ORI GIN AL ARTICLE

Accountability, Integrity, Authenticity, and Self-legislation: Reflections on Ruediger Bittner’sReflections on Autonomy

Sarah Buss

Received: 8 October 2013 / Accepted: 8 October 2013

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract In this paper I consider three widespread assumptions: (1) the

assumption that we are accountable for our intentional actions only if they are in

some special sense ours; (2) the assumption that it is possible for us to be more or

less ‘‘true to’’ ourselves, and that we are flawed human beings to the extent that we

lack ‘‘integrity’’; and (3) the assumption that we can sometimes give ourselves

reasons by giving ourselves commands. I acknowledge that, as Ruediger Bittner has

argued, each of these assumptions is problematic, and that the failure to appreciate

the problems has led many philosophers astray. I try to show, however, that it is

possible to make sense of each assumption in a way that addresses Bittner’s

concerns.

It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to reflect on Ruediger Bittner’s

provocative observations about autonomy, authenticity, freedom, and much more. I

want to offer a few responses to these observations. More particularly, I want to

consider what might be said in defense of three widespread assumptions: (1) the

assumption that we are accountable for our intentional actions only if they are in

some special sense ours; (2) the assumption that it is possible for us to be more or

less ‘‘true to’’ ourselves, and that we are flawed human beings to the extent that we

lack ‘‘integrity’’; and (3) the assumption that we can sometimes give ourselves

reasons by giving ourselves commands. Professor Bittner challenges each of these

assumptions. Each challenge rests on important insights. I hope to show that we can

grant these insights without endorsing the challenges. We can, I hope to show, make

sense of the ideals of self-government and authenticity without falling prey to the

various misconceptions about ourselves that Bittner identifies.

S. Buss (&)

Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003, USA

e-mail: sbuss@umich.edu

123

Erkenn

DOI 10.1007/s10670-013-9557-x

1 Governing Oneself as a Condition of Accountability

Is there really any meaningful sense in which only some intentional actions can be

attributed to those who perform them? Bittner is skeptical, and he has good reason

to be. After all, if I do something intentionally, who else is the direct cause of what I

do? How could something prevent me from initiating the movements of my body

without rendering me a passive bystander to these movements? And if I am a

passive bystander to my behavior, then how can this behavior possibly qualify as my

action?1

This having been said, it does seem as though people sometimes relate to their

intentional actions in a way that prevents them from being accountable for what

they do. And it seems as though the problem in at least some of these cases is that

these people form their intentions under the influence of psychological forces that

are, in an accountability-undermining sense, external to the people themselves.

Before we dismiss these impressions as misguided, we need to consider whether

there is any way to make sense of them. We need to consider whether it is possible

to vindicate the impression that, though there is an important respect in which all

intentional actions are self-governed, only some intentional actions are self-

governed in a way that renders agents accountable for what they do.

In addressing this question, it is important to keep in mind that a person can be

accountable for what she does even if she has an excuse for doing it. When my wild

tap dancing at 3:00 a.m. wakes the person sleeping in the apartment below, I am not

to blame for this consequence if I had good reason to believe that she was away on

vacation. Nonetheless, I am accountable for dancing wildly at 3:00 a.m.: it is

reasonable for my downstairs neighbor (and anyone else) to hold me responsible for

my action—and even for its effect on her sleep. I am responsible for what I did,

even though I have a good excuse for doing it. I have a good excuse for doing what I

am responsible for doing; I am not to blame for the consequences I am responsible

for bringing about.

If ignorance does not prevent someone from being accountable for her intentional

actions, then what does? One disabling condition is having a brain the size of a

walnut, or being in any number of other conditions that render one incapable of

asking oneself whether one really has reason to behave as one is disposed to behave.

But what if an agent’s understanding is not limited in this way? Is it nonetheless

possible for her to do something intentionally without being accountable for her

action? This depends on whether there are any conditions that can prevent agents

from determining their behavior in an accountability-conferring way without

preventing this behavior from qualifying as voluntary.

This is where so many accounts of accountability go astray. They assume that

since ‘‘governing’’ is an activity of agents, the ‘‘self-governing’’ at issue in

assessments of accountability must be some special exercise of agency. This leads

to a faulty conception of the agent who fails to govern herself. She is, on some

accounts, (1) a passive bystander to her own behavior. On others, she is (2) someone

whose action would not survive her reflection on the priorities that underlie it.

