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Taylor Ch. 1
Taylor shifts gears in this chapter. Having put in place his expressivist thesis in chapters 9
and 10, he now will explore expressivist concepts to examine the notion of what it is to
be a “responsible human agent” or what is it to be a “person”. Taylor begins with
Frankfurt’s claim that human agents are different from other agents in that human agents
are able to form “second-order desires”, namely that human agents, unlike say infrahuman agents, are able to evaluate their desires; able, that is, to engage in self-reflection
in rejecting some and accepting others of their desires. Thus, Frankfurt suggests that
human agents’ capacity to evaluate their desires is bound up with selfreflection/evaluation, and Taylor agrees.
However, Taylor suggests a further distinction with a view of clarifying this capacity we
posses to evaluate our desires (by way of self-reflection). Taylor proposes that we
distinguish between two broad kinds of evaluation. Taylor claims that what is missing in
Frankfurt’s “second order desires” is the notion that evaluation is “qualitative”. That is,
not only can we reject or accept some or other desire that is ours but we can also do so
either (1) in terms of the outcome of our desires, or (2) in terms of the qualitative
conditions of worth of our desires. These are two very different ways of evaluating our
desires: weak and strong evaluation. Thus, in accepting or rejecting one or other of our
desires, we make a choice in terms of their respective outcomes, but in evaluating our
desires in terms of conditions of worth we make no choice at all, one desire is simply
higher, more virtuous, more fulfilling, more refined, more profound, more noble than
another desire, and hence it clearly is the preferred desire.
Now Taylor warns us that “weak’ evaluation does not necessarily mean that the desires
between which we must choose are “homogeneous” (that the two desires that can be
characterized in the same manner as to their desirability) or that our evaluation of the two
desires can be quantified (the rational aim of utilitarianism to be able to calculate the
respective “desirability” of our desires). Utilitarianism in ethics has tried to do away with
qualitative distinctions of worth on the grounds that such conditions of worth are an
illusion hiding the real bases of our preferences which can be quantified. Thus, the
utilitarian hopes that once we do away with strong evaluation (in terms of conditions of
worth) we can calculate which desire is preferable (which results in the most pleasure or
avoids the most pain). But as Taylor points out this is mythical quantification in terms of
which the fulfillment of one desire is “more fun” or “less fun”. Utilitarianism is certainly
right in rejecting evaluation in terms of conditions of worth at least if utilitarianism
aspires to reduce practical reason in strongly evaluating desires to mere calculation.
More importantly, weak evaluation is not just concerned with the outcomes of our desires
either for we can choose between desires (as Frankfurt claims, we can have “second
order” desires) but, as Taylor points out, these need not be strong evaluations or choices.
Thus, one can desire not to have a desire, or one can desire a desire one does not yet have
and still not engage in strong evaluation. Rather, Taylor’s distinction between two kind of
evaluation, weak and strong, does not depend on the quantitative-qualitative evaluation
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nor on the presence or absence of second order desires (as Frankfurt claims), rather the
distinction between weak and strong desires depend on conditions of worth and this
includes two interlocking criteria.
(1) In weak evaluation a desire is good if it is desired, whereas in strong evaluation the
desire must be evaluated in terms of conditions of worth.
(2) Hence, in case of weak evaluation the choice between desires is simply their
contingent incompatibility, but in case of strong evaluation the choice between desires is
all about their worth (note the “moral” or normative implications).
Now Taylor claims that this notion of worth turns on what I deem to be worthy as a mode
of life, as the kind of person I am or aspire to be. Note that here the incompatibility of
desires is no longer contingent (a matter of circumstances) rather it has to do with what I
deem to be a worthy life.
The reason is that in case of strong evaluation the language of the conditions of worth is
deployed contrastively (this harks back to the notion of language as “web”). Thus, the
characterization of my desires in strong evaluation is expressed in a contrastive language.
This fact marks strong evaluation as very different from weak evaluation. [As Taylor
notes in a footnote, it might be objected that the utilitarian also uses such qualitatively
contrastive words such as “pleasure” and “pain” but in fact the utilitarian does not use
these words contrastively holding that it is only pleasure that is desired. If in reply the
utilitarian claims that the desire of pleasure is here contrasted with the desire to “avoid
pain”, Taylor notes that it is precisely this contrast that utilitarianism has failed to make.
