By Paulius Rimkevicius, Chapman University
(See all posts in this series here.)
Like a tinker, who travels freely from place to place mending metal utensils and sometimes ends up creating quite an extraordinary-looking gadget out of the simple old things that he finds, a philosopher who is well-versed in more than one discipline can sometimes construct quite an extraordinary argument from the seemingly simple premises that he finds widely accepted there.
In The Tinkering Mind, Tillmann Vierkant picks up one such premise, widely accepted in psychology, that reflection is under intentional control. Then he picks up another, widely accepted in philosophy, that acquiring such states as beliefs is not under intentional control. With these two premises, he fashions “the simple argument”, ending with the rather extraordinary conclusion that reflection does not involve acquiring such states as beliefs.
What it involves instead is “tinkering”. You can tinker with your mind by saying to yourself “I should get out of bed now” or “I shall rise!”. While it might well nudge you in the right direction, however, it is not the same as making that judgement or that decision. You cannot simply put the corresponding belief or intention into your head.
Suppose this is right. What does it say about choice, willpower, and freedom? To start with, what is a choice, under this assumption? It might seem, as Vierkant says, that we are presented with two options here.
The first is to identify choices with acts of tinkering. Saying “I will get up!” prompts you to get up. So, maybe to say it is to choose to get up? This would conform with the intuition that choices are, to an extent, under intentional control. You can say it at will. However, it goes against the intuition that they are primarily directed at the world, not the mind. Your choice to get up is directed at, or pulled by, your reasons for getting up, not for saying that you will get up.
The second option is to identify choices with hunches about what to do. The hunch that you should get up prompts you to get up. So, maybe to get the hunch is to choose to get up? This would conform with the intuition that choices are primarily directed at the world. The hunch is about getting up. However, it goes against the intuition that they are under intentional control. A hunch is something you get, not something you do.
What’s worse, neither tinkering, nor hunches, on their own, settle the question what to do. It goes against the intuition that a choice does settle it. One might therefore wonder whether our intuitions lead us astray somewhere or our experience of choice is somehow illusory.
There is a third option, however. Your intuitive conception of choice could be related to multiple stages of making up your mind. In the first, your attention is directed at world, you get a hunch about what to do, and you have a feeling of openness, since the question is yet to be settled. In the second, your attention is directed at your mind, you tinker with it, and you have a feeling of agency, since tinkering is under your intentional control. In the third, you settle the question and get a feeling of closure. “Choice” could mean all of these things.
Let us turn to willpower now. It might seem that what Vierkant says implies that there is no difference between “real willpower” and “mere strategy”. Settling the question what to do is not under intentional control, so “real willpower” must consist in some kind of tinkering, as does “mere strategy”. Willpower is just another way of tying yourself to the mast. If Odysseus merely rehearsed, in his head, the reasons for not giving in to the Sirens, he would just be tying himself to an internal mast, preventing his attention from leaping to his reasons for giving in.
I think that Vierkant is right to point out the similarity. I also think that the merits of internal and external forms of self-control need reconsidering. However, I would still argue that it is the internal forms that constitute “real willpower”.
First of all, they are the ones that folk psychology considers paradigmatic (perhaps because, from an external perspective, they really look like simply “toughing it out”). Moreover, in some ways, they really are superior. For instance, they are essentially always available. Finally, if you thought that the reason against is stronger, then you could, while fighting the temptation, make yourself also genuinely open to the reasons for giving in, hoping that the better reason will prevail (it might take a particularly strong mind to reach it and see its true force under the circumstances, but maybe that is what we admire?).
There is a sense in which, therefore, internal forms of self-control can be responsive to reasons in ways that external ones cannot, and in which, by using them, we confront the temptation, rather than avoid it. This does not mean that internal forms of self-control should always be recommended over external ones or that they are more effective. The opposite might well be true. However, it shows why we might consider especially admirable someone who uses internal forms of self-control successfully, and why we might want to call them “real willpower”.
Turning to freedom now. Is the tinker as free as the maker to fashion things the way he wants? Is he just as responsible for what he has fashioned? Maybe not, and maybe, if we can only tinker with our minds, we have less freedom and responsibility than we thought, as I want to argue.
But first I think it is important to note how tinkering can contribute to freedom. Many philosophers have emphasized that free action must be responsive to what one considers good reasons for and against it. Others have noted, however, that one must also be able to shape what one considers to be good reasons and to do it in a way that has a certain independence from what one currently considers them to be. Tinkering, which can be done at will and have unforeseen consequences, might play a crucial role here. It could help us satisfy this basic requirement.
To return to the question of degree, however, I still think that what The Tinkering Mind suggests is that we are less free and responsible than we thought. The argument here is simple. We thought that someone who has to resort to “mere strategy” is less free and less responsible. We learned that “real willpower” is a lot more like “mere strategy” than we thought. So, we should think that we are less free and responsible than we thought (and maybe give ourselves a break).
