Locke's account of action

"What is it determines the will? The true and proper answer is, the mind.'

John Locke, Essay, Book II Chapter XXI, Section 29.

Almost throughout his analysis Locke is committed to an Enlightenment view of what the significant question is: how do movements (or thoughts) get started.

This question was not unintelligible to the earlier thinkers - for example, the Scholastics, - but a kind of unproductive answer they usually gave to it was to say such and such a movement was natural to the thing concerned. Locke runs hard with the Enlightenment conviction that you should try and work out how such 'natural' movements originate in the movements of other things.

Locke's thinking about action is to be found largely in the Chapter ‘Of Power’ in the second book of the Essay.

There are some movements, and some thoughts, that are caused by the human will, and there are some that are not. Just to take those motions associated with a person's body, the circulation of their blood (11) is an example of a movement which is not caused by a person's will an example while a person not under constraint or compulsion moving from one chair to another is an example of a movement that 'the will' causes(12).

He doesn't mean us to think of the will as any kind of entity alongside or part of the mind (it is not a 'substance' (16)) The will he argues is just a power: a power to cause or prevent (some) movements or thoughts: 'nothing but a power of the mind to direct the operative faculties of a man to motion or rest, as far as they depend on such direction.' (29)

In those cases when a person's willing brings about a movement (or thought), what is it that determines the outcome of the willing? If willing is the exercise of a power, what is it that determines the outcome of that exercise? Locke spends some time defending the answer: desire. You desire something, and, often at least, you will it to happen. You desire to eat, and as a result of this desire, a volition takes place, the will to eat.

Unless something else prevents it, an appropriate action then occurs: eating.

To complete this account two lines have to be developed. First, what causes desires? And second, what kind of things and under what circumstances, is an act of will prevented from causing an appropriate movement (or thought).

To the first question, Locke develops the idea that a desire is essentially an 'uneasiness' of the mind (31), 'an uneasiness of the mind for want of some absent good'. (31) In its pure form it is pain. 'All pain of the body, of what sort soever, and disquiet of the mind, is uneasiness' and, 'desire being nothing but an uneasiness in the want of some absent good, in reference to any pain felt, ease is that absent good.' But uneasiness occurs alongside, or as a component of, other experiences besides pain, for: 'aversion, fear, anger, envy, shame, etc., have each their uneasiness too...' (39) It is this 'uneasiness', alone as it may be, or accompanying a passion (such as shame etc), which determines the will - that is, makes a person decide to do a certain thing.

Locke seeks to insist that a 'thought' without 'uneasiness' attached to it is not enough to trigger the will. The drunkard may know that getting drunk again could be disastrous for the whole of the rest of his life, but he has to be feel a modicum of actual distress about this - there has to be attached to this knowledge a measure uneasiness in his mind - if there is to be any chance of his will being affected. (35).

In fact Locke thinks that at any one time a person typically suffers from a number of uneasinesses (40). He thinks of these as having different strengths, and that the will is determined by the strongest of those that are seem capable of relief. (Not, as a true Newtonian would imagine, by the resultant of a parallogram of forces - JB):

'But we being in this world beset with sundry uneasinesses... the next inquiry naturally will be, which of them has the precedency in determining the will to the next action? And to that the answer is that, ordinarily, which is the most pressing of those that are judged capable of being removed.'(40) (There is a strong hint here - actually a commitment to the view - that some kind of judgement, at least 'ordinarily', comes into play between the having of an uneasiness and the determination of the will.)

Where do these uneasinesses come from? One important source is the Creator, equipping us with feelings which guide us towards the good (our pleasure). Thus the uneasiness which is hunger guides us towards keeping ourselves nourished and alive.

'And thus we see our all-wise Maker, suitably to our constitution and frame, and knowing what it is that determines the will, has put into man the uneasiness of hunger and thirst, and other natural desires, that return at their seasons, to move and determine their wills, for the preservation of themselves, and the continuation of their species.' Essay, (34)

But growing up and being taught, and picking up bad habits, can be sources of desires too.

