Free will as a philosophical problem of modern times

What is will?

Will is considered the ability to make meaningful decisions and direct one’s actions in accordance with the decisions made.

The important point is the independent (“volitional”) thought process of the individual, and not an unconscious or spontaneous decision, which is the fruit of unconscious reactions.

Many people believe that animals do not have a will; only humans have it. In animals, the nature of decision-making is not related to the function of the will.

In psychology and philosophy, “will” is closely related to the concepts of “free will” and “willpower”.

Many experts believe that the will is just a metaphor or a convenient way of talking about human mental processes, and not something real. Therefore, these experts reject the term “free will” and prefer to talk about free action.

Some of them think that freedom is real, but will is not real. For most, however, the question is whether freedom actually exists, and “will” is not the controversial part.

The “volitional” part of free will presents additional problems for some philosophers and psychologists. This means that there is such a thing as will, as part of the human mind, perhaps located somewhere in the brain.

Development of the term in different historical times

People attach different meanings to this concept depending on the time in which they live. Therefore, the definition of the term changes from era to era.

Freedom has its origins in Ancient Greece. The problem is first studied by Socrates and Plato, who assume that everyone is free to choose their destiny. Aristotle and Epicurus then expand this concept with the term political freedom from despotism. And then in Neoplatonism the idea of ​​free existence without troubles and burdens develops.

In the Middle Ages, religion played a major role, influencing all spheres of life, including philosophical thought. During this period, the idea of ​​a person free from sin develops. Sins are punished by the church, so a sinless life is free. People fear divine curse after death and hope to go to heaven.

During the Renaissance, man became the center of the worldview. It was considered the crown of creation, and freedom meant all-round development. In this historical era, anthropocentrism develops, which idealizes man.

During the Age of Enlightenment, science plays a large role in the life of society, so various interpretations of this concept are put forward and analyzed by science.

Modern times mark the development of Marxism, which denies the existence of freedom. A person acts based on the opinion of society, as well as on the environment in which he lives. The main role in decision making is played by economic position and its location in the class system.

During this period, existentialism developed. One of its representatives, Martin Heidegger, says that man is guided by fear. Fear motivates us to act, throwing away conventions, and placing responsibility for our actions on ourselves.

Another representative of existentialism, Karl Jaspers, said that freedom is not a trait, but an essence.

The interpretation of the term varies depending on the historical time and the worldview of the person who puts it forward. Philosophy is a science that is based not only on social experience, but also on personal experience. Philosophers often adhere to a worldview based on their life experiences, and carry their philosophy drawn from it.

Free will

Free will is a controversial idea in social psychology. Researchers talk about it a lot and study it. Ordinary people also have similar beliefs about it. But many social psychologists insist that such beliefs are wrong.

As a field of scientific study, social psychology is unable to prove with almost certainty whether free will exists or not.

In doing so, social psychology can study how people make choices when they feel free or less free, how actions are initiated and controlled, how people react when their freedom is taken away, and what the consequences of believing or not believing in free will are.

Free will is a concept inherited from philosophy and even theology, so scientists have not been able to define it as they would like. The problem of definition has contributed to the debate on this issue because different people use the term to mean different things.

The basic idea behind free will is that people can act in different ways. The opposite belief is determinism, which states that every action is completely caused (determined) by previous events.

Think about what you are doing, for example, how you decided to open and read this article. Could you have done something differently or was it the inevitable result of some forces and influences on you, both the current situation and past experiences?

You may feel that you have free willed your decision to read this, but again this feeling may be an illusion. Strict determinists believe that it was inevitable, and that you really couldn't have done anything else.

Conversely, if you had free will, you could very well do something different.

Free will: is it there or not?

• Social psychologists who reject the idea of ​​freedom have several main reasons for this. The first is simply faith.

Many psychologists believe that as scientists they must believe that everything happens for a reason and that determinism is the only appropriate assumption for scientific research.

Most agree that determinism cannot be accepted as true, but they believe that scientists need to assume that it is true.

Some consider free will an outdated religious idea. B.F. Skinner - a famous behaviorist who wrote the book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" in which he called on people to abandon their foolish (in his opinion) Belief in freedom of choice and recognize that everything that everyone does is a product of history reinforcement (that is, previous rewards and punishments for similar behavior) and learning, as well as several innate biological patterns.

Skinner studied the behavior of rats and discovered that certain general principles could explain the behavior of rats. He believed that human behavior follows the same principles, perhaps in a slightly more complex way, but no less definite.

There are several lines of evidence in psychology that challenge people's belief in free will. They show that human behavior is always caused by something, including the types of rewards and punishments that Skinner studied.

The very fact of causation can be taken as evidence against free will. More dramatically, Sigmund Freud's work argued that human behavior is often directed and shaped by unconscious processes and forces.

So the fact that they think they are doing something consciously may be wrong.

More generally, recent research has shown that many unconscious processes strongly influence behavior. In general they do not bear much resemblance to the unconscious dynamics that Freud wrote about.

Instead of a prison into which socially unacceptable thoughts are banished, new theories portray the unconscious mind more as an auxiliary tool of an important manager, performing many useful activities behind the scenes.

Research has shown that people are affected by many stimuli of which they are never consciously aware (for example, unconscious advertising - an image flashes so quickly that the person does not realize that he is seeing it, but unconsciously registers and reacts to it).

In one famous study, subjects had to solve word puzzles in which they unscrambled sets of words to form short sentences. Using random tasks, some participants had to come up with sentences that evoked the association of old age, for example, the words: pension, dacha, sunset.

When participants left the experiment, the researchers secretly observed how fast they walked to the elevators. Participants who were “charged” with the idea of ​​old age walked slower than other participants.

