Is this what you meant when you referred to the ant scaring the grasshopper? When the problem is perceived as important, this import acts to scare up the nerve, the will power to proceed with restraint. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was thinking of my own fear of dentists. I go, stressed and fearful, because I have rationalised that the discomfort of wild toothache is far worse that the pain and humiliation the dentist inflicts. Or how health scares can make people give up smoking. But for X, the comfort of ritual has very little cost, so rationally, it is an effective palliative and should be indulged, even though it is a mere placebo. Just as I like to grow flowers, though they have little use. It is not rational, but there is no stronger reason not to.

There is no reason to believe that the reason for the repetitive behaviour is neurophysiological at all.

Well, someone might propose that one reason for doing so is that OCD activity cannot be explained rationally. In fact the whole "mental illness is physical illness" brigade presumably will propose this. They might be wrong about that, but they do have reasons. Perhaps one could try motivating the idea thus: any action can be described, at least from a third person perspective, as just so much bodily interaction with the environment. The bodily motions involved in the action can then be described in neurophysiological terms. Any neurophysiological event that occcurs within the body has either another neurophysiological event within the body as its cause, or is caused by some environmental stimuli external to the body. Given all this, repetitive behavioiur must have neurophysiological reasons. Sure, there are assumptions being made here - at some point we all make assumptions of some kind or another - and there is some conflation between what is a reason and what is a cause, but those assumptions and conflations certainly do provide reasons for believing that repetive behaviour (indeed all behaviour) has a neurophysiologial explanation.

So unless it can be demonstrated that there is a specific "neurophysiological cause" for the behaviour, to assume that there is, is a mistaken assumption.

This seems wrong. The proposal that mental illness has physiological causes is presumably to be taken as a hypothesis for scientific and philosophical investigation. If your suggestion is that no proposal should be investigated unless it has already been established as true, then scientific and philosophical investigation serve no purpose at all.

Please do not misunderstand me, I am certainly not saying that I agree that OCD behaviour has a neurophysiological cause. What I do believe, and what I am trying to work out in this thread, is that if you do believe that, then there are consequences that follow for how we should understand notions such as "will power", "free will", "decisions" and even "action". It may be that the consequences are that those notions are ultimately empty, that there really is no such thing as "will power" or "free will".

Part of the problem with X's ritualistic behaviour, and I think this is the case for a number of sufferers from OCD, is that it precisely does have a deletirious effect on X's life.

On another point, although no doubt related:

That's the problem which I referred to, which creates the need for a division between the intellect and the will. If the will is what motivates the act to begin, and the intellect is what decides the act, we need this separation because even after deciding I will do such and such, I might for some reason or another, proceed in a contrary way. It doesn't matter if the decision concerns next week, tomorrow, next hour, or even the next moment, sometimes we make decisions which we are incapable of following through with.

The problem with separating the intellect and the will, though, is that it then becomes a problem to establish how they ever get to work together, other than by mere accident.

Yes indeed. It is like clutter in the house; it takes over. But then cleaning and tidying can also take over. I don't think there is a rational answer on one side and an irrational one on the other. I don't think will power can find the right balance between tolerating some mess and keeping some order.
There was a nice program on the box, where they sent OCD cleaners and tidyers to help OCD hoarders and livers in squalor. They helped each other to find some balance. There is a strong sense in which OCD simply is a loss of balance, which is a loss of freedom - hence the 'compulsive'.

I was thinking of my own fear of dentists. I go, stressed and fearful, because I have rationalised that the discomfort of wild toothache is far worse that the pain and humiliation the dentist inflicts. Or how health scares can make people give up smoking. But for X, the comfort of ritual has very little cost, so rationally, it is an effective palliative and should be indulged, even though it is a mere placebo. Just as I like to grow flowers, though they have little use. It is not rational, but there is no stronger reason not to. — unenlightened

So I'm on the right track with "importance" then. For me, it is important that I have teeth to chew my steaks, so I overcome my fear of the dentist. Notice that the fear is of the dentist, and the fear is overcome by means of the importance. The importance is a rational principle which renders the fear as irrational. The fear must be overcome because of Z, where Z is something of importance. The importance inspires the will power. In the case of X, there is no perceived importance which would be required for the will power to overcome the irrational behaviour.

In fact the whole "mental illness is physical illness" brigade presumably will propose this. — MetaphysicsNow

But physical illness is not necessarily neurological though. That is the problem, there are many possibly factors, diet, hormones, etc., and you are trying in that example, to reduce this illness to neurology. So even if the mental illness is a physical illness, it is wrong to reduce it to simply neurological.