To those associated with the 'ordinary necessities of our lives' Locke tells us, there are to be added 'the fantastical uneasiness (as itch after honour, power, or riches, &c.) which acquired habits, by fashion, example, and education, have settled in us, and a thousand other irregular desires, which custom has made natural to us...'(45)

How are we to imagine the connection between having an uneasiness and deciding to take a particular action? Sometimes Locke seems almost unambiguously of the view that the connection is like that between one turning cog and the one meshing with it. A desire - an uneasiness - is felt and the will is forced into a certain configuration by the laws of mechanics, or mental mechanics. '...[T]hat which immediately determines the will, from time to time, to every voluntary action, is the uneasiness of desire...' (33) 'The motive for continuing in the same state or action is only the present satisfaction in it; the motive to change is always some uneasiness: nothing setting us upon the change of state, or upon any new action, but some uneasiness. This is the great motive that works on the mind to put it upon action, which for shortness's sake we will call determining the will...' (29)

But much of what he says is inconsistent with this. For example the point already made, that 'judgment' is, according to Locke, exercised in identifying both which of one's present uneasinesses are practically capable of removal, and of these which is the most pressing.(40) Of much greater significance for Locke's understanding of action however is the role he attributes to 'the mind' in (sometimes) intervening between uneasiness and determination of the will, in a process of review which Locke refers to as examination. The mind considers the action being 'proposed' to the will (by the current state of one's uneasinesses) and judges whether it is indeed the best choice of action. What does Locke mean by 'the best'? Simply the one that makes for the most pleasure (for the person making the judgement) in the long-term, all things considered.

The uneasinesses therefore, for Locke, influence what one decides to do: but something else - we will call it judgment - exerts influence too, an influence that in fact is capable of completely overiding the command of 'desire'.

So the important question becomes: what then determines the degree of success that 'judgment' achieves in any particular call? I have said what determines its content, as it were, which is this: The action now being considered does (or does not) make for maximum pleasure. Sometimes a judgment of this kind determines the will and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes 'desire' commands the will in spite of thier being an unsupportive review. What is it that determines which of these happens?

I'm not sure there is an answer in Locke to this question. This, I fear, is where his bold new world quasi mechanical analysis and theorizing, becomes exhausted and the old ideas fallen back upon. It is, after all, natural for human beings to make judgements.

The important point I want to take is happily already sufficiently clear : the governance of all movements that are voluntary rests for Locke with the conscious mind.

'This, at least, I think evident: that we find in ourselves a power to begin or forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds and motions of our bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering or, as it were, commanding, the doing or not doing such or such a particular action. This power which the mind has thus to order the consideration of any idea, or the forbearing to consider it, or to prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest, and vice versa, in any particular instance, is that which we call the will. The actual exercise of this power, by directing any particular action, or its forbearance, is that which we call volition or willing. The forbearance of that action, consequent to such order or command of the mind, is called voluntary. (5)

A wonderfully forensic question for an account of a human power I alway think is this: Could such an account of action be turned into a computer program?

If one puts aside the question of phenomenology, the answer is Yes - up to the point at which judgement is introduced. You could program the evaluation of the proposed action against a data base of experience and theoretical knowledge of what causes pleasure. But what would determine when this evaluation would be take notice of and when ignored? This is what we want to know from Locke.

He has some discussion of the problem of the 'weakness of will'. He says it's all a matter of the will being dtermined by the strongest uneasiness. This is something that could be programmed. But other things he says are not consistent with it.

to be continued.

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Draftings

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Locke thinks that free human actions are movements (mental thoughts or physical motion) which have among their causal antecedents decisions or volitions - exercises of the will. He thinks that volitions come about as the causal effect of our desiring something. And he thinks that 'desiring something' is a state of 'unease' in the mind.

Not all our actions, he thinks, are 'free'. Some are not 'free' because the exercise of our will plays no part in bringing them about. This may be because a person exercises their will, but it has no effect, as when a man falls into a river when the bridge collapses under him. He wants not to fall, but falls nonetheless:

'the forbearance of that motion not being in his power, the stop or cessation of that motion follows not upon his volition...' Locke, Essay, Book II, Ch. XXI, Para 9.

In other cases, a man might not excercise his will at all, but movement may take place even so, as when the heart beats and the blood circulates. (10)

But when the will is exercised and this exercise plays a part in bringing movement (or thought) about, there is a case, says Locke, of an action freely performed.

The will is determined, says Locke, by desire, and desire is an 'uneasiness' of the mind. (31) The experience of pain in a part of the body gives us an example of what it is to be 'uneasy' of mind. The sense of uneasiness is our desire to be rid of the pain. Similarly, experience of mental pain is an example of 'uneasiness', a feeling which Locke is prepared to equate with the desire to be rid of it.

