Self-determination

“ Contingent self-determination represents the will as a cause making its nisus or volitions of itself, and determining their direction of itself—now obeying reason, and now obeying passion. If it be asked why it determines in a particular direction?—if this particular direction in which it determines be that of the reason?—then it may be said, that it determines in this direction because it is reasonable;—if this particular direction be that of passion, as opposed to reason, then it may be said that it determines in this direction, because it is pleasing. ”

“ For the motive which may be said to be its cause lies in the man himself, and the identification of the self with such a motive is a self-determination, which is at once both rational and free. The “freedom of man” is constituted, not by a supposed ability to do anything he may choose, but in the power to identify himself with that true good which reason reveals to him as his true good. ”

“ This sort of self-assertion is the determination to please oneself, irrespective of consequences. But when it is known that consequences recoil upon self—when the element of time is taken into account, and the self is found to be continuous, then there is reflection, and by-and-by succeeds caution, restraint, and the co-ordination of actions to a given end. This is the germ of self-rule which is mistakenly regarded as identical with the self-determination of volition. ”

“ The Will is considered as a power of self-determination to act according to certain laws as represented to the mind, existing only in rational beings. And, if the objective ground of self-determination, or End, is supplied by mere Reason, it must be the same for all rational beings. Ends may be divided into Subjective, resting upon individual Impulses or subjective grounds of desire ”

“ But we have here self-determination, and thus the existence of the Universal in and for itself, which is the Ego.
Remark.—It cannot be any other mode of existence than the Ego, for that which dissolves all determinations and is the universal potentiality is only one and cannot be distinguished into modes, for it creates and destroys these. The ego can abstract all else and yet abide—it is the actus purus—its negativity annulling all determinations and finitudes, while it is directed full on itself, and is in that very act complete self-recognition. ”

“ Hence, of will, it is an absurdity to talk; freedom or moral agency is an impossible phantom.
5. That there is self-determination in self-consciousness—that it is “self-created”—is to Mr. Spencer the absurd alternative which at once turns the scale in favor of the doctrine that mental phenomena are the productions of external forces. ”

“ Fisher, chapter on the Personality of God, in Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief—“Self-determination, as the very term signifies, is attended with an irresistible conviction that the direction of the will is self-imparted.... That the will is free, that is, not constrained by causes exterior, which is fatalism—and not a mere spontaneity, confined to one path by a force acting from within, which is determinism—is immediately evident to every unsophisticated mind. ”

“ What a person is, what he wants, the determination of his life plan, of his concept of the good, are the most intimate expressions of self-determination, and by asserting a person's responsibility for the results of this self-determination we give substance to the concept of liberty. ”

“ Socially, the idea of self-determination is applied to evaluate the religious institutions, the class structure, and the value system. The application concerns, once again, the authority of the people to determine their own social patterns. ”

“ It feels profoundly its own energy and power of self-determination; and it regards the objective world not as deeply at one with it, responsive to its feeling, accessible to its thought, but rather as a threatening power against which it must vindicate its spiritual freedom and build its secure spiritual home. ”

“ The main difficulty in the application of the principle of self-determination is, of course, the apparent conflict of interests and benefits that occurs at times. Judgment should be rendered as nearly as possible by a consensus of opinion of the least prejudiced and best informed and most unselfish, disinterested observers. ”

“ The development of the individual, self-conscious that he is a reasoning being with the rights and responsibilities of self-determination, has put into the discard the divine right of kings and the infallibility of sphinx-like utterances from those in authority. The man who rules to-day does it through personal contacts with his subordinates. ”

“ That there must be some circumstances present, if there is to be any self-determination on the part of the will, we have already admitted; the freedom of the will implies the presence of more alternatives or motives than one—and we always have the alternative of acting or abstaining from action. ”

“ This is merely another way of perpetuating the mistake of allowing the notion of determination by an other or a preceding to continue to dominate us in a region where we have in reality passed from it to the notion of determination by self or by self-acknowledged ideals. As the correction from the one side consists in a more whole-hearted acceptance of the conception of determination by an ideal as the essence of mind, so from the other side it must consist in the recognition of the valuelessness of a freedom which does not mean submission to a self-chosen, though not self-created, law. ”

“ For our present purpose we regard the sense of “conscience,” suggested by the previous answer, as the most important and highest characteristic of all,—the sense of responsibility, the power of self-determination, the building up of character, so that ultimately it becomes impossible to be actuated by unworthy motives. Our actions are now controlled not by external impulses only, but largely by our own characters and wills. The man who is the creature of impulse, or the slave of his passions, cannot be said to be his own master, or to be really free ”

“ This essentially free totality which remains constant to itself throughout each successive self-determination in something other than itself, this ideal principle, which in its objectivity is self-related is the essentially true, free, and self-subsistent, which in its determinate existence unfolds nothing other than itself. ”

“ Doubtless as a practical matter for some time to come it will be the will of the stronger power in individual instances that will settle this question of the degree of self-determination that shall be granted and its application ”

“ To speak of choice between alternatives is to suggest that another than the best might be chosen and this would be inconsistent with the idea of perfection. A finite mind, limited in knowledge and power and distracted by desires other than the will to goodness, may yet have a partial measure of self-determination which is complete only in the infinite. ”

