What do we mean by true self?

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.

 If we accept it makes sense to talk about someone’s self and his will does it also make sense to talk of his true self? I accept the idea of someone’s self can be cashed out in certain distinctive features of his psychology but are there any additional distinctive features of his psychology that mark out his true self? My initial reaction was that there are not. However on reflection it seems to me there might be. What then could be the distinctive features of someone’s psychology that mark out his true self? In what follows I will argue those distinctive features are his pride and shame. Prior to making my argument I must make it clear what I mean by pride and shame.

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.

  will now suggest our true self is defined by a subset of our actions, those actions that cause us to feel pride or shame. It is sometimes suggested that someone’s true self is defined by the beliefs and values which he reflectively endorses. I accept someone’s true self is connected to his beliefs and values. However I do not believe someone’s beliefs and values are simply defined by his endorsement following some reflection. Someone might believe he will act in a certain way but when the time for action comes finds he cannot do so in that way. What he thought he believed or valued doesn’t give him reason to act. I would suggest that someone the beliefs and values which define his true self are determined by what he feels proud or ashamed of. Indeed someone might not be fully aware of his beliefs and values and can come to a better understanding of himself not by reflection, but by those of his actions of which he is proud or ashamed of. If the above is accepted then others can also make sense of his true self by those of his actions which he is proud or ashamed of. Additionally I would suggest that actions which make someone proud are actions he can defend even if sometimes his defence can sometimes only be mounted retrospectively. Similarly someone must be able to give some reason for his shame. An objector at this point might object that a retrospective defence is simply a justification. I will not pursue his point here.

 Let us return to Knobe’s two examples using the above definition. In the case of the heroin addict our intuitive ideas of someone’s true self and his true self coincide. Let us now consider Mark. Let us assume that even though Mark openly acknowledges he is attracted to other men, to other people and discusses it as part of his own personal struggle, he feels some shame about this fact. Let us also assume that Mark feels some pride about his coaching homosexuals in techniques they can use to resist their homosexual inclinations. Knobe suggests our intuitions about Mark’s true self depend upon whether we believe homosexuality is acceptable or not. I would suggest provided, we know what Mark is proud or ashamed of in his thoughts and actions concerning homosexuality, our intuitions about Mark’s true self do not depend on our beliefs about homosexuality. In order to see this let us consider someone who believes homosexuality is acceptable. Let us assume he accepts that Mark is ashamed about his feelings for other men and that he can account for his shame by referring to his beliefs and values. Let us further assume he also accepts that Mark is proud he coaches homosexuals in order to change their sexual inclinations and that he can defend this coaching by referring to his beliefs and values. I would suggest that such a person would find it difficult not to associate Mark’s true self with coaching of homosexuals rather than his desire for other men irrespective the person’s own values. It should also be possible to set up an experiment to test the validity of my suggestion.

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.

1. 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.
2. David Velleman, 2009, How We Get Along, Cambridge University Press, page 95.