Taylor also notes that “time” per se is not contrastive rather time is used circumstantially.
In fact, there are many ways to describe my desire that are seemingly contrastive but in
fact are not. What distinguishes weak from strong evaluation is the contrastive
characterization of desire in case of strong evaluation, for in strong evaluation of our
desires we employ the language of evaluative distinctions (and not merely
circumstantially conflicting or contingently conflicting) wherein which the contrast
between desires is “deeper”.]
Strong evaluations (characterizing my desires, interests, attitudes, aspirations, etc. in a
contrastive language of worth), leads inevitably to a conflict of interpretations. Which
characterization of my desires I adopt will shape (realize and clarify) the meaning
“things” have for us. Note here, not just the desires as “objects” themselves (subjective)
but the desires of…something, meaning also the objects to which our desires are directed.
Here we have Taylor using the notion of “expression” (of desires) to overcome the
subject-object distinction. That is, the characterization of desires includes the
characterization of the things/actions we desire.
Taylor then immediately raises the question of which characterization (of desire) is more
faithful, valid, to reality? But note here that in asking this question Taylor is in some
sense backtracking for the characterization of desires in terms of conditions of worth also
characterizes the object towards which the desires are directed in terms of the conditions
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of worth. In other words, to ask about a “reality” outside of our strong evaluation returns
us to a subject-object bifurcation which expressivism rejected.
The strong evaluator in envisioning the alternatives in terms of conditions of worth
possesses a richer language wherein to reflect on the alternatives. Thus, unlike the weak
evaluator who merely weighs the alternatives and then calculates the consequences of
each, the strong evaluator is able by way of his contrastive language to reflect on the
alternatives terms of their worth (to life, his/her life) and the kind of person s/he is.
Hence, the strong evaluator when confronted by alternative desires can articulate the
alternative desires in terms of conditions of worth (and therefore as we have seen in Ch. 9
and 10 understands the “reality” of these desires very differently) and hence can reflect in
choice in articulating a very different “reality”. Reflection is here not calculation of
consequences of desires as “objectively” given, but reflection (and choice) on very
different (deeper) experiences (realities) that are constituted in our articulations of
conditions of worth. We are now, in strong evaluation, reflecting on the alternatives of
desires in terms of the kind of person I am and the kind of life I live.
The kind of articulacy and depth the strong evaluator possesses also raises the possibility
of a plurality of visions that a weak evaluator lacks. That is, the kind of predicament (in a
conflict of desires) the strong evaluator confronts results in a struggle of selfinterpretations (interpretations that profoundly affect the kind of self I am) as to which
characterization (of desire and choice) is more authentic, illusion-free, genuine, authentic,
and so resolves the apparently incommensurability of my desires through articulacy.
Taylor makes the strong point that without this capacity to strongly evaluate our desires,
we would lack the minimum degree of reflection (note reflection here depends on
articulacy) that we associate with human agency and its capacity for choice (exercise of
the will). Thus, freedom of will depends on reflection and reflection depends on
articulacy (exactly the reverse of the weak evaluator – the designator!).
Taylor then shifts perspective in his examination of the self by turning towards the
question of responsibility within the context of evaluating desires, for the notion of
responsibility is bound up with this capacity to evaluate desires. We might have
anticipated this of course, given that freedom depends on articulacy and so responsibility
insofar at it relies on freedom must also be tied to articulacy.
There is one sense of responsibility that is already implicit in the notion of “will”. If we
are capable of evaluating (weak or strong) our desires we may find that these are in
conflict such that one presses more than another (or we will one against the other which
presses more strongly: here the notion of “ought” emerges). That is, evaluation of desire
already presupposes a sense of will and with it an elementary sense of responsibility (in
willing/evaluating one over the other – as Frankfurt points out in case of second order
desires).
But this is not the sense of responsibility that Taylor wants. Not only are we agents
because we can evaluate and be held responsible for choosing one, acting on one, over
another desire, but we are responsible for the evaluations of the desires themselves. This
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is a much stronger sense of evaluation, and hence of responsibility, for here evaluation is
itself an activity we are engaged in [on the analogy of speech being activity we are
engaged in when using language]. Thus, reflection on desires (evaluating them) already
invokes our responsibility. Taylor asks how are we understands this stronger sense of
responsibility?