“ The analysis of our moral experience shows that true “freedom” means teleological determination. Hence to be “free” and to “will” are ultimately the same thing. Freedom or “self-determination” is genuine but limited, and is capable of variations of degree. § 4. Determinism and Indeterminism both arise from the false assumption that the mechanical postulate of causal determination by antecedents is an ultimate fact. The question then arises whether mental events are an exception to the supposed principle. § 5. Determinism. The determinist arguments stated. ”

“ But it will be seen that the Will or Free Will mentioned here, and defined as self-assertion and determination to please one's self, is self-assertion as opposed to environment—a self-assertion which, irrespective of the qualities or nature of the motives comprised in that self, determines to work out its own pleasure there and then in spite of all opposition. ”

“ Personality exists where there is intelligence, mind, will, reason, individuality, self-consciousness, and self-determination. There must be not mere consciousness—for the beast has that—but self-consciousness. Nor is personality determination—for the beast has this, too, even though this determination be the result of influences from without—but self-determination, the power by which man from an act of his own free will determines his acts from within. ”

“ Let us take this for granted then; but is this what we mean by self-realization? Is the conclusion that, in trying to realize, we try to realize some state of ourself, all that we are driving at? No, the self we try to realize is for us a whole, it is not a mere collection of states. ”

“ These preliminary steps will be at once adopted; and as the path of self-government and self-examination is pursued, a clearer and ever clearer perception of the nature, meaning, and effects of desire will be developed, until it will be seen that the mere regulation of one’s desires is altogether inadequate and insufficient, and that the desires themselves must be abandoned, must be allowed to fall out of the mind and to have no part hi the character and life. ”

“ But though the natural impulses of the will are thus the work of the self-realising principle in us, it is not in their gratification that this principle can find the satisfaction which is only to be found in the consciousness of becoming perfect, of realising what it has it in itself to be. In order to any approach to this satisfaction of itself the self-realising principle must carry its work farther. ”

“ Should he give himself over? Should he make over his own life and body to the control of something which he knew was inferior, in spirit, to his own self? Should he commit himself into the power of an inferior control? ”

“ In the former case thought has by itself directly taken hold of our self, and made it into itself; and through this reality of thought for us, arising in this way, we obtain insight into its necessity. As we have just said, no freedom can forcibly bring about the latter consequence, which must be produced of itself, and thought itself must take hold of us and form us according to itself. ”

“ In truth there is no such agency beyond the will and determining how the will shall be determined; not in the man, for the will is the self-conscious man; not elsewhere than in the man, not outside him, for the self-conscious man has no outside. ”

“ For freedom it is necessary that we should feel no presence of something else which is not ourselves. The natural man, whose motions follow the rule only of his appetites, is not his own master. Be he as self-willed as he may, the constituents of his will and opinion are not his own, and his freedom is merely formal. ”

“ The author maintains that the original motive in all living things was self-preservation for self-realisation; and that this elementary law was in itself necessary and good, the essential condition of progress. But just as we to-day know well how hard it is to draw the line which distinguishes a right self-seeking from the wrong, so it has been from the outset. ”

“ By the self-life, however, as a term thus used, is to be understood, not our individuality, nor the distinctive recognition of our free agency as rational beings, nor the necessity of self protection, support and effort, but life for the sake of self. ”

“ Are we prepared to surrender the approval of our conscience, the new-won self-respect which rewards the successful resistance offered to temptation, as having no basis in fact? And if we are not, what is this but to affirm our freedom and our responsibility alike in doing and forbearing? ”

“ Whatever power of regulation, change or control we possess over these functions does not belong to the powers themselves, but to the will or the personal capacity of free choice and self-regulation. It is only through our will-power that we can handle and direct our thinking or control the direction and force of our feelings. So, too, the ideas of right and wrong, the perceptions of duty and the sense of obligation come into the presence of the will of necessity. ”

“ But, nevertheless, the new light thrown upon the unity of the self and the more careful and accurate scrutiny made by recent psychologists of the phenomena of decision have rendered it no longer possible either for determinists to deny the fact of choice (whatever be their theory as to its nature) or for libertarians to regard the self or the will as isolated from and unaffected by other mental constituents and antecedents, and hence, by an appeal to wholly fictitious entities, to prove the truth of freedom. ”

“ But whether we choose the ideal as the goal or something else, our choice is the free act of a self-determining will. Progress, on the human side, is—as indeed is regress—the expression of the free will of human beings, whose choice, though free, is limited to the alternatives offered to them. Those alternatives reduce themselves ultimately to aiming at the ideal or at something else. ”

“ He maintains that the reality of a power or liberty, to will what we will, is testified to us indirectly, if not directly, by the experience of our own consciousness, and that the possession of it is essential to all activity of which the modes are properly objects of praise or blame. Such freedom is the root of man’s personality, and constitutes his power of self-control over the desires and affections that have been inserted in his mind and committed to his government. ”

“ But the voice of my conscience cries to me: "Whatever these beings may be in and for themselves, thou shalt treat them as subsisting for themselves, as free, self-existing beings, entirely independent of thyself. ”

“ In this light, duty is seen to be the freedom of autonomy, instead of simply the freedom of sharing in a good lot, — freedom in a world of utter reality, where nothing is predestined otherwise than by the self's own thinking, so that each self thinks every other as an essential complement of himself, and sees that he cannot realise himself except as he realises all the others. ”