Such reasons do not indicate free will. The decision about how fast to walk did not involve any conscious decision to walk slowly, but their behavior was influenced by these unconscious processes.

The operation of such effects is one of the important factors causing experts to question the idea of ​​free will. There is no doubt that in many cases where people believe that they are freely, consciously deciding what to do, in fact they are influenced by things outside their consciousness.

Even when people think they control and initiate behavior, they are sometimes mistaken. Daniel Wegner's work, summarized in his book The Illusion of Conscious Will, showed that people often make mistakes about the decisions they make.

He has conducted many cleverly designed experiments in which people are or are not responsible for an event, and yet they consciously have an opinion about it that can be proven wrong.

• 
  Contrary to skeptics, some researchers believe that people do make choices and have some degree of freedom . As noted, the deterministic view that free will does not exist is unproven and unprovable.

Moreover, it is contrary to everyday experience (in which people feel that they are making choices in which more than one outcome is possible).

Moreover, psychological evidence does not usually show 100% inescapable causation; rather, most psychological studies simply show differences in the odds of some response.

In this view, psychological reasons work to simply change the odds slightly, rather than to activate a response that is inevitable. This leaves plenty of room for free will, at least in theory.

Another argument for free will comes from recent evidence that willpower is more than a metaphor. Self-control and choice are central to most discussions of free will, and they seem to tap into some psychological resource that might be called willpower.

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Another argument comes from the simple recognition of the importance of choice and freedom in human life. If freedom is entirely an illusion, then why have there been so many wars, revolutions and desires for it? Why do people struggle so much to make decisions? Why do people react so negatively when their freedom is taken away?

• One research approach is to study the consequences of belief in free will, because some people believe in it more than others. Delroy Paulhus developed a personality scale that sorts people based on whether they believe in free will or not.

You can have people take a questionnaire, score it, and then bring people into the lab to see how they do. People who believe in free will may act differently than those who reject the idea.

Another approach is to manipulate this belief. Kathleen Vohs and Jonathan Schooler have developed several procedures for increasing or decreasing belief in free will.

For example, by having some participants read an essay that states that science has supposedly proven that free will is a false idea and that brain processes are the complete cause and explanation of all behavior.

They found that these beliefs mattered. For example, when people stop believing in free will, they become more likely to cheat and commit other antisocial behavior.

Other studies have shown that the loss of belief in free will makes people more aggressive and less helpful to others. Clearly, a shared belief in free will promotes a sense of personal and social responsibility.

Therefore, people treat each other well to the extent that they believe in free will.

The topic of free will has come to the forefront of social psychology research because of its profound implications and its relevance to several, very different schools of thought and research.

It is likely that the next 10 years will bring important new advances in understanding the psychology of how people act and how they talk about the idea of ​​free will.

free will

Free will = Freedom of choice - from the time of Socrates and still controversial in philosophy and theology, the question of whether people have real control over their decisions and actions.

Free will in Socrates

In ancient philosophy, the question initially arose on moral and psychological grounds. In the thought of Socrates and his closest followers and successors there was not yet our abstract antithesis between freedom, in the sense of independence from any motive, and necessity, in the sense of the preponderance of the strongest motive in any case.

These ancient philosophers were too preoccupied with the inner quality of motives. They considered submission to lower, sensual impulses to be slavery, unworthy of man, and his conscious submission to what the universal reason inspired was for them real freedom, although worthy and good actions flowed from this submission with the same necessity as flowed from submission to senseless passions. bad and crazy actions.

The transition from lower necessity to higher, that is, to rational freedom, is determined, according to Socrates, by true knowledge. Everyone seeks their own good with the same necessity, but not everyone knows equally what it is. He who really knows about true good necessarily wants and fulfills it, but he who does not know, taking imaginary goods for real, rushes towards them and, of necessity, making mistakes, produces bad deeds. And no one is bad of his own free will or willingly - χαχός έχων ούδείς.

Thus, moral evil was reduced to unreason, and in virtues Socrates, according to Aristotle, saw expressions of reason - λόγους τας άρετάς ψετο είναι.

Plato's ethics develops, in essence, on the same basis; only in his myths a different view is expressed (S. will before birth), and there is also one place in the Laws indicating a deeper formulation of the question (the independent principle of evil, two souls); but this instruction does not receive any logical explanation and is lost among the unprincipled details of the old man’s work. Aristotle, entering the circle of thoughts of Socrates, introduces important modifications there, and outside this circle he independently raises the question of the S. will in its own meaning. In Socrates' Reason, the theoretical and moral sides were merged; Aristotle decisively distinguishes them, proving that for moral action, in addition to - and more than - rational knowledge, a firm and constant will is needed. It acts freely through the preliminary selection (προαίρεσις) of objects and methods of action. In order for a person’s activity to have a moral character, deserving praise or blame, he himself must be the productive beginning of his actions, no less than his children. Not only what is done under compulsion (βια), but also what is done out of ignorance (βι'αγνοιαν) is excluded from the realm of free actions. But, on the other hand, everything that is directly determined by reason and the general goals of life is excluded from it. Neither what is impossible according to reason, nor what is necessary according to reason, constitutes the subject of S. will. If man were only a rational being or a pure mind (νοΰς), he would inevitably want only the greatest good in everything, and all his actions would be predetermined by knowledge of the best. But, having, in addition to the mind, a passionate soul, a person can, in order to satisfy passion, prefer a lesser or lower good to a greater or higher one, which is where his freedom and responsibility lie. Thus, according to Aristotle, S. will, as conditioned by the lower side of our being, is not an advantage of man, but only an imperfection of his nature. Aristotle bases the logical possibility of voluntary actions on the inapplicability of the law of excluded middle to future events. All events, the necessity of which does not follow analytically from the principles of reason, Aristotle recognized as indeterminable and unforeseen in advance.

