apolliana | The Tyranny of the Will

It may seem obvious that we do not have the ability to choose all of our mental states. I cannot make myself believe in God if I have no evidence, or any other reason for holding that belief. Nor can I suddenly make myself euphoric without the intervention of some euphoria-inducing news or thought.

Moran's "Deliberative View" of self-knowledge suggests that we risk self-alienation if we do not approach our mental states deliberatively--assessing whether or not they are states we should have. This is, after all, the responsible attitude to take towards one's beliefs, and perhaps one's intentions. It stems from Evans's "transparency procedure" for coming to know one's beliefs: if you want to know whether you believe p, consider whether p. This is transparent because one looks not towards whether one holds the belief, but to whether one has reason to hold that belief. This procedure has limitations as a means of coming to know one's beliefs, however. As Brie Gertler has recently pointed out, it cannot tell us about longstanding dispositional beliefs, except by eliciting occurrent judgments in line with those dispositional beliefs. Generally, the transparency procedure issues in a new belief (occurrent judgment), rather than telling us what beliefs we already held. The transparency procedure is useful for learning what we believe within limits.

But it is absolutely not the procedure for learning about other, non-belief, non-intention mental states. I do not find out whether I enjoy e a piece of music by asking whether or not I should enjoy it. I do not assess the evidence. Certainly there are times when we attempt to figure out what we are feeling by assessing evidence concerning our own behavior, but these are rare--and, I think most would agree, peculiar. This is a different kind of assessment from the deliberative one Moran intends, however; he thinks we ought to be evaluating whether our mental states are those we should have.

I think this is insidious. It comes very close to a widespread cultural conviction that we ought to be able to alter our mental states to make them more practical for us, or more pleasant. If I judge that I ought to be happy, according to this widespread view, I ought to be able to make that the case. We ought to be able to change our desires, motivations, loves, and moods to fit with whatever is most pragmatic for us. I'm not sure whether those who occasionally make such claims realize what they're saying, or exactly what makes such things sometimes seem reasonable to them. Partly I suspect it is a way of eschewing the complexity of others' minds, or responsibility for their problems. It is convenient, in much the way that holding that others are poor, when they are, because of their own lack of willpower is convenient.

Granted, we have some agency within our own minds (and behavior patterns). But exactly what we are capable of doing is unclear, and I expect it varies between individuals. But I think holding this power to be absolute is dangerous. When changes in fundamental attitudes do happen, it's usually not out of sheer pragmatics (except in the case of psychopaths), but because there was some attitude of which the individual was not aware, which she has become aware of. Sometimes we only become aware of attitudes we have through being poked by others to change our attitudes to fit the circumstances. (That, I think, is the main positive use of this attitude--but I don't think those who use it know this.) Everyone will have limits to the power to alter her attitudes at will--both occurrent attitudes, and longstanding ones. There will be great individual variation in what these limits are. But it is vital that an individual not be held less rational because she knows what her motivations, desires, and other attitudes are but is unable to change them. The guidepost for rationality should be awareness.

I do not mean that if it is raining and I do not desire to get wet, but do not desire to carry an umbrella, I should not carry the umbrella because my desire to not carry an umbrella is unchangeable. This depends on whether I do not want to get wet more than I don't want to carry an umbrella--and such desires will rarely turn out to be unchangeable in the face of impracticality. I mean that there will sometimes be attitudes and perhaps patterns of behavior ("personality traits") that seem to stand in the way of a broader goal, e.g. "long-term happiness," but which cannot necessarily be altered; they may be constitutive of who we are. They may, in fact, be attitudes we do not have the power to change. Certain aspects of my own behavior, for instance, are unchangeable--short of some radical program of brainwashing and reeducation (perhaps not even that). I am not less rational for it. You may, for example, insist that I be more sociable, or replace philosophy with some more practical enterprise. I can tell you that neither will work, and if you continue to insist, you are threatening my personhood by so doing. It is important, culturally, that we learn that we all have limits to what is within the bounds of the will for us, and to accept their testimony as to what these things are. (True, they will not always be right; but instilling greater self-knowledge is a different aim.) Otherwise rationality becomes a tool for threatening others' personhood, for demanding that they conform to your ideal.