Please do not misunderstand me, I am certainly not saying that I agree that OCD behaviour has a neurophysiological cause. What I do believe, and what I am trying to work out in this thread, is that if you do believe that, then there are consequences that follow for how we should understand notions such as "will power", "free will", "decisions" and even "action". It may be that the consequences are that those notions are ultimately empty, that there really is no such thing as "will power" or "free will". — MetaphysicsNow

I do see where you are headed But I think it is a foregone conclusion that those who think behaviour can be explained completely with neurophysiology are already determinists who deny free will and will power anyway.

The problem with separating the intellect and the will, though, is that it then becomes a problem to establish how they ever get to work together, other than by mere accident. — MetaphysicsNow

Of course this is a problem. But isn't the unity of life in general, a problem? How did the lungs and the heart ever get together to work together? Was a brain required? How could a brain get built without blood and oxygen? There is the very same problem with separating the heart from the lungs from the brain, because how could they ever get to work together. Yet we seem to have no problem separating these things. Why should it be a problem to separate the intellect from the will, if this is what is required to understand the mind? Are you against separating the memory from the calculative acts of the mind?

You are wondering how such a unity could happen by "accident", when the accepted theory of evolution subscribes to accident.

For me, it is important that I have teeth to chew my steaks, so I overcome my fear of the dentist. Notice that the fear is of the dentist, and the fear is overcome by means of the importance. The importance is a rational principle which renders the fear as irrational. — Metaphysician Undercover

One of my mother's wedding presents was to have all her teeth extracted and replaced by lovely new rot-proof dentures. This was quite common at the time and probably considered rational - solve the problem once and for all. I call it rationality gone mad. Again you want to call one side 'important', but you can manage without teeth - people do. Desire to eat steaks is not rational, as opposed to irrational fear of toothache. I'd say that what is rational at any one time depends on the state of one's teeth. One day, it might become rational to give up on steak.

Importance is very subjective. What is important to you is not the same as what is important to me. I think that we rationalize and produce our rational principles around what is important to us, so the distinction between what is rational and what is irrational is not really objective, it's subjective. This is why, as you say, what is rational is dependent on the state that one is in.

As for X, and his odd behaviour, which some might label as OCD and irrational, perhaps for X the behaviour is not really irrational at all. This is the state that X is in, and his behaviour might be completely rational for that state. If we could change X, bring X to another state, then whatever it is that is important to X would have to change accordingly, just like if I lost my teeth I would have to give up on steak, and I'd be forced to relinquish that importance.

I believe the following statements:

Some of the things we do are in our control.
Some of the things we do are not in our control.
That which is and is not in our control varies from person to person and through time.


Do you agree with or disagree with these statements?


Your rationalization number 4 seems to me the sort of thing you say when something is out of your control. It's not so much a reason in the same way that the other three examples are reasons. So as you object to a heartbeat counting as an action you would also object, I think, to this kind of reason for anything qualified as an action. It seems to remove agency. choice, or control from the behavior. In fact that seems to be your objection to the reason provided, if I read you right -- that it denies agency.

What I'm trying to drive at is -- what if it really is out of his control? How do you respond to that scenario?

Do you agree with or disagree with these statements?

To some extent yes - is it in my control to blink when someone throws a dummy punch at my face? Probably not. However, you home in on the point that those kinds of instinctive reactions are things that I want to rule out of the domain of discourse. I get the feeling you might still suspect that there is no non-question begging way to do that.

I think where I want to head with this ultimately is an argument along the following lines:
1) If there is a coherent way that actions involved with mental illness can be argued to be beyond the control of the patient, that way could only be found by falling back from explanations of type (3) to explanations of type (4).
2) Giving explanations of type (4) has as a consequence the removal of all agency from all human behaviour.
3) Removing all agency from human behaviour renders incoherent even the notion of giving any kind of argument for any kind of claim.
Therefore there is no coherent way that actions involved with mental illness can be argued to be beyond the control of the patient.

Now, even if the argument is sound, it might be thrown back at me that all I've done is to establish an epistemological point that one cannot coherently argue that actions are beyond the control of agents, I have not actually established the metaphysical claim that actions cannot be beyond the control of agents. That's certainly something I need to address. All this reminds me of the Donald Davidson stance on these issues. His view (if I remember correctly) is that any human action is at root an event that can be described in two sorts of ways - one which subsumes it under the deterministic laws of nature, one which positions it in the rational realm of agency, and he kind of left things at that. I suppose I want to try to push things further, but maybe they cannot be. Anyway, thanks (and thanks also to @Metaphysician Undercover) for engaging in this - it's helping to clarify my thoughts and reveal the weaknesses in them.