Such a view was made easier for him by the metaphysical concept of the Divine as a pure act of self-thinking, irrespective of everything that happens in our temporary world. True, the divine mind, in addition to its internal absoluteness, also has the meaning of the First Mover in Aristotle; but he moves everything only as the highest good or goal, remaining motionless himself.

Free will in Epicurus

The most decisive supporter of free will must be recognized, contrary to popular belief, to Epicurus and his faithful Roman disciple, Lucretius. Placing the main interest in the painless and serene existence of an individual person ρβωμεν), Epicurus wanted to free the human soul from that idea of ​​​​an immutable fate, which, causing gloomy despair in some, and mournful rejection in others, does not give joyful satisfaction to anyone. Against this, Epicurus argues that we are capable of spontaneity and are not subject to any fate or predestination; The metaphysical basis for such a statement is the atomism he took from Democritus, but modified. Atoms, according to Epicurus, do not represent in their totality a strictly mechanical system of movements, since each of them has within itself the force of vibration or deviation in one direction or another. The soul (both in humans and in animals), consisting of special, round atoms, the least balanced, possesses to the highest degree this power of voluntary movements, manifested here as free will - with the uncertainty of universal existence, determinism is impossible in individual existence. The direct opposite of this view is represented by the Stoics. The unity of the universe is conceived by them as a living, embodied mind, containing within itself the rational and productive potentialities of everything that exists and occurs and which, thus, has been foreseen and predetermined from eternity. From their point of view, the Stoics had to recognize and recognized all sorts of prophecies, fortune telling and prophetic dreams. Since for the Stoics, fate or predestination, expressing universal rationality, is understood as providence, then universal determinism did not harm the internal freedom of man, which the Stoics understand in Socratic terms as the independence of the spirit from passions and from external accidents. Towards the end of ancient philosophy, free will became a common issue for all thinkers; of the many works of περί είμαρμένις, de fato, the more significant belong to Cicero, Plutarch, Alexander of Aphrodisias. All three try to limit determinism and defend free will; the nature of the reasoning here is eclectic. The same must be said about the views of Plotinus and another Neoplatonist, Hierocles, who, recognizing in divine providence the first and final causality of everything that happens, including human actions, admit human will as their secondary and subordinate cause.

Christian interpretation of free will

A new basis for a general formulation and fundamental solution of the question opens up in the Christian idea of ​​the God-man, where man finds his complete and final definition in his personal unity with the Divine, just as the Divine fully and finally manifests itself only in his personal unity with man, and necessity ceases to be a constraint. , and S. ceases to be arbitrary. But since this perfect union is recognized as truly given only in one person, and for all others it is only the highest goal of aspiration, the main fact of the Christian faith raises a new question: how, on the path to achieving this highest goal, is the actually remaining opposition between the absoluteness of God's will and moral self-determination of a person not yet united with the Divine? Here the principle of necessity is expressed in two new concepts - divine predestination and divine grace, and the former principle of S. will collides with this new, Christian determinism. For the general church consciousness of Christianity, it was initially equally important to keep both statements intact: that everything without exception depends on God - and that something depends on man. The harmonization of these provisions has been a constant task of theologians and Christian philosophers, which has caused many different decisions and disputes, sometimes escalating to religious divisions. Theologians with a strongly developed sense of Christian universalism, like Blessed. Augustine in ancient times, or Bossuet in modern times, deliberately refrained from formally completed solutions to the issue, recognizing their theoretical insufficiency and practical danger. Christian teachers of the first centuries, like Clement of Alexandria or Origen, did not deepen the essential aspects of the issue, contenting themselves with polemics against the superstitions of fatalism with the help of eclectic arguments of the Alexandrian philosophy they had adopted; these writers, as pure Hellenes in their way of thinking, if not in feeling, could not fully appreciate the rearrangement of the question that followed from the basic fact of Christian revelation. Their philosophy did not cover their religious faith; but, without clearly realizing such inadequacy of the two sides of their worldview, they left them to coexist peacefully side by side.

The question of S. will arises in the West in the 5th century. as a result of the teachings of Pelagius and his followers, who, based on the Christian truth that man himself participates in the fate of his own will, in further rational definitions of this participation too expanded the area of ​​individual self-activity to the detriment of the action of the divine principle, logically coming to the denial of other foundations of the orthodox Christian faith , namely, the mysterious solidarity of humanity with the Fall in Adam and with redemption in Christ. Bl. spoke out against Pelagian individualism. Augustine in the name of the demands of Christian universality, which, however, in his polemical writings he often brought to erroneous extremes of determinism, incompatible with moral freedom; he subsequently mitigated and corrected these errors. Augustine most decisively recognizes the inalienable natural freedom of the human will, without which it would be impossible to impute any action to a person and pronounce any moral judgment. He introduces the sign of freedom into the very definition of will, as a movement of the spirit, not forced by anyone and directed towards preserving or acquiring something - All individual and particular objects of the will can be reduced to one universal - well-being or bliss. Thus, every human will essentially inherently possesses both freedom, in the sense of the mental independence of the very act of will, and the unity of a common final goal. From this natural or psychological S., which constitutes the general form of the will as such, Augustine distinguishes S. in relation to the moral content and quality of the will, that is, S. from sin.

Here he distinguishes:

1. the impossibility of sinning, which belongs to God alone and is designated by Augustine as libertas maior;
2. the opportunity not to sin, or the free choice between good and evil - this libertas minor belonged only to primordial man before the Fall, but through the will of evil he lost this opportunity for good;
3. the inability not to sin.

