In this posting I want to examine what we mean by true self, indeed even wether
the concept is a meaningful one. Buddhists and David Hume would suggest that
true self is an illusion. Perhaps anti-vaxxers suggest otherwise? Their decisions
seem to be based on the need to identify as a certain sort of person rather
than the facts In an interesting piece posted in peasoup Joshua
Knobe wonders whether the notion of a 'true self' really is best cashed
out in terms of certain distinctive features of an agent's psychology. He
suggests that our notion of a true self is a value-laden one and that we partly
determine what lies within an agent's true self by making value-judgments of
our own. In this posting I will firstly wonder whether the idea of a true
self is even a meaningful one. I will conclude it is. This conclusion will open
up the idea of a true self that can be cashed out in certain distinctive
features of an agent's psychology. I will suggest these distinctive features
are the agent’s pride and shame.
Let us examine Knobe’s position. Knobe asks us to consider
someone,
“who is addicted to heroin but who desperately wants to
kick the habit. He has a craving for another hit, but when he reflects, he
rejects this craving and wishes he could get rid of it. Now ask yourself: Which
part of this person constitutes his true self -- his craving for another hit or
his desire to quit?”
Knobe suggests that intuitively we would link his true self
with his desire to quit. He then asks us to consider an evangelical Christian
called Mark
“He believes that homosexuality is morally wrong. In fact, Mark now leads a seminar in which he coaches homosexuals about techniques they can use to resist their attraction to people of the same-sex. However, Mark himself is attracted to other men. He openly acknowledges this to other people and discusses it as part of his own personal struggle.”
Knobe suggests in this case our intuitions are not so clear. Perhaps if someone is a born again Christian his intuitions would link Mark’s true self to his belief that homosexuality is wrong. Whilst someone of a more liberal nature would link Mark’s true self to his underlying sexual desires. The above leads Knobe to suggest that our idea of someone else’s true self is dependent on our values.
My first reaction to Knobe’s suggestion is to question
whether such a concept of a true self is a useful one. Perhaps we should simply
say we have a self and leave David Hume would suggest that the whole idea of a self is an illusion.
I would not go as far as that because everyone is different. Moreover everyone
remains different even when we disregard their physical attributes. People are
different because they have differing dispositions, abilities and
personalities. If we define someone’s self by a set of non physical
attributes such as, his dispositions, abilities and personality then he has a self.
Let us accept that someone’s self is a meaningful concept, but is the idea of
someone’s will meaningful? Many experiments have demonstrated that our
decisions are partly determined by the situations we find ourselves in. For
instance in a classic experiment Alice Isen and Paula Levin showed
being made to feel good greatly influenced someone’s subsequent actions. In
this experiment Isen and Levin showed that someone who dropped papers outside a
phone booth was much more likely to be helped to pick them up if the person in
the booth had just found a dime in the slot (1). Such experiments do not show
we don’t have a will. However in the light of them someone might suggest our
will is irrelevant when it comes to decision making. In response I would simply
point out that not everyone makes the same decision in the same situation and
that this difference in decision making is best explained by our differing
dispositions, abilities and personalities, our self. The way in which our
decisions are affected by our self is our will. I accept of course that many of
the decisions, we think we consciously make, are made unconsciously and that
sometimes our consciousness merely endorses these decisions. It follows that in
many ways our will is not always under our conscious control. Let us accept our
self and our will are as defined above.
I will deal with shame first. David Velleman suggests shame
is anxiety about social exclusion (2). I have argued that there are two
types of shame . Type one is as suggested by Velleman. Type two
shame is someone’s anxiety about harming the things he loves or values. I would
further suggest that, with the exception of sociopaths, all people feel
type two shame. When considering shame with regard to someone’s true self I am
only interested in type two shame. Let us now consider pride. Pride might
be very roughly defined as someone’s pleasure or satisfaction with his belief
that he possesses some property which he values. Unlike shame I believe there
is only one sort of pride. However there are deficient forms of pride as shown
by Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, see damaging
self love pride and shame. Firstly pride may be empty when someone’s
pride is focussed on himself, rather than some of the attributes he possesses
or values he holds. Secondly pride may be exclusive when a proud person is
incapable of feeling any shame. I would class such forms of pride as deficient
pride and when considering someone’s true self I only interested in non-
deficient pride.
I have argued the idea of someone’s true self is a
meaningful concept. However not all meaningful concepts are useful ones. I will
now use a real life example to tentatively suggest that someone’s true self
might be a useful concept. I will use the example of MB, see General
Medical Concuil's consent guidelines . MB was twenty-three
years old and was thirty-three weeks pregnant. She visited her local health
clinic twice and on each occasion was asked for a sample of blood. On both
occasions she refused consent saying she was frightened of needles. At a later
visit to the health clinic it was suspected that her baby was in a breech position
and this was later confirmed by ultrasound. Breech position carries the
risk of prolapse. If prolapse occurs there is a risk that the baby’s umbilical
cord might get entangled in the membranes after they have ruptured causing the
baby’s blood supply to be obstructed during birth. This obstruction might cause
death or brain damage to the baby due to lack of oxygen. The above was
explained to MB and she was admitted to hospital where she consented to a
caesarean section but she again refused to consent to a venepuncture to provide
blood samples. However, when she was taken to operating theatre and the
anaesthetist wished to insert a veneflon, MB refused consent and was returned
to the ward. Later, when her GP visited her, she again consented to the caesarean
section. However she again refused consent when taken to operating theatre. The
Hospital trust applied to the courts and MB was found to be of unsound mind due
to her ambivalence caused by her needle phobia and hence her refusal of consent
was incompetent. In cases of ambivalence such as that of MB it makes sense to
ask which decision represents the patient’s true self. If a patient can
coherently defend his decision based on his beliefs and values then provided he
has a true self his decision should be accepted. If however his
ambivalence extends to his beliefs and values and these conflict it might be
questioned if he really has a true self. In the case of MB her refusal of
consent to a venepuncture was not a decision she could defend, it was not a decision
that reflected her true self and as such was not a competent decision.
- Alice Isen, Paula Levin, 1972, Effect
of feeling good on helping: Cookies and kindness, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 21(3), Mar,
384-388.
- David Velleman, 2009, How We Get Along, Cambridge
University Press, page 95.
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