1 I have pressed this point in two recent papers, Buss (2012, 2013).

S. Buss

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The first of these misconceptions reduces the distinction between autonomous

and non-autonomous agency to (1) the distinction between voluntary and

involuntary behavior. The second misconception reduces it to (2) the distinction

between more and less ideal instances of agency. We must reject accounts of the

first sort because as long as we are doing something intentionally, we are exercising

our agency; and as long as we are exercising our agency, we are not passive in

relation to our own behavior. We must reject accounts of the second sort because we

can be accountable for what we do ‘‘thoughtlessly,’’ even if we would disapprove of

our behavior were we to give it more thought. If we do something wrong, and if we

are fully aware of what we are doing, then the fact that we acted in a way that is

incompatible with our long-term values is irrelevant to whether we are to blame for

what we did. We acknowledge as much when we feel ashamed of ourselves, or

guilty, for doing something we cannot reconcile with our considered evaluative

judgments—or when we feel proud at having finally freed ourselves from the

oppression of old habits of mind and deed.

Having noted the obvious sense in which all intentional actions are self-

governed, Bittner concludes that there is no meaningful sense in which only some

intentional actions are self-governed. (Bittner 2002)2 It seems to me, however, that

more work needs to be done to establish this conclusion. All that follows from the

inadequacy of the popular accounts of autonomous agency is that if there is an

accountability-conferring sense in which only some intentional agents are ‘‘self-

governing,’’ then the relevant ‘‘governing’’ relation cannot consist in a special

exercise of agency.

Again, I think we should be slow to dismiss the judgment that some agents fail to

govern their deliberate, intentional behavior in an accountability-conferring way.

Indeed, though I reject P. F. Strawson’s claim that such judgments do not

presuppose any metaphysical commitments, I share his view that our assessments of

accountability are central enough to our understanding of ourselves and each other

that we should favor any account that can accommodate and justify them. More

particularly, I believe that in order to do justice to the phenomenon that interests us,

an account of accountability must shed light on the widespread assumption that if

someone misses an appointment because she suffers from Obsessive Compulsive

Disorder, or if she is so overpowered by fear and shyness that she fails to thank the

person who saved her from an assailant, or so short on sleep that she hurls insults at

the person who jostled her on the sidewalk, then she is less accountable for what she

does than she otherwise would be. According to this assumption, such conditions

free an agent from accountability because, in some important sense, they undermine

her ability to exercise control over her actions. They have this disabling effect, even

if they do not prevent her from acting intentionally, and quite deliberately, and even

though they do not prevent her from wholeheartedly endorsing her behavior. (Of

course, insofar as someone’s failure to govern herself can be traced to an earlier

action for which she was accountable, and insofar as she had reason to anticipate

2 ‘‘There is,’’ Bittner writes, ‘‘no other way for a piece of behavior [e.g., flinging dishes, books, and

abusive language] [not to be attributable to someone] than that exemplified by a case in which I rather

than [he] fling the dishes, books, and abusive language at my companion. There is no other than the ‘gross

literal’ sense in which some piece of behavior is or is not somebody’s.’’ (p. 222)

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that this action would have a disabling effect, the fact that she subsequently fails to

govern herself does not free her from blame. The assumption that we should treat as

a datum is the assumption that someone can be prevented from governing her

behavior in a way that prevents her from being accountable for what she does,

unless she was accountable for something she did earlier—and unless she had

reason to anticipate the disabling effect of this earlier action.)

How do compulsions, fear, exhaustion, and many other psychological and

physiological conditions prevent agents from governing themselves? I have argued

elsewhere that to be self-governing in the accountability-conferring sense one must

figure among the direct non-agential causes of one’s intentions. Compulsions, fear,

fatigue, and many other conditions can prevent someone from exercising a

significant direct influence over her intention simply by playing a sufficiently

influential role themselves. Because their influence is the influence of something

external to the agent herself, it interferes with her influence. It prevents her from

determining how she behaves by preventing her from playing a decisive role in the

production of her intention to behave this way.3

But in what sense can an agent’s own psychological states be ‘‘external’’ to the

agent herself? The answer lies, I believe, in the fact that the relevant distinction

between ‘‘internal’’ and ‘‘external’’ psychological states is the very distinction at

issue when we attribute certain psychic conditions to illness or pathology. In

judging that certain conditions are illnesses, or the symptoms of illnesses, we imply

that the concept ‘human being’ is a partly normative concept. Though in an obvious

sense, a sick human being is no less human than her healthy counterparts, she is a

less perfect representative of her kind. We call attention to this fact when we refer to

illnesses as ‘‘afflictions.’’ Though the symptoms of pathology are attributable to the

person whose symptoms they are, to be ‘‘the victim’’ of an illness or a disease is to

have been assaulted, invaded, dominated by an external/alien force.