Freedom to evil alone, or, what is the same, the necessity of evil and the impossibility of good - this is the actual state after the fall of the human will, when it is left to itself. Thus, good is possible for man only through the action of the divine principle, which manifests itself in man and through him, but not from him. This action is called grace. In order for a person to begin to desire the help of grace, it is necessary for grace itself to act in him; with his own strength he cannot not only do and fulfill goodness, but also desire or seek it. From this point of view, Augustine was faced with a dilemma: either to admit that grace also operates in the pagans, or to assert that their virtues are only a deceptive appearance. He preferred the latter. The human will always resists grace and must be overcome by it. Wanting to harmonize his view with the generally accepted one, Augustine in some places of his writings seems to admit that although the human will necessarily resists every action of grace, it depends on it to resist more or less; but such a distinction of degrees has no logical meaning here, because a lesser degree of internal resistance to good is already some actual good and, as such, depends exclusively on grace itself. Consistent Augustinianism is held within the Christian worldview by only one thread - the recognition of the initial prehistoric freedom of choice in primordial man. This supra-temporal human will, possibly good, is determined with the beginning of time in Adam as truly evil and is transmitted, in the course of time, to all his offspring, as necessarily evil. Given this situation, it is clear that human salvation depends entirely and exclusively on the grace of God, which is communicated and acts not according to a person’s own merits, but freely, according to free choice and predestination on the part of the Divine. But where, in this case, is the place for that real freedom of self-determination of a sinful person towards good and evil, which is equally required by both our inner consciousness and the moral essence of Christianity? Augustine affirms this freedom in principle, but does not clearly reconcile it with the doctrine of predestination and grace, limiting himself to a completely correct, but insufficient indication of the extreme difficulty of the task, as a result of which, according to his simple-minded remark, “when you defend the S. will, it seems that you deny the grace of God, and when you affirm grace, it seems that you are abolishing freedom.” Defending the Christian doctrine of the eternal condemnation of the sinful mass, Augustine points out that

1) everything exists ultimately for the glory of God, which is equally realized in the triumph of God’s love through the salvation and bliss of the good and in the triumph of God’s righteous wrath through the condemnation and destruction of the evil, thus contributing, for their part, to the balance and harmonious order of the universe, and that

2) this eternal death does not seem to be such a difficult condition for those who are dying that non-existence would be truly preferable for them. This most important and fruitful idea, however, does not receive sufficient development in Augustine. - After him, heated debates took place between his strict followers, who were too inclined to determinism, and some monks in southern Gaul, who defended S. and inclined towards moderate semi-Pelagianism; however, both of them tried so sincerely to preserve the middle Christian path between the two extremes that the main representatives of both disputing sides were canonized as saints in both the Western and Eastern churches. — Later, in the 9th century, extreme Augustinianism found a fanatical adherent in Germany in the monk Gottschalk, who taught about the unconditional predestination of some to good and others to evil, according to the causeless choice of God’s will, for which he was subjected to church condemnation. Subsequently, the question of S. will was discussed by Anselm of Canterbury, in the spirit of Augustine and with greater completeness by Bernard of Clairvaux. The latter distinguishes natural desire from free consent, which is a rational movement. S. belongs only to this conscious will, which we feel in ourselves, although powerless and captivated by sin, is not lost. A person, having a will, is free in himself, that is, free; having reason, he is his own judge; The S. of choice makes us willful, the mercy of God makes us favorable; take away S.'s will, and there will be no one to be saved; take away grace, and there will be no one to save. This perfectly expresses, but does not explain, the state of affairs. We find the experience of clarification in Thomas Aquinas; on the theological side of the issue he is aligned with Augustine, on the philosophical side with Aristotle. The main idea here is that the final goal of all human desires and actions is necessarily the same - good; but it, like any goal, can be achieved in an indefinite number of different ways and means, and only in the choice between them is the S. of human will. From this view it logically follows that the power of the will has only a negative basis - in the imperfection of our knowledge. Thomas himself admits that one or another system of means, or paths to the highest goal, cannot be indifferent, and that in each given case there is only one best path, and if we do not choose it, it is only out of ignorance; therefore, with perfect knowledge of a single absolute goal, the choice of one best path to it is a matter of necessity. In other words, for a rational being, good is necessary, but evil is impossible, since preferring the worst to the best, as an absolutely irrational act, does not allow for any explanation from the point of view of philosophical intellectualism. Therefore, it is no coincidence that another great scholastic, Duns Scotus, stood on a different basis, who recognized - five centuries before Schopenhauer - the absolute beginning of everything will, and not the mind; he affirms the unconditional S. of the will in his exemplary formula: nothing except the will itself causes the act of volition in the will.

Extreme determinism, condemned as a heresy in the 9th century, first reappeared only with the pioneers of the Reformation. In the 14th century, Viklef taught that all our actions occur not by S. will, but by pure necessity. In the 16th century, after Erasmus, in defense of the will, published his treatise “De libero arhitrio Διατριβη, sive collatio” (Baz., 1524), Luther spoke out against him for unconditional determinism in the treatise “De servo arbitrio” (Rotterd. , 1526).

Interpretation and meaning of free will in Kabbalah

From the Talmud (tractate “Nida”): “The angel in charge of pregnancy, called Laila, takes a drop (of semen), presents it before the Creator, and says to Him: “Lord of the world, what will happen to this drop? A hero or a weak man, a wise man or a fool, a rich man or a poor man? However, “sinner or righteous?” - does not say, but it is given to man to choose.”

