Unconscious Motives and Actions – Agency, Freedom and Responsibility

Abstract

According to many criteria, agency, intentionality, responsibility and freedom of decision, require conscious decisions. Freud already assumed that many of our decisions are influenced by dynamically unconscious motives or that we even perform unconscious actions based on completely unconscious considerations. Such actions might not be intentional, and perhaps not even actions in the narrow sense, we would not be responsible for them and freedom of decision would be missing. Recent psychological and neurophysiological research has added to this a number of phenomena (the “new unconscious”) in which behavior is completely unconscious or in which the decision or its execution is influenced by unconscious factors: priming, automatic behavior, habitualized behavior, actions based on plain unconscious deliberations, intrusion of information from the dorsal pathway, etc. However, since this makes up the largest part of the behavior which is generally regarded as action, intentionality, yet agency, responsibility and even compatibilist freedom of decision for the largest part of our behavior may be threatened. Such considerations have led to a lively debate, which, however, suffers from generalizations that lump all these unconscious phenomena together. In contrast, the aim of this article is to discuss individual unconscious influences on our behavior separately with respect to what extent they require changes in traditional conceptualizations. The first part (sections 2–4) of the article outlines the “traditions” and their elaborations: the intentional causalist concept of action, an associated empirical theory of action and standard concepts of responsibility and compatibilist freedom of decision, as well as the challenges for them. In the second part (sections 5–9), the aforementioned unconscious influences on our actions (except for automated and habitualized actions, which I discuss elsewhere) are examined: 1. unconscious priming, 2. dynamically unconscious motives, 3. dorsal pathway information influencing conscious decisions, 4. unconsciously altered execution of conscious intentions, and 5. unconscious deliberations and decisions. To what extent do these phenomena C1. require a change in the concept of action, C2. curtail intentionality or agency, C3. responsibility, and C4. freedom? The result is: The curtailments prove to be far less dramatic than they initially appear; they require more watchfulness but no conceptual change.

Public perceptions of manipulations on behavior outside of awareness.

“…Moreover, Lumer (2019) has suggested that the folk conception is also aligned with psychological theories focused on describing the mechanisms that underpin intention and action, which are in turn closer to the conceptualization of free will as free action. Lumer (2019) refers to the psychological theories as intentional-causalist models, and examples of these include Social learning theory- Bandura (2001); Reactance theory- Brehm and Brehm (1981); Self-determination theory- Deci and Ryan (2012); Intention-action theory- Haggard (2017); Rubicon model of action phases- Achtziger and Gollwitzer (2018) and Heckhausen & Gollwitzer (1987); Dynamic monitoring and control theory- Osman (2010Osman ( , 2014. These theoretical models outline psychological experience that can be used to identify that an action is free.…”

“…Irrespective of whether or not humans ultimately possess free will, as mentioned, public conceptions of free will have been characterized as more closely associated with free action (e.g., Monroe & Malle, 2010;Shepherd, 2015;Stillman et al, 2011). Moreover, Lumer (2019) has suggested that the folk conception is also aligned with psychological theories focused on describing the mechanisms that underpin intention and action, which are in turn closer to the conceptualization of free will as free action. Lumer (2019) refers to the psychological theories as intentional-causalist models, and examples of these include Social learning theory- Bandura (2001); Reactance theory- Brehm and Brehm (1981); Self-determination theory- Deci and Ryan (2012); Intention-action theory- Haggard (2017); Rubicon model of action phases- Achtziger and Gollwitzer (2018) and Heckhausen & Gollwitzer (1987); Dynamic monitoring and control theory- Osman (2010Osman ( , 2014.…”

Personalized treatment - which interaction ingredients should be focused to capture the unconscious

“…Individual unconscious influences on behavior have been discussed together with concepts of intentionality, agency, responsibility, and compatibility of freedom of decision[ 52 - 55 ]. The analysis of expressions, behavior, and other enactments as an unbiased expression of intentionality is seen as problematic in psychoanalysis; consciousness is a necessary precondition for a sense of agency, intentionality, and freedom.…”

Exploring the Emotional Pathway from Motivation to Facebook* Addiction in a Vietnamese Undergraduate Sample

“…Psychologists have found that there are many behaviors that an individual takes up without being aware of the motivation behind them, such as automatic behavior, habitualized behavior, unconscious actions, etc. (Lumer, 2019).…”