One way to understand it (a way that is characteristic of our modern era) is as “choice”.
Thus, the notion of “value” suggests that we create values (“evaluation”). But Taylor
objects that this way of understanding responsibility of evaluations as choice suggest that
we merely choose (“radical choice”) without reason (since our values are our own
creations). Or if we do base our evaluations on reasons, then these reasons are taken as
simply valid (and not themselves chosen). This is the view that Taylor attributes to JeanPaul Sartre.
The problem with this view (of radical choice or that we are radically free) is that if this
is true then we can no longer see ourselves as strong evaluators, agents with depth. For as
Taylor comments, while we can conceive of radical choice among strong evaluations, we
cannot view our choice of evaluations as radical (on risk that otherwise our evaluations
are not strong evaluations). The crux of the issue there is that Sartre sees responsibility as
a matter of radical choice and radical choice is entirely a matter of the individual selfassertion. But of course this view runs counter to Taylor’s entire expressivist project
(which, recall, was to overcome this bifurcation of individual and the world); the agent of
radical choice is a simple “weigher”, a weak evaluator). But the theory of radical choice
is even worse off than that for, as Taylor comments, it is incoherent (see pp. 31-32) for it
wants to maintain both strong evaluation and radical choice (as Sartre seems to in his
example). But strong evaluations, as we have seen, are “judgments” (not choices) in the
sense that they involve contrastive articulations of desires-actions complexes and invoke
our aspirations to a certain kind of life, being a certain kind of person and this may well,
of course, involve a plurality of visions which can be very difficult to adjudicate (choose
among). Now both in our articulations/judgments (strong evaluations) as well as in our
efforts to adjudicate these we bear responsibility.
Taylor then proceeds to examine this issue of responsibility from another angle. Strong
evaluators, he writes, have depth because their articulations/evaluations are bound up
with the kind of person they aspire to be/the kind of life they aspire to live; that is, these
are bound up with our “personal identity”. Our identity is formed not only in our choices,
but especially in our articulations/evaluations. Thus, in answer to the question “who am I
as a person”? or “what is my identity?” we don’t point to our choices but to our
evaluations which are inseparable from our being “agents”. Without our fundamental
evaluations we cease being who we are.
To ask of someone their identity as a person we are referred to their evaluations. Here
Taylor writes of a horizon of evaluations (the traditions out of which we articulate our
desires) without which we are lost as to our identity. This is also what is so puzzling
about Sartre’s notion of radical freedom/choice for such freedom or choice is without the
context/horizon of evaluations. This is the autonomy self-defining subjectivity of the
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Enlightenment/modernity that is radically separated from context (social-cultural order of
traditions) and it is what expressivism was intended to overcome. For this autonomy is
really a fragmentation of identity, an alienation from the human historical world, from
those strong evaluations which identify me as a person.
The pressing question arises how do we come to our evaluations/articulations? Are these
not a matter of radical choice? Are we not at all responsible for our evaluations?
Taylor replies that evaluations are not so much chosen as they are an articulation of what
is “higher/lower” and more integrated/fulfilling or not. Such articulation while not a
matter of choice (in the usual sense) does invoke our responsibility and here is where
Taylor resumes his expressivist thesis.
That is, articulation (in this chapter, the articulation of desires, aspirations, etc.) is not of
the simply “given”, rather it is our articulations/interpretations that give “them” (desires)
“reality”, “shape” “embodiment”. That is, articulations are not simply descriptions of
what is already objectively (out/in) there/here (not like the table which is then described
by the word “table”, according to Taylor); on the contrary, articulation is a form-ulation
which does not leave the “object” (desire, aspiration, etc.) unchanged but gives it “shape”
in a way that we hold to be important/value. Thus, the manner in which we
articulate/interpret our desires also (“in part”, here Taylor hesitates) constitutes those
desires (our experience of our desires). If we change the articulation/interpretation of the
desire, we also change (the shape) of the experience of desire.
As Taylor notes, this is not a causal claim; rather, it is the claim that what we experience
depends on, is given shape by, our articulations/interpretations (of our feeling,
aspirations, etc.). Thus, the very nature of experience is formed (constituted) by our
articulations/interpretations (and these are of course to be understood on the model of
expression).