Righteousness is merging with the Creator through the identity of properties. And this means, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “Freedom of Will,” that “a person has no desire to acquire anything for himself, and he enjoys only to the extent that it gives pleasure to the Creator,” since the Creator’s property is enjoy creations. The righteous person is free from the power of egoism over himself. Moreover, he controls his egoism, uses it to bring joy to the Creator, and only this is true freedom.

Choosing the path of the righteous

A person never does anything in his life of his own free will. His entire path is predetermined. Free is only the awareness of the need to merge with the Creator by the identity of properties, the consent of a person with that environment that yearns to acquire the property of righteousness, which the Creator pointed out to him. By agreeing with associates who strive to discover meaning in life and acquire the ability to give, a person thereby chooses them as his environment, chooses what influence to be under. Freedom is to strengthen yourself in what the Creator points to and not turn aside. A person must only save himself. It’s as if he constantly shouts: “Hold me, hold me!” so that the Creator would hold his hand, and then nothing else is needed. The person does nothing: “Where is this road? I’ll follow it now!” – it’s not his choice. Everything is ready and this too. To build stages of advancement, to plan, to improve one’s nature - all this is not in the power of man. The person does not know who he is and what will happen next. A person only needs to give consent: “I want,” like a child. And that's enough!

Free will in Luther

According to Luther, Free Will is a fiction (figmentum) or an empty name without a real object. “God does not foreknow anything by chance, but by his unchanging, eternal and infallible will he foresees, predetermines and fulfills everything. With this lightning the S. of the will is cast down and completely erased. From here it follows immutably: everything we do, everything that happens, although it seems to us random and irrevocable, in truth, however, happens necessarily and unchangeably, if we look at the will of God.” This does not abolish the will, because absolute necessity is not the same as external compulsion.

We ourselves, naturally, want and act, but according to the definition of the highest, absolute necessity. We run ourselves, but only where our rider rules - either God or the devil. The prescriptions and admonitions of the law, civil and moral, prove, according to Luther, what we must, and not what we can do. Finally, Luther goes so far as to assert that God produces both good and evil in us: just as He saves us without our merit, so He condemns us without our guilt. - Calvin is the same determinist, claiming that “the will of God is the necessity of things.” God Himself acts in us when we do good, and through His instrument, Satan, when we do evil. A person sins out of necessity, but sin is not something external to him, but his very will. Such a will is something inert and passive, which God bends and turns as He pleases. This teaching of both heads of Protestantism about the complete passivity of the human will, supposedly not providing any assistance at all to the excitement of God’s grace, and that the S. will after the Fall of Adam is an empty name or “fiction of Satan,” was condemned by the Catholic side on the 4th and the 5th canons of the Council of Trent. The main opposition to Protestant determinism came from the Jesuit order, founded to fight the Reformation. Molina belonged to him (who should not be confused with Molinos; see below), the author of the treatise: “Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis concordia” (Lisbon, 1588). His theory, which still bears the name Molinism, is based on the distinction between three types of God’s omniscience.

1. God, in a purely mental way, knows everything logically possible, even if it never was and was not meant to be;
2. with pure vision He sees everything that is, was and will be, and
3. In addition to these two generally accepted methods, there is also something in between, in cases where something is foreseen that is not only possible in general, but must necessarily happen if a certain immediate condition is fulfilled.

In explanation, Molina cites from the book of Kings a story about a king who asked through the high priestly oracle whether he would take the enemy’s fortress? The answer received was this: he will take it if he launches an attack immediately. He did not go, and the fortress remained untaken. It is clear that the conditional future of this prophecy (will take) if the condition is fulfilled (if it goes) would be necessary, but if not fulfilled it would become impossible; Consequently, in no case does his knowledge have as its object a simple possibility, but something either greater or less than it.

The closest or last condition for the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of what God knows by this average knowledge is this or that self-determination of the human will, which does not occur because God foreknew it as necessary, but occurs freely and is foreknown by God as such: For something better than in Molinism, the agreement of this view with the Christian doctrine of grace Suarez, in his op. “De Divina Gratia” (Lyon, 1620), comes up with the theory of congruism, according to which God, foreseeing by “average knowledge” all future actions of all beings, communicates his effective grace only in those cases where its action can occur without the destruction of free human will. This teaching of the Jesuits, directed against Lutherans and Calvinists, caused opposition in the Catholic Church itself from the Thomists and Augustinians, who stood for moderate determinism. According to Thomists, human freedom exists, but only in direct and complete dependence on the gracious will of God: we are free when and because God wants us to be free. The Augustinians explain this in such a way that the effective grace of God freely imparts to the elect such a high pleasure in goodness that it becomes irresistibly attractive to them, making their consent to God’s will absolutely necessary, which, however, does not destroy freedom, since a rational will is still discusses and deliberates within herself whether to decide to agree or to resist; but since its decision is already predetermined by effective and sufficient (sufficiens) grace, then S. in the proper sense cannot exist here, and only a clear consciousness of will and action is possible. The disputing parties accused each other of heresy; the matter came to the Vatican, where, after a long and complex trial of the questions relating to this (under the general designation De auxiliis gratiae), it was decided that the views of the various schools and orders in the Catholic Church on the S. will and grace were admissible as non-binding theological opinions, with the injunction refrain from mutual attacks and accusations. While accepting the determinism of the Thomists, the church authorities reacted differently to the more decisive expression of this view in Bishop Jansen's book: Augustinus. It is stated here that after the Fall, man is deprived of any choice between good and evil and cannot resist evil lust at all. Everything that fallen man wants or does is necessarily one sin; we are free to choose only between different types of sin, but the degree of sinfulness is always the same for all people in everything that they do of themselves. The only and complete source of good for man is the grace of God, which is irresistible for man. On this point the difference between Jansen and Luther and Calvin lies only in expression: he says: “Never struggles” where they say: “Cannot struggle.” Several theses extracted in Rome from Jansen's book were condemned by the church as heretical and the author was required to renounce them. At this time he died, and his students, headed by Arno, formed a special school and caused strong unrest that worried the Catholic Church of France in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Jansenists defended their ecclesiastical position by asserting that the theses recognized as heresy from “Augustinus” were not in this work in the sense in which they were condemned, so that the ecclesiastical authority erred, if not in relation to dogma, then in relation to fact. The Jansenists were defended by the famous Blaise Pascal.

