagree that this is fully within her authority, then she doesn t simply goadher students she gives them a further reason to study.What she doesis not really a threat in the coercing or goading sense; she puts them onnotice of a sanction that it is within her authority to apply.What makes coercion by rational threats goading rather than guiding,in my view, is that it purports to create reasons in something like theway that legitimate claims or demands do, that is, second-personally, butwithout the appropriate normative backing for the threatened sanc-tions, which consequently provide only the superficial appearance of anaccountability relation.It is as if they attempt to substitute the powerinvolved in a credible threat for the notice of an authorized sanction thatwould turn their goading into a second-personal guiding.Indeed, it isnot unusual for threats or other forms of coercion or manipulation tobe accompanied by self-indulging rationalizing fantasies of justified au-thority.Tyrants and batterers frequently comfort themselves by imaginingthe righteousness of their cause.Or they may flip back and forth betweena self-serving rationalization for their authority and threats pure andsimple.24Suppose, however, that someone has the authority to apply some sanc-tion.Suppose, to return to our earlier example, that you have the au-thority to lift, firmly but gently, someone else s foot from on top of yoursif he refuses to remove it voluntarily.Suppose you inform him of this,putting him on notice that, if he doesn t move his foot, then you will24.See the discussion of Stalin in Chapter 6.Copyright © 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College 52 The Second-Person Stance and Second-Personal Reasonsmove it for him.If you have this authority, then however directive yourdemand, this threatening notice will not amount to coercion.It would,however, be coercion if you were to threaten to move his foot firmly butgently from, say, your favorite part of the public sidewalk, since you haveno authority to demand that he do that [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.As I understand it, second-personaladdress makes a claim on the addressee s will (and not, like advice, onlyon her beliefs about what there is reason for her to do).It presumes totell another person, not just what to do in the way advice does, but also,in some way or to some extent, to do it.Nevertheless, it is a centraltheme of this book (and a reflection of Fichte s and Pufendorf s Points)that such directive claims and demands differ fundamentally from coer-cion and other goadings.Second-personal address seeks to direct a personthrough her own free choice and in a way that recognizes her status as afree and rational agent.It is relatively easy to distinguish between rational and nonrationalinfluence at the extremes.A moral treatise addressed to the public atlarge that aims dispassionately to convince its readers of the justice of itscause by rational argument is evidently trying to guide rather than goad.23A bully whose threatening looks put down challenges clearly goads ratherthan guides.But there are many cases in between that are not so clear.What about an offer that is unwelcome precisely because both partiesknow that the offeree will be unable to decline against his better judg-ment? Even if offers generally guide, this one might reasonably be re-garded as goading.The felicity conditions for offers include that the of-some degree of respect, even for the meanest and weakest of his subjects (1995).I amindebted for this reference to Eric Schliesser.22.Falk wrote this as a response to emotivist and prescriptivist metaethical theories,which he thought were insufficiently insensitive to the distinction, assimilating guiding toomuch to goading.23.This is so even if it addresses second-personal demands.Cf.Kant on the public useof reason in What Is Enlightenment? in Kant 1996f: 17 22.Copyright © 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College 50 The Second-Person Stance and Second-Personal Reasonsferee is free to decline, in the sense that it is presupposed by both partiesthat he may and can do so.An offer made because the offeree cannotbut accept has the superficial appearance of a guiding but the deepstructure of a goading.Suppose, however, that the offer is not unwelcome, but that the offererattempts to induce acceptance by forms of influence that are only inci-dentally related to reasons for accepting.Salespeople learn early on, forinstance, that insinuating a personal relationship that operates under theradar of mutual awareness is usually a more effective strategy thandwelling on features.Charming, cajoling, humoring, dazzling, and intim-idating all aim to persuade nonrationally, rather than (primarily, anyway)to give reasons.That doesn t mean that guiding must consist in simplylisting bloodless facts.There are reasons for example, about what it islike to undergo certain experiences that we can only appreciate by formsof imaginative engagement that alter our usual ways of seeing things, forexample, as by a powerful film or novel, or, as Hume put it, by aneloquent recital of the case (1985a: 230).Coercion by threat is generally thought to goad, but it is worth pausingto consider why this should be so.We must distinguish, first, between rational coercion and literal force or intimidation.The latter seek tocircumvent or undermine rational processes in a way that rational coer-cion does not.When someone threatens in, as it were, an unthreateningway, by saying something like, I feel bound to tell you that if you don tdo A, then evils X, Y, and Z will occur, she may correctly suppose thatthis gives the coerced agent a genuine reason, which the agent may ap-preciate and act on.So why don t threats guide rather than goad? Ob-viously, if someone else were simply to inform the agent of the threat,which he honestly believed to be a reason to acquiesce, this would beguiding rather than goading.Why does it become goading when thethreat is voiced, even unthreateningly, by the threatener?When someone simply informs another of an evil that will befall himif he does something, even if it is the person herself who will cause theevil, the reason given is not distinctively second-personal.It need not becapable of being addressed to exist nor need it be addressed for someoneto come to have it.I may arrange for someone to learn of my intentionto do X, Y, and Z should he not do A in ways that involve no form ofaddress whatsoever (perhaps I get him to read it in my diary).Of course, a threat doesn t simply inform.Perhaps the reason whyCopyright © 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College The Second-Person Stance and Second-Personal Reasons 51threats goad is that they create a reason in the sense that whether thethreat is given or carried out is itself up to the threatener.True enough,but there are many cases where one person creates a reason in giving itto another that do not thereby become goadings rather than guidings.When you order the Eggs Benedict, you give the waiter a reason forbringing it to you that didn t exist prior to your request.But here youare guiding, not goading.The difference is that in this case you and thewaiter both accept the background authority relations that give youstanding to order and thereby create reasons for him to act in this way.Nothing like this holds with pure threats, although it does, of course,with what are sometimes called threats that are backed by mutuallyaccepted law, custom, or morality.If a teacher threatens to give a popquiz unless her students read their assignments more assiduously, and allagree that this is fully within her authority, then she doesn t simply goadher students she gives them a further reason to study.What she doesis not really a threat in the coercing or goading sense; she puts them onnotice of a sanction that it is within her authority to apply.What makes coercion by rational threats goading rather than guiding,in my view, is that it purports to create reasons in something like theway that legitimate claims or demands do, that is, second-personally, butwithout the appropriate normative backing for the threatened sanc-tions, which consequently provide only the superficial appearance of anaccountability relation.It is as if they attempt to substitute the powerinvolved in a credible threat for the notice of an authorized sanction thatwould turn their goading into a second-personal guiding.Indeed, it isnot unusual for threats or other forms of coercion or manipulation tobe accompanied by self-indulging rationalizing fantasies of justified au-thority.Tyrants and batterers frequently comfort themselves by imaginingthe righteousness of their cause.Or they may flip back and forth betweena self-serving rationalization for their authority and threats pure andsimple.24Suppose, however, that someone has the authority to apply some sanc-tion.Suppose, to return to our earlier example, that you have the au-thority to lift, firmly but gently, someone else s foot from on top of yoursif he refuses to remove it voluntarily.Suppose you inform him of this,putting him on notice that, if he doesn t move his foot, then you will24.See the discussion of Stalin in Chapter 6.Copyright © 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College 52 The Second-Person Stance and Second-Personal Reasonsmove it for him.If you have this authority, then however directive yourdemand, this threatening notice will not amount to coercion.It would,however, be coercion if you were to threaten to move his foot firmly butgently from, say, your favorite part of the public sidewalk, since you haveno authority to demand that he do that [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]