How do we come to change our articulations of our desires/etc.? [Another way of asking
this question is to ask “what makes change in personal identity possible?”] Taylor
suggests in two ways. (1) We do in living with others; that is, as we are engaged in the
world or as we find ourselves embedded in the world. (2) We do so because we find that
our articulations clash with the articulations of others (either now in the present, or on
reading with those in the past) or else we find ourselves unable to understand others or
just unable to understand the way we live and so search for alternate articulations.
Yet these articulation/interpretations are not totally arbitrary or relative to others’
articulations/interpretations; they are instead more or less adequate, truthful, insightful,
distorting, delusional, etc. Thus, our evaluations strive to be faithful not to an
independent object but rather to what inchoately and inarticulately makes “sense” (in the
broad sense of “meaningful”) in living. At the same time, our articulations do not leave
the object as it is. In “shaping” it, it makes the object more accessible; it places the object
(desire) in the context of our lives. Precisely because these articulations are evaluations
they also limit the nature of experience (and subsequent expression of experience). In this
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sense our evaluations are a judgment on our person. That is, the limits of our experience
(as well as expression) are also a judgment on us – that is, we are judged by our moral
insight (articulation/interpretations as evaluations). This has nothing to do with radical
choice/freedom; it has to do with the manner in which our articulations in fact shape our
experience.
Obviously our experience (our articulations and evaluations) are always open to
challenge(is not all understanding): always open to elaboration, explication, analysis, and
further interpretation. Indeed, I have a responsibility to continue the process of evaluation
as long as I live/act and encounter the “world” in everything I do. This is especially so
when it comes to what Taylor called our fundamental evaluations – the ones central
(deepest) to our identity. For it is often our deepest evaluations that are least well
articulated (these are often least clear) even to ourselves. But since this is so, if I do reevaluating my deepest evaluations it is not a matter of choice but of reformulation,
reinterpretation, and re-understanding.
Usually these fundamental evaluations are not articulated because we share (live) them
with/in the community/tradition. Since they are “lived”, they need not be articulated. We
have here then a tension between “living” and “saying/expressing”. Moreover, note that
these deep evaluations cannot be evaluated/reinterpreted in some kind of meta-language
(there is no such) nor is there an empirical inquiry (as designativist would claim) hat
might help us to decide (obviously, since that inquiry, in turn, would also be articulated in
the language of our evaluations). All we can do is converse and reflect on our deepest
evaluations and try again and again to articulate them in a manner that would give us
insight and understanding into ourselves and the world in which we live. Note that there
is no yardstick, as Taylor comments, except to appreciate that any such reevaluation
engages my very personal identity, an identity I have always in relationship to others who
similarly engage in such re-evaluations.
It is in this context Taylor writes about “radical evaluation” which the self reflecting on
the self, on the self’s most fundamental issues (the “deepest” evaluations), and because
this self-evaluation is something that we do we are also responsible (even if we fail to do
so) for doing so and for the manner in which we do so. Radical evaluation we do in
articulating (expressing) what we desire/feel/aspire to etc., always in the context of the
world in which we live. Such expression reposes then on the contrastive web of language
and hence is part of community and tradition.
Taylor ends his paper with some brief comments on psychology. But these might easily
apply to linguistics as well. Thus, any notion of “grammar” that is part of some theory of
the brain, or some abstract mental mechanism, is misguided for these
accounts/explanations cannot participate in the human agent as a self-interpreting subject
– cannot account in principle for the expressivist conception of strong evaluation wherein
articulacy is constitutive of, in this chapter, the inner self, our desires, aspirations, etc.
This does not mean that linguistics cannot proceed in accord with a formal analysis of
language; it does mean this abstractive endeavor must itself be seen as constituted
communally in our speech practices, in the formulation and reformulation, in the
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understanding/interpretation of the meaning (strong evaluations) of these speech practices
which inevitably bear our responsibility because it is something we do.
Finally, note here that Taylor relies in this chapter on chapters 9, 10. Thus, he does not
explicitly mention the role of language and the question of meaning and the broader
question of sense in this chapter. Moreover, he seems only concerned with the expression
of “inner life” (desires, aspirations, interests, etc). But, of course, we recall that the
expressivist thesis ties this inner life in expression to the world.
LPM/March 2005