Where I see the weakness is in how you define "agency", and how you define "agent" in your classification of actions as beyond the control of the agent, and within the control of the agent. You limit "agent", and "agency" to the conscious intellect which is making decisions about what to do. But the conscious mind is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, when we're talking about the motivators for human activities.

So I would say that you ought to define "the agent" as the entire united human being, and do not try to restrict "the agent" to the conscious part. This allows that all internal activities of the human body, as well as outward activities which are instinctual, unconscious, and habitual, are all classed together as requiring agency, despite the fact that it is not the decisions of the conscious intellect which motivates these acts.

When we observe that an individual may consciously decide to do one thing, but actually proceed to do a contrary thing, we have to allow a separation between the conscious intellect which decides, and whatever it is (called the will), which motivates particular activities. Then the source of agency is not to be equated with the conscious mind at all. The conscious mind is more like a conditioner, having some power of influence over the activities of the human body, especially outward acts, but it is just the tip of the iceberg because the vast majority of the activities of the human body are activities of internal parts and systems, which, though they are clearly under the control of the agent (the individual human being), they are not under the control of the conscious mind.

All this reminds me of the Donald Davidson stance on these issues. His view (if I remember correctly) is that any human action is at root an event that can be described in two sorts of ways - one which subsumes it under the deterministic laws of nature, one which positions it in the rational realm of agency, and he kind of left things at that. I suppose I want to try to push things further, but maybe they cannot be. — MetaphysicsNow

Davidson is very congenial, isn't he? It might be worth considering how the appropriate description can change through time. A car crash that is my own fault, and within my control (I should have slowed down, but didn't) proceeds from that moment when I was in control, to one where I have lost control. Perhaps one can lose one's mind the way one loses control of a car, and the therapist is trying to deal with a slow-motion car-crash.

That's an interesting comparison - I'll have to work it through to see where the differences between the cases lie and what significance those differences might have.

When we observe that an individual may consciously decide to do one thing, but actually proceed to do a contrary thing

I suppose I'm a little reticent just to accept that someone can consciously decide to do one thing but proceed to do the contrary (short of mundance cases where people simply forget about promises etc). After all, what is it to decide to do something? Sure, I can tell myself "I won't eat any M&Ms tonight" in the morning, and then in the evening I go ahead and eat a whole packet (perhaps telling myself, one more evening on the M&Ms won't hurt, and tomorrow I really will forego the pleasure) but does my simply having told myself that in the morning really consitute a decision not to eat M&Ms, or does the fact that I eat M&Ms in the evening really undermine the very idea that I even made such a decision in the first place? ( I do get the contrary problem as well - i.e. that it looks like I might be saying that nobody makes a decision until they actually act on it ). There is presumably some difference between making a decision and simply saying something to yourself. If that presumption is correct, then what is that difference, and is it compatible with deciding to do X and then proceding to do not-X?

I get the feeling you might still suspect that there is no non-question begging way to do that. — MetaphysicsNow

I suspect so, but it's not my primary concern I'm trying to relate. My primary concern is more like this: People need to be able to say that they are not in control, and they need to be believed when they say it. It's not a matter of honesty -- in fact admitting that you're not in control can be one of the most honest things you can say to yourself. It allows you to be able to say, hey, I can't do this alone, I need help. I am not in control. This is especially the case with respect to mental illness -- it's easy to think you have control over things you do not have control over. It's hard to ask for help.

I would say that regardless of the truth of type (4) explanations that one thing still remains reasonable to believe -- that whatever action is being rationalized is beyond the agent's control. We are justified in believing this because our friend is taking on the role of the patient, asking for help, and telling us that it is so. We are very much the sorts of creatures who have this blend of control and lack of it. And we have the ability to lose control over things which others have control over -- we can become hurt and unable where once we were able. This is especially important to know with respect to mental illness, but we don't need to rely upon notions of mental illness either. Even people who fall within the domain of relatively normal and stable persons lack control over things they would like to have control over -- smoking, eating, exercise all come to mind as struggles people have with; these are things which are quite often beyond control.

2) Giving explanations of type (4) has as a consequence the removal of all agency from all human behaviour. — MetaphysicsNow

This is the main premise I disagree with in your argument. We may not be able to control whether we open and close a door 10 times, but still have control over what I'm going to do after that condition has been satisfied. We can retain control over parts of ourselves while losing or not having control over other parts.

This is even true in a mundane sense. We have neither total control nor are we entirely out of control of ourselves. To deny either of these would be to miss something important about the human mind.