In addition to this schism, another church unrest that worried France at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries had an internal connection with the question of the will of the Church. - debate about quietism. The Spanish mystic Molinos, in his “Spiritual Guide,” expounded the doctrine of internal or spiritual prayer, expressing the highest, perfect degree of Christian mood. It consists in the complete passivity of the human soul, in the complete surrender of oneself into the hands of God, or in the final destruction of the human will. Such perfection excludes all acts of this will, even those directed towards eternal good or towards unity with God. Once acquired by complete surrender of oneself to God and complete renunciation of all one’s will, the perfection of the soul no longer requires anything for its preservation and is in no case lost. In this highest degree the soul must neither strenuously promote or cooperate with God's grace, nor strenuously struggle with the temptations of lust; its perfection, even if a person did not think at all about God and eternal life, even if he sinned and slept morally and physically, is continuously preserved in the highest part of the soul, inseparably united with God, while the lower, completely isolated, indulges completely in all movements of lust. Molinos's views were publicly stated in the book of the famous mystical writer Guyon: "Moyen court et très facile pour l'oraison." The main defender of quietism was Fenelon, especially in his “Explications des maximes des saints,” and the main opponent was Bossuet, who, in addition to many polemical works, acted practically with his influence in Rome for the church condemnation of quietism, which he achieved. Fenelon was forced to retract. Bossuet is also responsible for a general study about the S. will - “Traité du libre arbitre”, where the main idea is that two opposing truths - the S. will and the omnipotence of God's grace - have independent foundations, so solid that even if we did not managed to understand the possibility of their connection, this would not give us the right to sacrifice one of them: we must firmly hold both ends of the chain connecting them, even if the middle of it slips out of our hands or from our sight. — While the question of the S. will was the subject of heated debate between various directions of Catholic theology, with new, oppositional movements (Jansenism, quietism) approaching the determinism of Protestant mysticism and dogmatics, in Protestantism itself it occurred in the 17th century. a sharp reaction against this determinism, with the Arminian theological party (in Holland) openly returning to the principles of ancient Pelagianism. Supporters of Calvin's religious fatalism - the Gomarites - armed themselves against them, and the discord between these two parties went beyond the bounds of theological polemics. Since the 18th century, the majority of Protestant theologians no longer consider the views of the first reformers binding on this subject, and the servum arbitrium ceases to be a dogma.

Free will in modern philosophy

In the new philosophy, the question of the S. will receives special significance in the systems of Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant, to which Schelling and Schopenhauer, on the one hand, and Fichte and Maine de Biran, on the other, adjoin in this regard. Spinoza's worldview is a type of pure “geometric” determinism. Phenomena of the physical and mental order are necessarily determined by the nature of an extended and thinking being; and since this being is truly one, then everything in the world exists and happens due to one general necessity, any withdrawal from which would be a logical contradiction. All desires and actions of man necessarily follow from his nature, which itself is only a definite and necessary modification (modus) of a single absolute substance. The idea of ​​the S. of the will is only a deception of the imagination with a lack of true knowledge: if we feel ourselves freely willing and voluntarily acting, then a stone falling to the ground with mechanical necessity could consider itself free if it had the ability to feel itself. Strict determinism, which excludes all chance in the world and all arbitrariness in man, naturally required from Spinoza a negative assessment of ethical affects associated with the thought that something that is happening could not have happened (regret, repentance, a sense of sinfulness). - Leibniz, no less than Spinoza, rejects the S. will in the proper sense, or the so-called. liberum arbitrium indifferentiae, asserts that everything is ultimately determined by the will of God by virtue of moral necessity, that is, the voluntary choice of the best. Of all the possible worlds contained in the omniscient mind, the will, guided by the idea of ​​good, chooses the best. This kind of internal necessity, different from the geometric or generally intellectual necessity of Spinozism, is inevitably required by the highest perfection of divine action: Necessitas quae ex electione optimi fluit, quam moralem appello, non est fugienda, nes sine abnegatione summae in agendo perfectionis divinae evitari potest. At the same time, Leibniz insists on the idea, which has no essential meaning, that despite the moral necessity of this choice as the best, the abstract possibility of another remains, as not containing any logical contradiction, and that, therefore, our world, absolutely speaking, should be considered random (contingens). In addition to this scholastic distinction, Leibniz’s determinism differs significantly from Spinozism in that world unity, according to the view of the author of monadology, is realized in the total plurality of individual beings that have their own reality and, to that extent, independently participate in the life of the whole, and are not subordinated only to this whole, as an external necessity. Moreover, in the very concept of a single being, or monad, Leibniz put forward the sign of active aspiration (appetitio), as a result of which each being ceases to be a passive instrument, or conductor of the general world order. The S. allowed by this view comes down to the own nature of each being as a life-active one, from itself organically developing its content, that is, all the physical and mental potencies innate to it.

