著者

田村 均 TAMURA Hitoshi

出版者

名古屋大学文学部

雑誌

名古屋大学文学部研究論集 (ISSN:04694716)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.54, pp.43-78, 2008-03-31 (Released:2008-10-01)

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I bring forward an argument for dismissal of methodological individualism as an adequate theory for understanding human action. I make use of Kashiwabata Tatsuya’s theoretical explication of selfsacrificial action propounded in his recent book, Jiko-Giman to Jiko-Gisei (Self-deception and Selfsacrifice), in order to produce the evidence for explanative insufficiency of personal intentional states for bringing about self-sacrificial decision making. Kashiwabata establishes that a self-sacrificial action of an individual can be regarded as rational only if it is assessed in terms of the shared intention among people who are engaged in a collective activity. An individual always has good reason not to take such an action as may carry a great loss to her. In reality, however, no one can avoid all the situations that could cause personal losses in the name of collectivity: one’s family, the community, or the nation. She would be entitled to say that her action be self-sacrificial if she were persuaded into doing something that was not good for her. She might not be considered as utterly irrational provided that she gave up the good thing for the sake of others. No one can deny this but the concept of rational action with personal utility cannot explain the rationality of such an action as this. The shared intention to promote some sharable good rationalizes an individual’s self-sacrificial decision making that cannot be rationalized by means of the individual’s personal utilities. As long as the act of self-sacrifice is to be placed at the high position in the list of virtuous acts, philosophers cannot take it for granted that methodological individualism is the correct way of explaining all the human actions.