2) Giving explanations of type (4) has as a consequence the removal of all agency from all human behaviour. — MetaphysicsNow


This is the main premise I disagree with in your argument.

Sorry to interrupt here, but MetaphysicsNow gave an argument for that premise in terms of consistency of reasoning:

If opening and closing a door 10 times, qua bodily motion, has its ultimate explanation in terms of (4) when the rationalization in (3) is initially given, why not also in cases (1) and (2)? After all, in all three cases precisely the same bodily motions are occuring, and if those bodily motions have their ultimate explanation in terms of neural/muscular occurences for case (3), then the same neural/muscular occurences will also be available for explaining the bodily motions in (2) and (1).

I suppose you disagree with that argument, but it's not clear to me on what grounds you do not believe it to be sound.

Sorry to interrupt here, — jkg20

No worries. The more the merrier.

I suppose you disagree with that argument, but it's not clear to me on what grounds you do not believe it to be sound. — jkg20

We can give type (4) explanations in some cases and not give them in others, because this is a more true description of the human mind.

Type (4) explanations more or less amount to saying that it is out of our control. The exact causal specifications aren't really spelled out; it's just a vague hand-wavey sort of thing to say when you want to express that some action is outside of your willpower or control.

But then there are times when someone might not want to explain their behavior in that frame. And if it is true that some things are in our control, and some things are not, then it would be appropriate to change how we are framing human action to fit the facts.

That's why I asked if we were in agreement on whether or not some things are in our control and some not. It seemed to me that was the crux of our disagreement. If one were to believe that either one of these propositions is true of the mind tout court, rather than both being true contingently, then what @MetaphysicsNow says makes sense to me. But I'd say that they are both contingently true -- and as such not only do we have the ability to vary which kind of explanation we might give for human action depending on the action and the person and the time, but we should do so because these things vary with action, person, and time.

Let's see if we can agree on some principles.

1) Making a conscious decision and acting on a decision are not the same thing. This is evident from the fact that we decide all sorts of future actions, often thinking ahead. Action only sometimes follows immediately from a conscious decision, it doesn't necessarily follow from a decision, because much of conscious thought concerns things other than one's current activity. This is what is commonly called contemplation, and all judgements are decisions, even solving a mathematical problem is a decision.

2) Human beings can proceed with actions without having to consciously decide to make that action. This is evident in habitual, instinctual, and reflex actions. If you are walking, for example, you do not need to consciously decide to lift one foot and move it ahead of the next.

So the argument to be made is that the part of the human being which initiates activity is not the same part of the human being which makes conscious decisions. Do you see that this is likely? Many conscious decisions are made which do not initiate actions, and many actions are made which do not derive directly from conscious decisions. There is an overlapping though, where many actions follow immediately from conscious decisions, and this creates the illusion that actions and conscious decisions are somehow tied together by some necessity.

The issue you seem to have difficulty with is how one can decide to do one thing, yet actually proceed with a contrary action. And you are right to bring up memory, and forgetfulness. As unenlightened mentioned, members of AA are urged to remind themselves over and over again, of their commitment. Without reminding oneself of one's decisions, an individual could slip into the habitual activity without deciding to proceed in this activity. But if they remind themselves of their commitment they will be diligent in preventing the activity from starting.

If we're on the same page here, we can proceed to the further complication which is the more common instance of doing what is contrary to what you decided, and this is changing your mind. Changing your mind requires a second decision. And the reality of mind changing allows that one can switch back and forth. The switching back and forth may develop into indecisiveness. An individual who knows oneself as being prone to switching back and forth may get into the habit of not even deciding. What's the point of even making a decision concerning something tomorrow, if I know that I am likely to change my mind by the time tomorrow comes? So I don't decide at all. But the habit of being indecisive is not good for one who is involved in fast moving situations, because this would put you at the mercy of reflexes and instincts.

We may not be able to say exactly what making a conscious decision is. It is similar to saying it to yourself, but it must be said with conviction, and repeated so as to be remembered, or else followed immediately with action, if it is to be of any value. Perhaps we could distinguish two types of conscious decisions, one theoretical, producing no immediate call for action, just a general principle to be applied, and the other, a practical decision, dealing with immediate actions. Intermediate decisions, concerning actions of tomorrow, next week, or some definite point of time in the future would be a mixing of the theoretical and the practical. So I could resolve to follow some general principle, in theory, but find that this resolution does not always work for me in practise. This is when we talk about exceptions to the rule.

That's why I asked if we were in agreement on whether or not some things are in our control and some not. It seemed to me that was the crux of our disagreement. If one were to believe that either one of these propositions is true of the mind tout court, rather than both being true contingently, then what @MetaphysicsNow says makes sense to me. But I'd say that they are both contingently true -- and as such not only do we have the ability to vary which kind of explanation we might give for human action depending on the action and the person and the time, but we should do so because these things vary with action, person, and time.