Of course, such intrusions need not prevent people from governing their actions.

My tummy ache, and whatever underlying condition explains it, may exercise no

significant causal influence on how I think about my options. It may simply figure

among the things I consider—or ‘‘take into account’’—when I decide whether to go

to bed early, or make an appointment with the doctor. Sometimes, however, an

illness can cause pain or discomfort so excruciating and distracting that it prevents

the sufferer from so much as considering that she has alternatives to responding as

she does. And it is the essence of many mental illnesses that they cause the afflicted

person to malfunction precisely because they interfere with her ability to take

various alternatives seriously, and to assign them the ‘‘weight’’ she would assign

them if she were not sick. When an agent suffers in this way, something with which

she has been afflicted exercises a decisive causal influence on her intentions. In just

this sense, and to just this extent, it prevents her from determining these intentions;

it prevents her from governing herself.

There is bound to be considerable disagreement over whether a given psychic

condition is a mere eccentricity or a symptom of pathology, or whether an emotion

3 For a detailed development of this account of the way in which a person’s own mental states can

undermine her autonomy, see Buss (2012).

S. Buss

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is so powerful—or a sensation so painful—that it undermines a person’s influence

on the process whereby she forms her intentions. The judgment that someone is in a

psychological or physiological condition that prevents her from governing herself in

an accountability-conferring way is just that—a judgment. I have suggested that it

is, in part, a normative judgment regarding which sort of psychological or

physiological conditions are causes or constituents or symptoms of human

malfunctioning, and it is also a judgment about the typical effects of various forms

of malfunctioning—in particular, their effects on the intention-forming process.

There is no neat and tidy way to resolve the disagreements that arise when we make

such judgments. My point is that these disagreements appear to be coherent, and

they appear to be about something we are not mistaken to take seriously.

It is an interesting question whether we could cease to care about the difference

between character flaws and pathology, and whether, if we could, this would be a

good thing. Some of Bittner’s remarks about freedom suggest that he would urge us

to play down the differences between vices and psychic illnesses and to focus,

instead, on the ways in which each of these conditions can make it difficult for

agents to achieve their goals. But even if he is right about this, a psychic trait cannot

prevent us from achieving our goals unless there is some sense in which its causal

influence is external to our own. And in any case, what matters for the purposes of

the present inquiry is that (1) this distinction between ‘‘internal’’ and ‘‘external’’

psychic influences is one we really do care about, (2) our interest in this distinction

is central to our interest in whether someone is accountable for her action, and (3)

this means that there is a perfectly intelligible sense in which some, and only some,

agents govern their actions.

2 Being True to One’s (Deep) Self

The distinction between ‘‘internal’’ and ‘‘external’’ psychic states that is at issue in

assessments of accountability is not the distinction between superficial and deep

aspects of the self. Indeed, if the ‘‘depth’’ of some element of an agent’s psyche is

not simply a measure of its actual influence on her behavior, then it must be possible

for a pathological condition to remove whatever impediments there may be to the

influence of this ‘‘deep self.’’ In short, it must be possible for someone to express

whatever part of her psyche is ‘‘deepest’’ precisely because she does not govern

herself in an accountability-conferring way.

In denying that we are accountable for only those actions that reflect what is

‘‘deepest’’ in us, I am in agreement with Bittner. But he goes further than this: there

is, he suggests, no important sense in which some determining causes of our action

are ‘‘deeper’’ aspects of who we are than others.4 Should we endorse this claim?

4 ‘‘I do not have depth,’’ Bittner proclaims, ‘‘but only width… ‘But surely you care about some of the

things in your domain more than about others, and some people are closer to your heart than others.’—No

doubt, but these differences are not properly understood in terms of a contrast between what engages my

core, essence, or true self and what does not… I am not more of myself, more authentic, as a lover than as

a colleague, say. I am all there in either case. The lover and the colleague differ not in how much of me is

involved, but in what it is I am involved in.’’ (Bittner 2002, p. 224)

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Given how many things we can, and do, have in mind in applying the metaphor of

depth to aspects of our psyche, I would be very surprised if every such application is

confused. Indeed, the mere fact that we find this metaphor so natural suggests to me

that it captures something real and important in our relation to ourselves.