Thus, here we are talking only about the will of a being as the producing cause (causa efficiens) of its actions, and not about its S. in relation to the formal and final causes (causae formales et c. finales) of its activity, which, according to Leibniz, by unconditional necessity they are determined by the idea of ​​the greatest good in the mind of the monad itself, and in the absolute mind by the idea of ​​the best coordination of all past, present and future activities (pre-established harmony).

Free will in Kant

The question of free will in Kant receives a completely new formulation. In his opinion, causality is one of those necessary and universal forms of representation according to which our mind builds the world of phenomena.

According to the law of causality, any phenomenon can arise only in the form of a consequence of another phenomenon, as its cause, and the entire world of phenomena appears as a collection of series of causes and effects. It is clear that the form of causality, like all others, can only be valid in the field of its legitimate application, that is, in the conditioned world of phenomena, beyond which, in the sphere of intelligible being (noumena), the possibility of S remains. We have nothing to say about this transcendental world it is not known theoretically, but practically reason reveals to us its requirements (postulates), one of which is S. As beings, and not only phenomena, we can begin a series of actions from ourselves not by the necessity of an empirically outweighing impulse, but by virtue of a purely moral imperative, or out of respect for an unconditional obligation. Kant's theoretical reasoning about S. and necessity is distinguished by the same ambiguity as his view of the transcendental subject and the connection of the latter with the empirical subject. W. Schelling and Schopenhauer, whose thoughts on this subject can only be understood and assessed in connection with their own metaphysics, tried to place Kant’s doctrine of the system of the will on a certain metaphysical basis and bring it here to clarity. Fichte, recognizing the self-acting or self-positing self as the supreme principle, asserted metaphysical S., and he, unlike Kant, insisted on this S. more as a creative force than as an unconditional moral norm. The French Fichte - Maine de Biran, having carefully examined the active and volitional side of mental life, cultivated the psychological soil for the concept of S. will as the producing cause (causa efficiens) of human actions. — Of the newest philosophers, Lausanne prof. Charles Secretan asserts in his “Philosophie de la liberté” the primacy of the volitional principle over the mental in both man and God, to the detriment of Divine omniscience, from which Secretan excludes knowledge of free human actions before they are committed. For the final formulation and solution of the question of the S. will, see Philosophers; literature there too.

Links

• The Gottschalk Homepage – English-language site dedicated to the teachings of Gottschalk of Orbe about predestination and free will. A detailed bibliography is available on the site, as well as Gottschalk’s Latin works

Willpower - what is it?

If we had more self-control, would we all eat healthier, exercise regularly, avoid drugs and alcohol, save for retirement, stop procrastinating, and achieve all sorts of lofty goals?

According to all surveys, lack of willpower is the No. 1 reason for not following through with such changes.

Many people believe that they could improve their lives if only they had more of this mysterious thing called willpower.

In 2011, 27% of survey respondents reported that lack of willpower was the biggest barrier to change. However, although many people blame a lack of willpower for their poor decisions, they have not given up hope.

Most respondents believe that willpower is something that can be learned. These respondents are up to something. Recent research shows that willpower can actually be improved by training.

On the other hand, many survey participants reported that having more time for themselves would help them overcome their lack of willpower. However, willpower does not automatically increase when you have extra time.

So how can people resist temptation? In recent years, scientists have made some compelling discoveries about how willpower works. In this article we will review our current understanding of self-control.

Lack of willpower is not the only reason why you may not achieve your goals. American willpower researcher Roy Baumeister, Ph.D., a psychologist at Florida State University, describes three necessary components for achieving goals:

• first, he says you need to establish motivation for change and set a clear goal;
• secondly, you must control your behavior in relation to this goal;
• the third component is willpower.

Whether you want to lose weight, quit smoking, study more, or spend less time on the Internet, willpower is an important step towards achieving this result.

At its core, willpower is the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to achieve long-term goals. And there are good reasons for this.

Psychologists at one of the universities in the United States studied self-control in eighth-graders during the school year. The researchers first assessed students' self-discipline (their term for self-control) by asking teachers, parents, and the students themselves to complete questionnaires.

They found that students who rated self-discipline highly had better grades, better school attendance and higher standardized test scores, and were more likely to participate in a competitive high school program.

Self-discipline was found to be more important than IQ in predicting academic success. Other studies have found similar patterns.

The benefits of willpower seem to extend well beyond your college years. Terry Moffitt, PhD, of Duke University, and colleagues studied self-control in a group of 1,000 people who were followed from birth to age 32 as part of the Longitudinal Health Study in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Moffitt and her colleagues found that people with high self-control in childhood (as reported by teachers, parents, and children themselves) grew into adults with greater physical and mental health, fewer problems related to substance abuse and criminal convictions, and better behavior in the field of savings and financial security.

These patterns persisted even after the researchers controlled for the children's socioeconomic status, family life and general intelligence. Findings like these highlight the importance of willpower in almost every area of ​​life.

Definition of willpower

We have many common names for willpower: determination, drive, determination, self-discipline, self-control. But psychologists characterize willpower, or self-control, in more specific ways.

According to most psychologists, willpower can be defined as:

• the ability to delay gratification by resisting short-term temptations in order to achieve long-term goals;
• the ability to suppress unwanted thoughts, feelings, or impulses;
• the ability to use a “cold” cognitive behavioral system rather than a “hot” emotional one;
• conscious, effortful regulation of oneself with a limited resource of the “I”, capable of being depleted.

In science

Physics

Early scientific ideas often envisioned the universe as deterministic—Democritus and the Lokayata, for example—and some thinkers argued that having enough information would allow them to predict future events with absolute accuracy. However, modern science is a combination of deterministic and stochastic theories. Quantum mechanics predicts events only in probabilistic terms, calling into question whether the universe is deterministic. Modern theories cannot resolve the question of whether determinism is true, are not the Theory of Everything and have many interpretations[14][15].