I suppose my position is that all or our actions are within our control, although I do agree that in some cases bringing them under control can be immensely challenging and benefit from support and encouragement. What I also believe is that if one tries to put OCD rituals into that group of actions that are "out of control" by means of giving type-4 explanations (and I agree, they are "hand-wavy" explanations for the most part) then the consequence is (through the consistency of reasoning argument) that all human behaviour falls outside of agents' control, and so the very idea of agency/action and so on makes no sense at all. So, I'm denying that one can simply pick and choose when type-4 explanations can be appealed to - either that type of explanation accounts for all human behaviour, or it is irrelevant in accounting for human action.

Perhaps there is a way of placing OCD ritualistic behaviour out of the control of the sufferers of mental illness, without falling back onto type-4 explanations, e.g. an explanation that operates within the context of concepts such as agency and action? But I'm not sure how one would go about that.

Making a conscious decision and acting on a decision are not the same thing. This is evident from the fact that we decide all sorts of future actions, often thinking ahead. Action only sometimes follows immediately from a conscious decision, it doesn't necessarily follow from a decision, because much of conscious thought concerns things other than one's current activity.

I think here we might have some disagreement, since whilst I agree that making a decision and acting on one are not one and the same thing, I'm inclined to think that the connection between them is logical and not just causal. Perhaps I'm thinking of a decision as something extended over time, with a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning may well be something along the lines of saying something to yourself, with the end being the corresponding action. My worry is that in disconnecting decision making from action in principle is that it would then make sense to say something like: John decided to vote "Yes" but John voted "No", but without giving some story in which in becomes clear that John changed his mind.

Human beings can proceed with actions without having to consciously decide to make that action. This is evident in habitual, instinctual, and reflex actions. If you are walking, for example, you do not need to consciously decide to lift one foot and move it ahead of the next.

Agreed, and here is a curious thing: an action which is intentional and conscious (such as walking to the bank to cash a check) can, when broken down into parts in the way sketched in your comment, look like it has parts all of which are entirely non-intentional/non-conscious. I think perhaps that this kind of breaking things down into parts is to give an action a description in non-rational terms, whereas human actions are - by definition - things that also have descriptions that locate them in the rational realm of reasons/decisions/intentions and so on. The difficulty (for me at least) is to account for the connection between these descriptions without falling into the position that the rational description is illusion (eliminative materialism) or just some kind of "stance" (cf Dennett).

I suppose my position is that all or our actions are within our control, although I do agree that in some cases bringing them under control can be immensely challenging and benefit from support and encouragement. — MetaphysicsNow

I feel like your two statements here are in conflict with one another. If all of our actions are within our control, then how do you account for the cases that are not yet brought under control? The ones where it would be immensely challenging to do so? Do you just mean that all actions are potentially within our control?

Perhaps there is a way of placing OCD ritualistic behaviour out of the control of the sufferers of mental illness, without falling back onto type-4 explanations, e.g. an explanation that operates within the context of concepts such as agency and action? But I'm not sure how one would go about that. — MetaphysicsNow

I think it more important to simply accept the explanation for what it is and infer that something is out of control. Regardless of the grand explanation of action there is still a truth being expressed there. That's what I'm trying to get at. There has to be some way for someone to express that -- and with your four categories, while the 4th one is under attack, there is no way for someone to express there is something out of their control. At least not in the manner of an explanation, which is often how people express these things. Obviously they could just say "I do not have control over this", but it would appear queer to say so, I think, with the four explanations you give for action where the fourth one should be rejected.

Do you just mean that all actions are potentially within our control?

Yes, I should have been more precise. I mean that I'm trying to work with the idea that actions are such that they are in principle things within the rational control of the agent. At the same time I obviously need to allow that the practice of aligning actions with that principle (i.e. bringing them under control) can be more or less difficult - perhaps very difficult in extreme cases. However, what I want to insist on is that it is never impossible. Those who would fall back to type-4 explanations seem to me to be driving at the idea that there are actions which are in principle beyond rational control, but - if my arguments concerning consistency of reasoning in giving explanations are sound - that comes at the cost of putting all actions as in principle beyond rational control (which means that there are no such things as actions at all).

If the truth behind the claims that "its out of my control" is along the lines "its very difficult to bring under control and I need support and help to do it", that's fine, because then discussions can begin about what sort of support is required and why.

