Frankfurt Cases in Griceian Key

From online site

http://comp.uark.edu/~efunkho/Capstone_files/Bratman07.pdf

(Prof. Funkhouser)


Q: Can we make sense of Frankfurt’s idea of owning (i.e., identifying with) or rejecting a
desire?

1.
• Frankfurt’s 1971 account: the hierarchical model.

Ownership is a second-order volition.

Bratman has developed and defended his own hierarchical theory.

But, any such theory must
give a role to evaluative judgments in order to make the desires truly one’s own.


The Platonic
Challenge is that these evaluative judgments could account for ownership without the
hierarchical machinery.

“It seems that the relevant higher-order attitudes — whether Frankfurtian desires of
higher-order intentions and policies — will themselves normally be to some extent
grounded in and constrained by reflection on what one takes to be of value."

"Indeed, it seems that, normally, if an agent’s relevant higher-order attitudes are not to some extent
shaped by her evaluative reflections and judgments, her agency will be flawed."

"But this
suggests a challenge to the hierarchical account of ownership."

"The challenge is to explain
why we should not see such evaluative judgments — rather than broadly Frankfurtian
higher-order attitudes — as the fundamental basis of ownership or rejection of desire."

"It is
when the role of desire in practical thought and action is determined by such evaluative
judgments that one’s action

is
*******************************************************
self-determined or autonomous or performed of one’s own
free will."
******************************************************
"Call this the Platonic challenge.” (139-140)

Bratman wants to both keep the hierarchical model (in some form) and respect some connection between identification and positive evaluation.

2.

•

Note Bratman’s 5 features of Frankfurtian accounts of identification. (140-143) Bratman has understood ownership in terms of treating a desire as reason-providing. Frankfurtian theories are characterized as follows:


“Our concern, then, will be with hierarchical theories of desire ownership and rejection in
which basic theoretical work is done by higher-order attitudes that are conative, forwardlooking
in content, guiding in function, and purportedly constitute, in context, a relevant
commitment on the part of the agent concerning the role of the desire in her
agency.” (142-143)


"The example of the angry person is supposed to illustrate how evaluative judgments alone,
absent higher-order attitudes, can constitute ownership/identification."

"This ownership is the type
of case that drives the Platonic Challenge.

1

3.

"Watson’s “perverse cases” show that one can negatively value a mental state, though
nevertheless fully own it."

"“Perhaps I think it strictly better to be a person who forgives and turns the other cheet but nevertheless, in a kind of self-indulgence, allow into my life a willingness to
express reactive anger."

"Though this role of my desire to express my anger diverges from
my relevant evaluative judgments, it is not a desire I reject or disown."

"Indeed, in some
versions of such a case — cases Watson calls “perverse cases” — I really am fully behind
the expression of such reactive anger."

"As Watson says, “There is no estrangement here.”

"So, value judgment is one thing, and ownership another.” (144)

"The Platonic Challenger might say that this is not a well-functioning agent, and that her theory of
identification could be qualified to the value judgments of well-functioning agents.

4.

•

"Bratman provides three examples of supposedly rejecting a desire."

"The desire to drink alcohol,
anger, and the draft."

"These are all supposed to be cases in which the value judgments are the
same for two people, but Frankfurtians claim there is a difference in ownership."

----

"The higher-order
attitudes are supposed to explain this."

---

“In each of these examples, there are relevant judgments of value on both sides of a
practical issue."

"And a Frankfurtian commitment is to some extent grounded in some of
those judgments."

"But the presence of these evaluative grounds does not entail that there is
no further work to be done by the Frankfurtian commitment."

"In some such cases it is only
when one arrives at a Frankfurtian commitment that one has, in the relevant sense, taken
a stand with respect to the issues raised for one’s life.” (146)

"Are these more cases of simply not giving into a desire (at least in the typical real-world
situations that fit this form) rather than actually rejecting a desire?"

"Bratman claims that in wellfunctioning
agents desire ownership/rejection does not require value judgments.

5.
•

Prior to making a Frankfurtian commitment, one might not have an evaluative preference between two options.

Making the commitment might itself constitute an evaluative judgment
which gives preference to one desire and dismisses another as irrelevant (not just outweighed) in practical reasoning.


THE DRAFT.

“Perhaps, prior to his decision, our conscientious objector thinks that military service and
resistance to such service really are, everything relevant considered, each as good as the
other."

"Still, life must go on."

"One way for him to settle the issue would be to settle on a
Frankfurtian commitment

that

rejects ******* his desire for military service ******* as no longer ****** fully his
own.” (148)"

---


"Cases of equal or uncertain value judgments, when ownership or rejection nevertheless occur,
show that value judgments underdetermine ownership issues."

2
6.

•

There are cases in which there aren’t intersubjective constraints, of the kind that can ensure
convergence among rational agents, on Frankfurtian commitments.
7.
•

Bratman considers another Platonic proposal:

Understand desire ownership in terms of
reflexive value judgments.


“The proposal is that

ownership of a desire for X consists in a reflexive value judgment
roughly along the lines of:

(P)

It would be strictly best, in part because of this very judgment that (P), to be a person
who acts on the desire for X in relevant circumstances.”

(154)


This judgment makes it one’s commitment, and there is value in pursuing one’s commitments.

• Bratman objects to this proposal on pp. 155-156.

“That one’s commitments organize and structure one’s life over time is, I think, part of
what gives them authority to speak for the agent."

"It does not follow, however, that living
in accord with those commitments either has, or must be thought of by the agent as
having, a value that, in such cases, is always sufficient decisively to tilt the intersubjective
evaluative scales.” (156)
8.

•

The final Platonic Challenge: but aren’t there many cases in which value judgments decisively
determine where the agent stands (i.e., ownership)?"

"Then why think that Frankfurtian
commitments are necessary to determine ownership, at least in such cases?"

"Bratman seems to
think that the only reason to prefer this possibility is because it would explain the stability of
the ownership"

"But isn’t another reason in its favor simply that it shows Frankfurtian
commitments aren’t necessary for ownership?"

•

Bratman says that desire ownership is to be understood in terms of Frankfurtian commitments,
not evaluative judgments.



“For me to build into my life a commitment to the expression of reactive anger — even
though I think it best not to — is for me to arrive at a Frankfurtian commitment to my angry desires despite my value judgment to the contrary."

"My ownership of those desires
is constituted by my Frankfurtian commitment, not by my evaluative judgment."

"Yet
further, we can extend the account to agents who, in certain contexts, simply refrain from
making intersubjectively accountable judgments about the good, but nevertheless put
themselves fully behind certain desires by way of relevant Frankfurtian attitudes.” (157)


"Bratman claims that Frankfurtian commitments can be stable even in cases of value
underdetermination."

and right he is. Frankfurt is possibly not to blame for having generalised the use of "Frankfurtian" in this non-Griceian sense (of the word).