Here is one respect in which it makes sense to say that some elements of our

psyche are ‘‘deeper’’ than others: they are deeper insofar as they reflect something

we care about ‘‘more deeply.’’ To what are we calling attention when we say that

most parents care ‘‘more deeply’’ about whether their children are happy than about

whether their children are tall—and that they care more deeply about the welfare of

their own children than they care about the children of others? Does the metaphor of

depth add anything to the claim that parents care more about their own children? I

think it does. In saying that most parents care deeply about the well-being of their

own children, we seem to be calling attention to the fact that they would be gravely

damaged—that the quality of their lives would be significantly diminished—if their

children were mired in misery. It is natural to refer to this fact with the metaphor of

depth because it is natural to connect what is deep with what is foundational, and

because it is natural to associate a blow that would cause our lives to crumble with a

blow to their very foundation.

If this makes sense, then it also makes sense to say that some of our actions

express a deeper part of us than do others. When I do something that expresses my

love for my child, I express a deeper part of myself than when I do something that

expresses my love of ice cream, or even my desire to live a life in which most of my

gustatory experiences are at least somewhat pleasurable. Again, to say that what the

former action expresses is ‘‘deeper’’ is just to say that it expresses attachments and

commitments that render me vulnerable in a way that other attachments and

commitments do not. On most occasions when our desires are frustrated, we suffer a

mere flesh wound, from which we recover with relative ease. But when some event

frustrates our deepest attachments and commitments, we often experience the

setback as a ‘‘devastating’’ blow. Though in the aftermath we may succeed in

‘‘rebuilding’’ ourselves and our lives, the point is that significant reconstruction is

often necessary. This, again, is what we have in mind in saying that—to use Yeats’

memorable phrase—the blow has struck us ‘‘in the deep heart’s core’’ (Yeats 1977).

As Bittner notes, not only does ‘‘the deep self’’ play a prominent role in many

discussions of autonomous agency; it is also alleged to be a ‘‘guide’’ to action.

According to this further claim, we go astray when we fail to be ‘‘true to’’ what is

deepest in us. There is a broadly ethical flavor to this judgment: ‘‘inauthenticity’’

and lack of integrity are moral failings. But what, exactly, are these character flaws

supposed to be? Surely, a person does not deserve to be criticized for failing to be

‘‘true to herself’’ if she goes to the movies just because ‘‘she feels like it,’’ or if she

offers nuts before dinner because ‘‘this is what one does,’’ or if she allows someone

else to pick out the menu because she trusts his judgment more than her own. In

none of these cases does her behavior appear to be guided by the person she is in

any distinctive way. So if authenticity and integrity are ethical ideals, realizing these

ideals cannot require being so guided—or even being so guided on as many

occasions as possible. Bittner is surely right about this.

S. Buss

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When people place the failure to be ‘‘true to oneself’’ among the vices, they seem

to have one of two things in mind: (1) the target of criticism fails to ‘‘live up to’’ her

deepest commitments, or (2) her deepest commitments reflect her failure to question

the expectations and practices of others. I want to explain why it seems to me that

(1) if the first sort of failing is possible, this is not because being ‘‘true to oneself’’ is

a distinct virtue; and (2) if the second sort of failing is possible, it is not really a

failure to be true to oneself. In reviewing these points, I will, in effect, be siding

with Bittner: when it comes to figuring out what to do and how to live, thinking

about who I (truly) am is usually either one thought too many, or entirely beside the

point. Having acknowledged this much, however, I will then call attention to the

fact that human beings can relate to themselves in such a way that being true to

themselves acquires the status of an ideal. More specifically, the human capacity for

self-alienation is the capacity to turn being true to oneself into an ideal—an ideal

one is likely to find very difficult to realize.

Suppose that someone acts in a way that appears to be incompatible with her

deepest commitments. Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to wonder

whether these commitments are really so deep, after all. The case for this skepticism

strengthens if the same thing happens over and over again. And the more frequently

her behavior appears to be a response to a passing whim, the more reason we have to

doubt that she has any deep commitments at all.

To be ‘‘shallow’’ in this sense is to be invulnerable to psychic shattering. Why is

this a flaw? The answer must have something to do with the fact that if one cannot

be psychically shattered, then one must already be a mere collection of unintegrated

impulses and whims. Yet no single someone can be completely dis-integrated in this

way. And as long as someone is, indeed, someone, she is true to herself whenever

she is true to the less-than-fully-integrated someone she is.

It is important to distinguish a person who is shallow in the sense I am exploring

here from someone who finds it difficult to ‘‘be herself’’ in a wide range of

circumstances. This second sort of person is easily ‘‘inhibited’’; it takes considerable

effort to get her to ‘‘open up,’’ or (as we also put it) to ‘‘bring her out.’’ Insofar as

having hidden depths is an important aspect of her identity, she cannot be true to

herself without failing to act in a way that reflects her ‘‘deep self.’’ Only if she fails

to act in ways that manifest her deepest commitments and attachments, can she be

true to the reserved, shy, introverted person she truly is; she is true to herself

precisely insofar as her words and deeds reveal only her most superficial concerns.