I think here we might have some disagreement, since whilst I agree that making a decision and acting on one are not one and the same thing, I'm inclined to think that the connection between them is logical and not just causal. — MetaphysicsNow

I don't think I understand what you mean here when you say that the connection between the decision and the act, is logical. Let's say that deciding to do X does not force the logical conclusion that X occurs. Also, if we see that Z has occurred, there is no necessity for a decision to do Z. This is how the will is free, there may be a causal relation between a decision and an act, but that causal relation is not a necessary one. So no matter how you look at the relationship between the decision and the act, forward in time from the decision looking onward for an act, or backward, from the act, looking for a decision which caused the act, we cannot make a relationship of logical necessity, therefore the will is free.

Perhaps I'm thinking of a decision as something extended over time, with a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning may well be something along the lines of saying something to yourself, with the end being the corresponding action. My worry is that in disconnecting decision making from action in principle is that it would then make sense to say something like: John decided to vote "Yes" but John voted "No", but without giving some story in which in becomes clear that John changed his mind. — MetaphysicsNow

I don't see that this is a problem. There are many instances where John might decide to vote "Yes", but actually vote "No". He might change his mind, as you mentioned, he might forget, as we already talked about, or he might just make a mistake in marking the ballot. Notice that even a mistaken action is a very real possibility and must be accounted for. This is another reason why we need the separation between what one decides to do, and what one actually does. And again, it's a demonstration as to why there cannot be a logical relation between the decision and the act. Whenever an individual decides to do something which one does not have the capacity to do, there will be a failure, a mistake, and the intended act will not be accomplished. The act will be other than the act decided upon. So we cannot judge from an observation of the act which occurred, to make a logical conclusion about the act which was intended. Though when the failure is an obvious failure, we can speculate about what the intended act actually was.

Agreed, and here is a curious thing: an action which is intentional and conscious (such as walking to the bank to cash a check) can, when broken down into parts in the way sketched in your comment, look like it has parts all of which are entirely non-intentional/non-conscious. I think perhaps that this kind of breaking things down into parts is to give an action a description in non-rational terms, whereas human actions are - by definition - things that also have descriptions that locate them in the rational realm of reasons/decisions/intentions and so on. The difficulty (for me at least) is to account for the connection between these descriptions without falling into the position that the rational description is illusion (eliminative materialism) or just some kind of "stance" (cf Dennett). — MetaphysicsNow

This is where I was leading with the distinction between a theoretical decision and a practical decision, the theoretical being of a general nature, and the practical being of the particular. The general decision is an overall principle which is often decided by the conscious mind, but may be instinctual, and generally refers to occurrences more distant in the future, or it may just be a guiding feature of one's personality. So going to the bank is something you decide as necessary, as a somewhat general goal. You are not necessarily going to the bank right away, it is just something you know needs to be done. At some point you decide, now is the time, and this decision is more in the practical realm, it is related to your present activities, you have time now so you decide to go. Now, all the little actions involved in this practise, going to the bank, can be designated as being carried out without conscious decision. So all these little practical decisions which involve your daily activity are not really conscious decisions at all, they are done by instincts, habits and such, though you still need to refer to guiding principles along the way. We can reduce a whole large portion of practical decisions (decisions involving your present activity) to something other than conscious decisions. This includes most communication and also most OCD activity.

So let's say that OCD activity is activity which is not really conscious decision making, but is of this lower realm of practical decisions, simple habits or something like that, which we just sort of carry out as we go along, without really thinking about them to make a decision of whether or not we should do this. If this is the case, then we ought to be able to identify the overall, general principle, the conscious decision, or instinctual tendency which all of these little parts are subservient to. In the case of going to the bank, the decision to go to the bank was the general principle. We need to consider the possibility that the general principle was never made as a conscious decision, it may be something instinctual, which is guiding these little activities. So if I am a hoarder for example, it may be my instinct (not a conscious decision) that every existing thing has a proper place. The garbage is not a proper place for anything but garbage. So if I am cleaning up, or going through things, I will habitually put each thing on a shelf, or beside another thing, in a pile, etc.. I could be doing this without questioning, or even recognizing or determining the guiding principle, that each thing has a place and the garbage is not a place for anything but garbage. That general principle, the guiding principle may be completely hidden, not evident at all, but until it is determined and addressed, the individual has no hope of preventing the practical decisions which flow from it. It's like trying to tell your feet not to walk to the bank while still having your mind made up that you are walking to the bank. That's why the OCD activity cannot be stopped simply by the person wanting to stop those particular instances of activity, the general principle which brings these particular instances on must be addressed.

Ahh OK. Well this is different than what I had in mind before.

