What We Owe To Each Other Post 2

Scanlon is dilating on the notion of  'reasons to act' and whether one can be right or wrong about such things. As a mathematician I really liked this great paragraph where he describes mathematical reasoning as not about oneself, something one can be right or wrong about, but not being outside the self. That way, we are not committed to Platonism. A very nice summary of this position. 

Can reasons for action be the same way? Can we be incorrect? If so, how can we know we are incorrect? Is there a logic underlying reasons for action that is close enough in analogy to math that we should at least not dismiss? It does seem that we have a kind of Kantian thing going on here -- adoption of rationality in some form as a way to decide about action. I have to admit I am attracted to this general philosophy.

Look, you can say 'why should I be reasonable anyway?' and I don't have a good answer. But, being reasonable has helped me in so much of my life, perhaps I should give it a go here as well. If I take this little step, what do I end up with? If I don't take the step, I get nowhere -- it is not fruitful. And, I am not a dictator and will not be one. One might say, what about Gyges? Oddly, and I can't tell if I'm becoming soft-brained or if I'm actually realizing something , but I think Plato is right and Thrasymachus and Callicles are wrong. And as for the Nietzschean Superman, don't they have reasons? Even if they are consciously irrational or Homeric ones? There is still some logic, predicated on some construction of the self that Nietzsche suggests, 'the free spirit' and all that... But that isn't the only way to construct the self, if the self should even be constructed. Now look, I know that the self-overcoming of Nietzsche should not be confused with the Leopolds and Loebs of the world, so don't start. I'm just saying that suppositions such as I shouldn't live for another world, I should live in this one, not be a Platonist and so on, are just that, suppositions. There is no freedom, no self creation -- that's an illusion. So give it up. The empirical self as posited in our culture, at least in previous eras, I'm not sure about the self in our time, I feel it may not really be there anymore, has its good points and its bad points, but the 'freedom' posited with that self is an illusion. Dennet and his allies are wrong as well. My brain is better off when I give something like reason and compassion a try, so it's selfish. Does that make me a Niezschean? Well, not if you take what he says literally, but that's what so great about him, you shouldn't.

What happens inside my own mind is so important, that I can at least see the point that it is better to be innocent and wrongly convicted than to get away. I can't get over the force of Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing -- I know, you're like, Kierkegaard, bleh! But it's my blog, so deal. But maybe this is the self-righteous thinking of a sheltered person and I shouldn't tempt fate in this way. Or, maybe, like my arguments against religion, I am only objective when my back is not up against the wall and I should trust my judgement now rather than if I am actually in that situation. I can't tell.