Would such psychic opacity be a moral failing if it characterized even a person’s

most important, life-directing decisions? Would she be a less admirable human

being if most of her major life choices did not reflect her deepest concerns? I have

already expressed my doubts that this is a coherent possibility: can a commitment

really render a person vulnerable if it does not have a significant influence on even

her most consequential decisions? On the other hand, it does seem possible that

someone’s commitments might be deep in the relevant sense if they would have

determined her decision had she not been so shy, so loath to ‘‘stand out,’’ or so

averse to rocking the boat. If refraining from being true to oneself under these

circumstances is a vice, it seems to be the vice of cowardice. If, under these

circumstances, a person can be criticized for her failure to act in a way that reflects

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her deepest convictions, this is because she would have so acted if only she had had,

as we say, ‘‘the courage of these convictions.’’

The vice of cowardice seems to be more appropriately contrasted with the virtue

of integrity than with the virtue of authenticity. When people criticize someone for

being ‘‘inauthentic,’’ they generally mean to suggest, not that her behavior fails to

conform to her deepest commitments and attachments, but rather that her deepest

commitments and attachments are determined by whatever people in her social

group typically care about. A person who is ‘‘shallow’’ in this respect is often

contrasted with someone who forms her commitments and attachments in response

to thinking ‘‘deeply’’ about what she really cares about. But a person need not reflect

on the justifiability of her habits of thought and mind in order to ‘‘march to the beat

of her own drummer.’’ The distinguishing characteristic of the conformist is not that

she is unreflective, but that she is disposed to conform. This brings us back to

Bittner’s point: the conformist is no less true to herself than the nonconformist, and

so in this important sense, she is no less authentic. The more general point, again, is

that one cannot be a self without acting in a way that reflects who one is.

Should we conclude that, even though we can always aim to be more fully

integrated, more thoughtful, more independent, and more courageous, it makes no

sense for us to aim to be more ‘‘true to ourselves’’? I want to explore the possibility

that though there is something right about this conclusion, things are not quite as

simple as it suggests. In explaining why this is so, I will also be explaining why,

Bittner’s protests to the contrary notwithstanding, something it is appropriate to call

‘‘freedom’’ is both a privilege and a burden.

I begin with what I hope are some relatively uncontroversial observations: the

capacity to do things intentionally is the capacity to do things for reasons; the

capacity to do things for reasons is the capacity to perceive certain facts as reasons

for or against doing one thing rather than another; and the capacity to thus attribute

normative significance to various facts is the capacity to call these normative

assumptions into question. (If we can employ our reason to draw conclusions from

the facts, then we can employ it to evaluate the legitimacy of these inferences.)

Capacities are powers. When someone has greater power of some kind, she tends

to have greater freedom. More specifically, a person has greater freedom insofar as

she faces fewer impediments to acquiring, maintaining, and exercising certain

powers; and she also has greater freedom insofar as these powers include the power

to remove still other impediments. Of course, even if someone has a given power,

various circumstances may limit her opportunity to exercise it. But in a wide range

of circumstances, human beings can overcome or remove impediments to achieving

their goals as long as they have the power to reason. Because this power enables

them to question their own habits of thought and mind, moreover, it is the power to

regard even aspects of their own psyches as possible impediments. In relating to

themselves in this way, they ‘‘open paths’’ (Bittner, unpublished) that would

otherwise be closed, or nonexistent. Though this greater freedom from themselves

does not suffice to enable them to remove the impediments they put in their own

way, it is a necessary condition for the possibility of their trying to do so.

It is a privilege to be able to identify and overcome impediments to achieving our

goals. But insofar as the special freedom of rational beings is a freedom from self, it

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gives rise to a predicament. In particular, if someone can question the legitimacy of

her own normative assumptions, and if—as is arguably true of most rational

beings—this capacity is an important aspect of her identity, then there is no simple

answer to the question: What would I need to do in order to be ‘‘true to myself’’?

Anyone who raises this question has normative commitments. So, for any such

person, being true to herself would seem to involve being governed by these

commitments. Insofar, however, as this person’s capacity to call her commitments

into question is also an important aspect of her identity, she cannot be true to herself

without dissociating herself from these commitments. It thus seems that, as long as

she is capable of challenging the legitimacy of her own normative assumptions, she

betrays some aspect of herself, no matter what she does.