What I had in mind was the sort of responses you hear from people unsympathetic to the mentally ill -- a sort of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" which often people with mental illnesses will adopt, as well, to their detriment.

Although now you're also introducing a term here that I'd say needs fleshed out -- "rational". It seems to me that something does not need to be rational for it to be in our control, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by rational too. The thing I have in mind is habit -- we are creatures of habit, and it can be said that our habits are in control. But is it really rational? Or is rational here just the same sort of thing as healthy, so that a rational habit would be a healthy habit?

I can understand wanting to paint a picture where there may be hope for a cure. But I also think it's wise to keep with the analogy of diabetes -- while a cure would be preferable, not all mental illness has cures as much as it has habits which help alleviate and manage the condition. Would that still count, in your view, as rational control?

@Metaphysician Undercover

therefore the will is free.

Even if you are correct about the connection between decision and action not being logical, I don't see how freedom of the will follows. But in any case I'm still not convinced that the connection is not a logical one. Obviously, one can decide to do something and then when the time comes to do it, you do not, but where that happens there must be a reason why, it cannot simply be that the will did not "get in on the act". That is to say that the following kind of statement is something I regard as necessarily true:
If X decided to do A at time t and if at t there are no intervening factors preventing X from doing A, then X will do A.
Intervening factors are things such as physical impediments (e.g. being tied up), forgetfulness, clumsiness, changes of mind...
If I understand you correctly you, on the other hand, are inclined to think that that this kind of proposition is always going to be contingent, no matter how broadly "intervening factors" is filled out, since at time t the will, as some kind of separate faculty, has to "muscle in" and initiate the act, and since the will is free, that needn't happen. (Of course, even if the will did initiate the act, there is probably still room for clumsiness and perhaps other factors to intervene and prevent the act from happening.) Is that a fair summary of our principal disagreement, or am I riding roughshod over some more subtle difference?

What I had in mind was the sort of responses you hear from people unsympathetic to the mentally ill -- a sort of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" which often people with mental illnesses will adopt, as well, to their detriment.

Yes, having reread some of what I was saying, it could seem as if I was suggesting that the mentally ill can just "snap out of it". But I'm not that hard of heart :wink: Point taken, also, about the need to say more about what counts as rational. As for the analogy with diabetes, provided that it is recognised that the analogy gives way at an important point, I can see that it could be useful. For many with OCD, the OCD itself is just a symptom of depression, and the OCD rituals can be helpful in keeping the depression from manifesting in more harmful ways. Getting the rituals under control may always be possible (as I am suggesting) but it clearly might not always be the best thing to do - it's complicated, and just dealing with the symptoms without concern for the underlying reasons for their existence does not make sense.

Even if you are correct about the connection between decision and action not being logical, I don't see how freedom of the will follows. — MetaphysicsNow

Freedom of the will follows, because if there is no logical connection between the human action and anything which could serve as the cause of the action, then there is no cause, and the will is free. The relation between cause and effect is a logical relation. If there is no logical relation, there is no cause/effect relation.

Obviously, one can decide to do something and then when the time comes to do it, you do not, but where that happens there must be a reason why, it cannot simply be that the will did not "get in on the act". That is to say that the following kind of statement is something I regard as necessarily true:
If X decided to do A at time t and if at t there are no intervening factors preventing X from doing A, then X will do A. — MetaphysicsNow

I agree with all this, but the point is the need for a separation between the decision to act, and the cause of the act. None of this dispenses that need. If "the will" refers to the cause of the action, then the will is separate from the decision, because the decision does not necessarily lead to the action, regardless of the reason. If you can show that there is always a reason, then the will is not free, but I think this is a futile adventure. It is futile, because we can demonstrate many instances when the act follows the decision immediately. In these instances, there is no other reason except the decision. However, we've already demonstrated the separation between the decision and the will, such that the act does not necessarily follow the decision immediately. So the decision is not the cause of the act because the act doesn't necessarily immediately follow the decision, yet in the case of immediate action, there is no other reason for the act but the decision.

