3.2.2 Role: Agent of actions and thinker of thoughts (autonomy)
"The sense of boundedness is also brought out through considerations
pertaining to 'the self's' causal efficacy. For most people take themselves to
be autonomous agents in virtue of their assumed causal powers, thus relating
directly to the 'role-occupiers' _thinker of thoughts_, _initiator of
actions_. These roles point to common modes of assumed self-identity. How,
more precisely, do we identify as such thinkers and agents? One way, already
mentioned, is through 'this-ness': the felt value attached to the idea that _I,
this particular self_, as opposed to some other self, am the agent of certain
actions. Another way we construe ourselves to be thinking agents is through
the feeling that our deliberate actions are not the result of impersonal
factors but, rather, of special causal powers pertaining to free-will. ---
_our_ free-will. We feel, in other words, that our choices are not blindly
determined, but that with any deliberate action, we could have chosen to
do otherwise. The feeling that one is able to exert unique causal powers on
the world through one's own thoughts and actions add weight to the feeling of
_being_ a separate, autonomous entity. Identifying as a (free) thinker and
agent would thus plausibly evoke a sense of boundary between our 'free' selves
and the world with which we interact (including other free agents).
"But the feelings of freedom do not seem to stop there. Like 'this-ness',
the belief in one's free-will seems to endow those free thoughts and actions
with value. One takes particular pride or shame not only in the apparent fact
that _this_, as opposed _that_ kind of action. It is through this feeling of
freedom that one feel's responsible for one's actions. In the extensive
literature of free-will, it has been noted that anyone who _truly_ believed
there was no real choice in the matter --- that our every action was determined
from birth --- would not fully experience the emotions of pride, shame, guilt,
praise or blame, to name but a few. It seems that for these emotions to be
properly felt, one must, at _some_ level, buy into the assumption that it is
possible to have chosen differently. We do not usually attribute heartfelt
praise or blame to behaviours we perceive as mechanistic or random (if we do,
then it tends to be through unconsciously anthropomorphising in
animate objects such as stalling cars and red traffic lights!). The emotional
investment in the outcome of one's actions serves to intensify the sense of
boundary between self-as-agent and other (or self-as-thinker and other). The
associated roles, 'thinker of thoughts' and 'initiator of actions' thus depict
distinct and repetitive _modes_ in which we, as subjects, identify with things
(in the capacity of these roles), underscoring the sense of boundary between
self and other. And the associated sense of boundedness is best evidenced
through the value we attach to being, it would seem, a free author of our
actions.
"The reflections developed in this discussion on both 'this-ness' and
'autonomy' (introduced by Baron) help to illuminate, from two different angles,
the sense of ontological uniqueness that we have. The sense of being a
uniquely separate _thing_, whether as something special, or as something
autonomous, is strong evidence for our reflexive ascription of boundedness to
the self we assume we are. We can also note its connection with the
long-running debate on free-will, and with the fact that many philosophers,
such as Kant and Frankfurt, have chosen to identify the most central aspect of
our 'selves' with 'the will'."
(Albahari, Miri, 'Analytical Buddhism: The Two-tiered Illusion of Self
', pp.96-97)
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