To be alienated from one’s deepest commitments—at least in thought—is to be

free from the constraints they impose; and, as the existentialists are fond of

reminding us, to be thus free is to face the predicament of how to be whole—how to

be a self to which one can be true. There is probably no more compelling

representative of this predicament than Hamlet. As Harold Bloom notes, ‘‘tenta-

tiveness is the peculiar mark of [Hamlet’s] endlessly burgeoning consciousness’’

(Bloom 1998, p. 401). Self-alienation is the consequence of his ‘‘freedom to infer’’;

it is inseparable from his ‘‘intellectual liberty’’ (Bloom 1998, p. 419).

How can one be true to oneself when one keeps ‘‘overhearing oneself speak’’

(Bloom 1998, p. 419; see also p. 410)? How can one reconcile one’s normative

commitments with one’s skepticism about their justifiability? Is it really possible to

maintain the conviction that one has overriding reason to avenge one’s father’s

death, even while one is asking oneself whether any normative assumptions can be

justified? To reconcile these two parts of oneself, one would have to act as if

certain facts really do have a certain significance, even while one is aware that one

is doing just this—treating a mere appearance as if it were an aspect of reality. As

others have noted, it is difficult to see how anyone could sustain this sort of

double-think. And even if it were possible to pull off the trick, would it really be

desirable to do so? Or is Hamlet right in thinking that only a coward would make

the attempt?

If it is not possible to reconcile one’s normative commitments with one’s self-

critical reflections, then it might seem as though the only alternative to suffering a

permanent psychic rupture would be to jettison one of these two irreconcilable

aspects of one’s identity. Like Kierkegaard’s aesthetes (Kierkegaard 1843/1959), for

example, one might commit oneself to steering clear of all commitments—

normative and otherwise. This appears to be Hamlet’s strategy by the end of the

play. As Bloom notes, the culmination of Hamlet’s ‘‘drive toward freedom: from

Elisnore, from the Ghost, from the world’’ (Bloom 1998, p. 427; see also p. 430) is

to ‘‘abandon the will’’ (Bloom 1998, p. 419).5 Citing Nietzsche, Bloom sums up this

5 Hamlet, Bloom notes, ‘‘seems, throughout Act V, to be carried on a flood tide of disinterestedness or

quietism, as though he is willing to accept every permutation in his own self but refuses to will the

changes’’ (413). ‘‘Hamlet’s quintessence is never to be wholly committed to any stance or attitude, any

mission, or indeed to anything at all.’’ (p. 406)

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connection between self-critical reflection, freedom, and passivity: ‘‘Knowledge

kills action, action requires the veils of illusion; that is the doctrine of Hamlet….’’

(Bloom 1998, p. 419.)6

Unfortunately, the strategy of freeing oneself from one’s commitments is no

more promising than the strategy of reconciliation. Not only is it extremely unlikely

that any of us can become as commitment-free as the ideal aesthete, but even if we

could, to live this way would be to forego the very projects and relationships we

value most. So, too, even if we could will to forget the contingent bases of our

normative and evaluative commitments, this would not heal the psychic rift, but

would merely obscure from consciousness an important aspect of our identity: the

drive to reflect and infer. Abandoning our self-examination is thus no more a way of

being ‘‘true to ourselves’’ than abandoning our substantive commitments. At best, it

enables us to deceive ourselves into thinking that being true to ourselves is a simpler

proposition than it really is.

3 Governing Oneself as an Exercise of Authority

I have argued that insofar as governing oneself is a necessary condition of

accountability, it has nothing to do with conforming one’s behavior to one’s

‘‘deepest’’ commitments; the sort of self-government that confers accountability

does not involve being guided by some especially ‘‘deep’’ aspect of one’s identity. I

want now to turn my attention to a different self-relation that is both a form of self-

government and a form of self-guidance. When we govern ourselves in this way, we

overcome an alienation from our normative commitments that is grounded, not (like

the self-alienation I have just been discussing) in our reason, but in our non-rational

impulses. We exercise control over our desires to do what, by our own lights, we

have overriding reason not to do.

When the impediments to being true to our own normative convictions are our

very own desires, we cannot overpower these desires without the desires themselves

putting up less resistance. This is just a way of saying that we ourselves have to put

up less resistance to our own normative verdicts. But why would we do this if these

verdicts alone did not suffice to determine the relative strength of our desires? I

want to explore the suggestion that we cease resisting under these circumstances

because we attribute to ourselves the authority to order ourselves to do so. We

assume that in ordering ourselves to cease resisting our normative verdicts, we give

ourselves an additional reason to comply with these verdicts. Discussing this

authority relation will give me an opportunity to respond to Bittner’s claim that it is

not possible for one and the same self to give and take orders.7

If we all had the perfection of God, Bittner would be right. Agents whose desires

are invariably constrained by their normative verdicts are insufficiently divided

6 The citation is from Nietzsche (1872/2000).7 ‘‘[W]ith law-giver and law-subject being two, even within me… the law-subject in me obeys a law

external to it, not its own law, as promised by autonomy. Externality within myself is still externality and

destroys autonomy’’ (Bittner (2002), pp. 219–220).