If I understand you correctly you, on the other hand, are inclined to think that that this kind of proposition is always going to be contingent, no matter how broadly "intervening factors" is filled out, since at time t the will, as some kind of separate faculty, has to "muscle in" and initiate the act, and since the will is free, that needn't happen. (Of course, even if the will did initiate the act, there is probably still room for clumsiness and perhaps other factors to intervene and prevent the act from happening.) Is that a fair summary of our principal disagreement, or am I riding roughshod over some more subtle difference? — MetaphysicsNow

Yes, what I am saying is that there is a separation between 'the intellect" which decides the course of action, and "the will" which initiates the action, as the cause of the action. This allows that habitual actions which do not need to be decided on, are still willed actions. The issue of "clumsiness", and mistake is actually quite complicated because we have only the decided act, and the observed act, to go by. If we separate the will from the decision making, then the will doesn't necessarily follow the decisions. Therefore I may decide to do something which I cannot physically do, jump across the creek, when I don't make the other side. The intended act is a jump to the other side. The observed act is a jump part way. According to the separation, "the willed act" is the jump part way. However, now we must look to the internal mechanisms of the human being, and the real willed act, is the acts of the internal mechanisms of the human body, which cause the physical jump. So the jump part way is really just the effect of the acts of internal mechanisms, and the movement of the mechanisms is the effect of the will.

Here's something to consider though. There is always internal activity. The various different mechanisms are active and inactive, in different ways, at different times. The internal activity acts as efficient cause. "The will", as I described earlier is principally "will power", and this is the will to prevent activity. So the will itself is active preventing internal activity, and in this way the activity is focused toward the desired activity. So when I decide to jump across the creek, the will must prevent any unnecessary activity, to focus all the internal activity on the requirement for the efficient cause to make the jump. Technically, the will is not really the cause of the physical jump, in the sense of "efficient cause" all that internal activity is the efficient, cause of the jump. The will is just doing as much as it can to make the decided act a successful act, and this is to direct the available efficient causation. The will cannot guarantee success though, as in the example of failure. Therefore the will doesn't really "cause" the act itself, in the sense of efficient cause, it just influences the success or failure of the act.

The relation between cause and effect is a logical relation.

Here you are going against the grain of all empiricist philosophy. Rationalists like Spinoza certainly believed that the relation between cause and effect is a logical one, and he may have been right. On the other hand, that kind of position needs to be argued for, since the general presumption in the empirical tradition of philosophy at least is that the causal relation is very definitely not a logical relation.

That aside, let me ask a question. If at time t the will does indeed initiate the action (or indeed prevent the initiation) your idea is that the will need not have initiated/prevented the action. So, for what kind of reason does the will do one or the other in any given case? Is it itself caused to do so? Presumably not, since then it would not, for you, be free. Is it simply inexplicable as to why the will initiates action in any given case? Then you come bang up against the principle of sufficient reason, and leave a gaping explanatory hole in accounting for any kind of intentional action. Maybe there is a third way to respond?

Here you are going against the grain of all empiricist philosophy. — MetaphysicsNow

The division between one event and another within a causal relation is artificial, made by a mind and arbitrary. Therefore to divide an event into cause and effect in any principled way, is a division based on logic. The arguments of empiricists such as Hume, do not produce a sound conclusion that cause and effect is not a logical relation, because they just start with the assumption that an event is naturally divided into two events, one labeled "cause" and the other labeled "effect". But such dividing and labeling is just a product of the human description, so the empiricists are just begging the question.

So, for what kind of reason does the will do one or the other in any given case? Is it itself caused to do so? — MetaphysicsNow

That's a good question, and I think it will remain unknown, at least into the immediate future. The will is not itself caused to do what it does, or else it would not be free. The will starts a physical event, so it is not a matter of dividing an event, one part from another, as cause and effect, it is the matter of a physical event coming into being from a non-physical source. Exactly why the will does what it does is unknown.

Then you come bang up against the principle of sufficient reason, and leave a gaping explanatory hole in accounting for any kind of intentional action. Maybe there is a third way to respond? — MetaphysicsNow

Just because the answer to a specific question remains unknown, does not mean that there is not an answer for. So we do not necessarily bang up against the principle of sufficient reason, we just bang up against a question which human beings cannot answer. You ought not be surprised by this, and it shouldn't make you think that we are necessarily on the wrong track. There are mysteries of life which have not yet been solved.

There are mysteries of life which have not yet been solved.

Absolutely, but where there are mysteries we usually have the wherewithal to formulate ways of going about trying to find an explanation. How are we to do that with this thing you are calling "will" which, if you are correct, is ubiquitous in all human action? Your hypothesis is that (i) there is a thing called the will, (ii) the will is not subject to causal laws (iii) the will causes human action. This is a substantive hypothesis, it is not an apriori truth by any way shape or form. The question, then, is in any given case what leads up to the will causing a given human action or prevention of human action (nb, there is also the question how the causal mechanism between will and action works, but that is a different question). You are saying that there is no causal account for that, and given your hypothesis there cannot be since then the will would not be free (in the sense, "not subject to causal laws"). You also seem to be implying that there is no rational account for that either. That seems to rule out any kind of research program into how the will is supposed to get in on the act.