Is Locke actually equating the feeling of uneasiness with desire? Yes, though he does prevaricate. He says boldly: 'That desire is a state of uneasiness, every one who reflects on himself will quickly find.' (32) But also: '...All pain of the body, of what sort soever, and disquiet of the mind, is uneasiness: and with this is always joined desire, equal to the pain or uneasiness felt; and is scarce distinguishable from it.' (31) - committing himself surely to the view that that a desire is is not one and the same thing as the pain it is 'inseperable from' (31). However, the substantial picture is clear: we suffer from time to time from feelings of uneasiness, and these, when they occur, determine the will. That is to say, when we have a feeling of uneasiness, we are caused to will its cessation. It is uneasiness, says Locke, 'that successively determines the will and sets us upon those actions we perform' (31) Uneasiness can spring from, or take the form of, pain: but it can take the form of other things as well. For example, our knowledge of something 'good' which we are not presently enjoying may be a source of uneasiness, and thus (in effect the same thing) desire. (31)

And what does Locke understand by something 'good'? Straightforwardly this : something that is apt to cause us pleasure.

'... what has an aptness to produce pleasure in us is that we call good, and what is apt to produce pain in us we call evil...' (42).

(Locke thinks that human happiness consists of the enjoyment of pleasure and the absence of pain. Perhaps surprising, this hedonism, at the heart of such a staunch defender of the orthodox Christian faith. But room is left for urging dutiful behaviour when pleasure is understood to be summed not across this lifetime only (which is negligible) but across eternity. It could turn out that pleasure in this world was the last thing to be pursued, if pleasure totalled over eternity were the goal.)

Where do the uneasinesses experienced by human beings come from?

see above

Having made it very clear that the will, when it come into play, is determined by desire, Locke subsequently makes it equally clear that this isnot in fact the case. For in between desire and will, he now claims, comes 'judgment'. And it is the possibility of the intervention of judgement that marks out human life from the life of beasts. Locke says:

'There being in us a great many uneasinesses, always soliciting and ready to determine the will, it is natural ... that the greatest and most pressing should determine the will to the next action; and so it does for the most part, but not always. For, the mind having in most cases, as is evident in experience, a power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its desires, and so all, one after another, is at liberty to consider the objects of them, examine them on all sides, and weigh them with others.

...[D]uring this suspension of any desire, before the will be determined to action, and the action (which follows that determination) done, we have opportunity to examine, view, and judge of the good or evil of what we are going to do...' (47)

So, this would appear to a neutral observer to be a denial that the will, whenever it plays a part in the determination of action, is determined by desire, which is theory presented in earlier sections of the Essay.

'The mind' is now allocated a crucial power to intervene between desire and will.

What we examine, or should examine, when an action is proposed, is whether it has a good prospect of promoting our good, which is to say, our happiness.'...[E]very man is put under a necessity, by his constitution as an intelligent being, to be determined in willing by his own thought and judgment what is best for him to do...' (48) Is this to be determined by a desire? No. A desire is a present uneasiness, and the role of the mind in examining any proposed action is to bring into the picture uneasinesses that are not present now but which might be consequential upon the proposed action at some point in the future.

Locke says the judgment here is performed by 'the mind'. Does he mean us to think of it as the 'reason'? Certainly it is, he says, 'the great privilege of finite intellectual beings' (52)

'This is the hinge on which turns the liberty of intellectual beings, in their constant endeavours after, and a steady prosecution of true felicity,- That they can suspend this prosecution in particular cases, till they have looked before them, and informed themselves whether that particular thing which is then proposed or desired lie in the way to their main end, and make a real part of that which is their greatest good. (52)

It is clear then that for Locke there is a crucially important category of human actions, namely those that are are caused by the will. Sometimes the will is determined by desire, sometimes it is formed as a result of an examination by the mind of likely outcomes of the action concerned. But how are we to characterise the other actions, those that do not flow from the will? How does Locke think of them? It is clear at any rate that he thinks however they are determined, their determination does not involve the mind. They are in fact thought of as brought about by a physical causal chain.

The difficulty in getting absolutely clear about this though is that Locke accepts the possibility that mental activity might be part of the functioning of the brain. He accepts the possibility of physicalism, as defended by Hobbes. He puts this by saying that mind need not be considered a substance. Thinking could be one of the things that matter in certain configurations does.

Why is this a complication? It lands Locke with the view that some actions are brought about by processes or events of which we are aware (the will, and the examination performed by the mind) and some are not.

herever they come from, it is a central feature of the human condition that desire does not necessarily determine the will.

the will is not bound to follow the promptings of desire.

The sources of uneasiness are of two kinds: ones over which we have no control, such as the pain a victim suffers from disease, and ones which depend on the judgements we make of what is likely to be good for us in the future (ie secure for us pleasure). (57)

( Locke

'The motive for continuing in the same state or action, is only the present satisfaction in it; the motive to change is always some uneasiness: nothing setting us upon the change of state, or upon any new action, but some uneasiness. This is the great motive that works on the mind to put it upon action, which for shortness' sake we will call determining of the will...' (29)

Desire is 'an uneasiness of the mind for want of some absent good' (31)

'Agents that have no thought, no volition at all, are in everything necessary agents.'(13)

Involuntary actions are movements which occur independently of any decision or volition.