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from themselves to give themselves orders. This is Kant’s point when he says that if

we had divine/holy wills, we would not be subject to imperatives. (Kant 1785/1956,

p. 81.) Agents with divine wills ‘‘govern themselves’’ by employing their reason; for

them, self-government just is government by reason. The fact that an agent with a

divine will has reached a certain normative conclusion does not figure among her

reasons for action. For her, an appeal to this fact would involve one thought too

many.

Less-than-divine rational agents are different. They sometimes find themselves

with strong desires to do the very things they believe they have overriding reason

not to do. Sometimes, the strength of such desires diminishes as soon as they

review their reasons for acting otherwise. On other occasions, however, what they

are most strongly inclined to do remains in conflict with what they take themselves

to have most reason to do; the strength of their desires is not responsive to their

reasoning.

Under these circumstances, the thought that ‘‘this is the verdict of my reasoning’’

is not one thought too many. To the contrary, it is the potentially useful thought that

my strongest desire does not have the authority I attribute to myself as a reasoner. In

reminding myself that my normative judgment reflects my capacity to reason, I

remind myself that it is only insofar as this is the case that I am an authority—an

epistemic authority—on what I have reason to do. In so doing, I remind myself that I

have the authority—the practical authority—to demand that I conform my behavior

to my normative judgment.

In stressing the relation between epistemic and practical authority, I am relying

on the work of Joseph Raz.8 Though I do not think Raz’s account does justice to

interpersonal authority relations, what he says does seem to shed light on

intrapersonal authority relations.

Here, with slight modifications, is the example I used to make the point in an

earlier paper (Buss 2013, p. 35). Suppose that I have reached the conclusion that I

have overriding reason NOT to eat that second piece of pie. And suppose that I

would not have bothered to employ my reason on this occasion if I had not assumed

that its verdicts would have a greater epistemic authority with respect to what is

really to-be-done under these circumstances than any desire prompted by the close

proximity of the pie. Alas, I might nonetheless persist in desiring to eat that second

piece of pie, and this desire might be stronger than any others. If to be in this state is

to represent the pie as to-be-eaten, then when I am in this state, I am opposed to

being guided by the verdict of my reason(ing). Insofar, however, as I am disposed to

attribute epistemic authority to the verdicts of my reason, I am disposed to obey the

demands that reflect these verdicts. I am so disposed precisely because, qua pie-

desirer, I am not wholly identified with my reason. It is precisely because I am not in

perfect harmony with myself that I am in a position to regard the epistemic authority

of my own normative judgments as a distinct reason to grant practical authority to

whatever demands reflect these judgments.

8 See, for example, Raz (1985).

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As I explained in discussing this example:

under the stipulated circumstances, my desire to eat the pie puts me at odds

with myself; it moves me to defy the verdicts of my own reason. To this extent,

I regard the directives that are grounded in these verdicts as external constraints

– even as I am the one who is imposing them. At the same time, however, since

I also regard the directives as coming from a source that has epistemic authority

with respect to the very point at issue between me and myself (since – rightly or

wrongly – even as I desire the pie, I regard the contemporaneous verdicts of my

reasoning as more likely to track the reasons I really have than are any pie-

related desires that are not grounded in my reason), I assume that I (the person I

am insofar as I employ my reason to figure out what to do) am justified in

asserting practical authority over myself (the person I am insofar as I am not

identified with my reason). And so I regard the directives as authoritatively

binding. I regard these orders as authoritatively binding because I regard them

as reflecting my own superior epistemic position with respect to the very issue

my desire represents as being at stake when it represents the piece of pie as

really, really, really to-be-eaten-by-me. (Buss 2013, pp. 35–36)

Bittner claims that orders I give to myself lack the force of law because it is up to me

whether I comply with them. But, first, there is a sense in which this is true, too, when the

orders come from someone else: if Johnny does not grant Mommy’s authority to demand

that he clean his room, then she ‘‘lacks authority’’ over him, especially if she lacks the

power to enforce her bidding. Of course, even if she lacks de facto authority, she may

have de jure authority; it could be, for example, that, regardless of what Johnny thinks, to

be his mother just is to have the authority to order him to clean his room. But—and this is

my second point—so too, someone may have de jure authority over herself, even if she

denies that she does. According to my suggestion, she has de jure practical authority to

demand conformity with the verdict of her reason insofar and only insofar as she has

greater epistemic authority in her capacity as a reasoner than she has in her capacity as

the subject of a desire that is not the product of reason. But, third, and most importantly,

even if our reasoning is not always a trustworthy guide to what we have reason to do, no

one orders herself to conform to the verdicts of her own reason without assuming that she

does have greater epistemic authority in her capacity as a reasoner. In demanding that

she comply with the verdict of her own reason, she assumes that, under the

circumstances, her reason is more authoritative with respect to what she has reason to

do than any desire that moves her to defy its verdicts. And insofar as she assumes this, she

assumes that she has no justification for defying this order. (Nor does she assume that the

force of the order is merely the force of good advice: it makes no sense for me to advise

myself to do something without commanding myself to take this advice; and this is

something I understand both in my capacity as the one who is told what to do and in my

capacity as the one who does the telling.9)

In arguing that a rational agent can exercise practical authority over herself, I am

in agreement with Christine Korsgaard. But I want to stress two elements of

9 For a discussion of the relation between (1) commands, directives, or orders and (2) advice, see Stephen

Darwall’s discussion of authority in Darwall (2009, 2010).

S. Buss

123

Korsgaard’s picture of intentional action with which I disagree. First, I do not share

her assumption that all—or even most—intentional action is the product of an

agent’s assertion of practical authority over herself. I do not agree that, as she puts

it, ‘‘the reflective structure of self-consciousness inevitably places us in a relation of

authority over ourselves’’ (Korsgaard 2007, pp. 10–11). On my view, agents govern

themselves in this way only when they fail to be governed by their reason; and

though weakness of will is hardly a rare phenomenon, it is not a necessary condition

of human agency.

Second, I reject Korsgaard’s claim that ‘‘my reasons—and indeed, practical

reasons in general—are grounded in the authority the human mind necessarily has

over itself’’ (Korsgaard 1996, p. 104). To be sure, the fact that I order myself to

refrain from eating that piece of pie gives me an additional reason not to eat it. This

is the point of giving the order. But, on my account, the order has this normative

status only if I really am an epistemic authority on what I have reason to do. And no

one can be an epistemic authority on what she has reason to do unless, independent

of any assertion of authority, there are reasons for people to do some things and not

others. I thus side with Bittner in rejecting Korsgaard’s claim that to understand the

self’s capacity to give laws to itself is to answer ‘‘the realist objection—that we need

to explain why we must obey [a] legislator’’ (Korsgaard 1996, p. 104).

If, as Korsgaard insists, I cannot question my authority over myself, this is not

because I need no reason to regard the demands I make on myself as authoritative,

but because at the time when I form an opinion about how the reasons add up, I

cannot believe that this assessment is a less reliable guide than any conflicting

desire. Of course, even if I have the authority to order myself not to satisfy some

desire, I may not have the power to enforce this order. It is always possible that my

desire will succeed in overpowering my normative judgment—that it will force me

to conclude that I have sufficient reason to satisfy it. Even under these

circumstances, however, I do not, and cannot, dismiss the orders I give myself as

mere attempts to bully myself into doing something I do not want to do.

It is other people who can bully me. According to Bittner, if we think carefully

about our own concerns, we will see that it is more important to us to avoid various

impediments to achieving our goals than to live among others who attribute to us a

value which gives them powerful reasons not to bully us. (Bittner, unpublished) Is

he right about this? Does our interest in not living among bullies rest on the not-

unreasonable assumption that such agents are an especially grave threat to our

opportunity to achieve our goals? I can only speak for myself—and my answer is

based on the exercise of an admittedly limited imagination. Since there are few

things more important to me than living among human beings who regard me as a

constraint on what they have reason to do, I do not believe that I could secure an

easier path to what is most important to me by agreeing to live among human beings

who think of me as having no right not to be bullied. If I were forced to choose

between having certain recognized rights not to be bullied and having a clear path to

realizing certain other ideals I hold dear—or between having these rights and simply

living in moderate comfort, I am not sure which option I would take. I am pretty

confident, however, that I would rather face considerable impediments to the goals I

now have than acquire goals I could easily achieve precisely because they were

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conditioned by my belief that I have no standing to object to being bullied. I would

rather have commitments that render me vulnerable to deep disappointments, and

even commitments it is difficult for me to muster the courage to live up to, than to

face few impediments to my goals because my deepest commitments reflect my

belief that no one has any nonself-interested reason to allow me to live my life in a

way that reflects my deepest commitments.

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