Locke thinks that some actions involve in their causation 'the Will' and some don't.

Those having 'the Will' as part of their causation are voluntary and the others involuntary.

'The Will' needs the scare quotes, in Locke's opinion. It was a mistake of many of those who wrote before him, he said, to think of 'the Will' as a kind of agent within an agent. Locke was referring here to the tradition which spoke of the Will as a faculty - one of several faculties of the mind - a way of talking that 'has misled many into a confused notion of so many distinct agents in us, which had their several provinces and authorities, and did command, obey, and perform several actions, as so many distinct beings. We have here the source, says Locke, of much 'wrangling, obscurity, and uncertainty'. Locke, Essay, Book II, Ch. XXI, Para 6. (which returned, it may be suggested, when the Will began to be treated once again as a potentate within by Kant, Hegel and philosophers of that mould throughout the 19th Century and beyond.)

In the 17th Century anyway Locke thought it was this incoherent idea of the will as an entity within that led to the celebrated question, which Locke declared absurd, of whether 'the will was free'.

The will was not the sort of thing that might or might not be free, he explained. It was properly to be thought of as a power. A person's will was their power to influence the causation of some events.

'This, at least, I think evident,- That we find in ourselves a power to begin or forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds, and motions of our bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering, or as it were commanding, the doing or not doing such or such a particular action. This power which the mind has thus to order the consideration of any idea, or the forbearing to consider it; or to prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest, and vice versa, in any particular instance, is that which we call the Will. The actual exercise of that power, by directing any particular action, or its forbearance, is that which we call volition or willing. The forbearance of that action, consequent to such order or command of the mind, is called voluntary. And whatsoever action is performed without such a thought of the mind, is called involuntary.' Locke, Essay, Book II, Ch. XXI, Para 5.

The will is determined by the state of 'uneasiness' prevailing in the mind at the time a choice of action is being made. 'Uneasiness' is Locke's account of desire. A desire, he maintains, is an uneasiness in the mind. 'The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it, is that we call desire.' Locke, Essay, Book II, Ch. XX, Para 6.

The 'uneasiness' identified by Locke with desire is for him something that belongs to consciousness - something of which the person whose mind is troubled by it is aware.

(Leibniz thinks there is room to deny this. 'We do not always notice the reason which determines us,' he says, because 'we are as little able to be aware of all the workings of our mind and of its usually confused and imperceptible thoughts as we are to sort out all the mechanisms which nature puts to work in bodies.' Leibniz, New Essays, Cambridge Texts edition, p.179

(So, on the question of freedom or determinism, Locke holds some actions are voluntary, because caused (in part) by the will, but that the will is determined by desire. He is thus a kind of compatibilist.)

So voluntary actions for Locke are those in the determination of which the Will plays a role. The Will is determined by desire. And desire is 'uneasiness' of the mind.

Uneasiness in different contexts comprises the several different desires: but to desire is always to be 'uneasy' in one's mind.

This means unequivocally that voluntary actions are brought about in part by promptings of which the agent is aware.

________

Sometimes you can will yourself to do something, but nothing or something else happens. So an involuntary act can result even when the will is active - active in seeking an outcome which is not infact achieved. If the will does not in fact play a causal role in bringing the outcome to pass, the act remains an involuntary one. A person who falls into the river when the bridge collapses 'has volition' - ie 'prefers his not falling to his falling' - but does not fall voluntarily, because his volition has no effect: 'the forbearance of that that motion not being in his power, the stop or cessation of that motion follows not upon his volition...' Locke, Essay, Book II, Ch. XXI, Para 9.

lllThere is, as JB suggsts, a perfectly good interpretation of 'the unconscious' which is compatible with physicalist functionalism, if not eliminative materialism. Think of the folk psychology Some patterns of behaviour are best explained in terms of there being a second person inside me

Susan James says that it is the will or volition for Locke that suspends or sponsors movement. But Locke says (variously) it is the mind or judgement. Sometimes the mind intervenes between uneasiness (desire) and the volition which would in the absence of any such intervention occur: that seems to me to be Locke's view.

James I think has no conviction that the scientific view and the principle of determinism must be taken very seriously indeed. She doesn't bring out the enormity of allowing a causal role to an undetermined judgment, or will.

James, p. 290.

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