From a physicalist perspective, the laws of quantum mechanics are assumed to provide a complete probabilistic description of particle motion, regardless of whether free will exists. Physicist Stephen Hawking describes similar ideas in his 2010 book, The Grand Design. According to Hawking, the molecular foundations of biology indicate that humans are complex biological machines of sorts, and although in practice our behavior cannot be precisely predicted, free will is an illusion.[16] In other words, Hawking believes that free will can only exist under a compatibilist interpretation.

Genetics

Biologists often consider questions related to free will. One of the most intense debates is Sociogeneticism or Biogeneticism, the essence of which is the relative importance of the influence of genetics and biology in relation to culture and environment on human development and behavior. Many researchers believe that many aspects of human behavior can be explained by genes, evolutionary history, and the human brain. This view raises the concern that in such a situation people cannot be held accountable for their behavior. Steven Pinker believes that fear of determinism in matters of genetics and evolution is a mistake, and should not be confused with justification. Responsibility does not require behavior to be causeless as long as it is responsive to praise and punishment[17]. Moreover, it is not entirely clear that environmental influences pose less of a threat to free will than genetics[18].

Neurology and Psychiatry

There are several brain-related disorders in which actions are not completely under the control of the subject. Although such disorders do not in themselves disprove the existence of free will, studying such conditions can help develop models and understanding of how the brain creates such sensations.

One of the important diagnostic symptoms of schizophrenia is the illusion of being under the control of external influences. People with schizophrenia sometimes describe feeling as if certain actions they perform were not initiated or under their control. Such sensations are sometimes compared to the state of a robot under someone's control. Although the mechanisms of schizophrenia are currently little known, it is hypothesized that hallucinations and the illusion of control arise from malfunctioning brain systems responsible for checking motor commands and signals received from the body.

The concept of free will underlies the logotherapy method developed by the eminent Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl[19].

Determinism and emergent behavior

Some philosophies in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology assume that free will does not exist. This creates the illusion of free will due to the need to create complex behavior through the interaction of a finite set of rules and parameters. Thus, the feeling of free will arises from the unpredictability of behavior resulting from deterministic processes, while it is assumed that free will as an entity does not exist. From this point of view, even if behavior can be calculated in advance, the simplest way will always be to observe the results of brain calculations.

An example would be some games in which there is a set of strict rules, and all information is open to any player and no random events occur in the game. However, the strategy of games such as chess and, in particular, despite a simple set of specific rules, can have a huge set of unpredictable moves. By analogy, it is believed that the feeling of free will arises from the interaction of a finite set of rules and parameters that generate endless and unpredictable behavior. But if there was a way to account for and calculate all events, then seemingly unpredictable behavior would become predictable.

Delay of gratification

More than 40 years ago, Walter Mischel, Ph.D., a psychologist now at Columbia University, studied self-control in children using a simple but effective test.

His experiments using the “marshmallow test” laid the foundation for the modern study of self-control.

Michel and his colleagues gave a preschooler a plate of marshmallows. The child was then told that the researcher should leave the room for a few minutes, and if the child waited until the researcher returned, he could eat two marshmallows.

If the child cannot wait, he can ring the bell and the researcher will return immediately, but then the child will only be allowed to eat one marshmallow.

In both children and adults, willpower can be seen as the fundamental ability to delay gratification. Preschoolers with good self-control sacrifice the immediate pleasure of one marshmallow in order to indulge in two later.

Former smokers give up the pleasure of cigarettes to maintain good health and avoid an increased risk of lung cancer in the future. Shoppers are resisting being 'broken' at the mall to save for future retirement. And so on.

The marshmallow experiments eventually led Michel and his colleagues to develop a framework that explains our ability to delay gratification. He proposed what he calls the “hot and cold” system to explain why willpower succeeds or fails.

The cold system is cognitive in nature. It's essentially a mental system that includes knowledge about sensations, feelings, actions, and goals—reminding yourself, for example, why you shouldn't eat marshmallows.

While the cold system is reflexive, the hot system is impulsive and emotional. The hot system is responsible for quick, reflexive reactions to certain triggers—like putting a marshmallow in your mouth without thinking about the long-term consequences.

If this structure were to be caricatured, the cold system would be the angel on your shoulder, and the hot system the devil.

When willpower fails, exposure to a “hot” stimulus significantly overwhelms the cold system, leading to impulsive action. Some people seem to be more or less susceptible to hot triggers.

And this sensitivity to emotional reactions can influence their behavior throughout their lives, Michel discovered when he returned to his marshmallow-wielding teenage subjects.

He found that teenagers who waited longer for marshmallows in preschool were more likely to score higher on exams, and their parents were more likely to rate them as having greater ability to plan, cope with stress, respond rationally, and exercise self-control in unpleasant situations. situations and concentrate.

But it turned out that the research on marshmallows did not end there. Recently, B.J. Casey, Ph.D., of Weill Cornell Medical College, along with Michel, Yuichi Shoda, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, and other colleagues tracked 59 subjects, now in their 40s, who participated in marshmallow experiments as children.

The researchers tested the subjects' willpower using a test that demonstrates self-control in adults.

Surprisingly, the differences in the subjects' willpower largely persisted over four decades. In general, children who were less successful at resisting marshmallows years ago performed worse on self-control tasks as adults.

A person's sensitivity to so-called hot stimuli can apparently persist throughout his life.

In addition, Casey and her colleagues examined brain activity in some subjects using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Subjects with low self-control showed brain patterns that differed from those with high self-control.

The researchers found that the prefrontal cortex (the area that controls executive functions such as decision making) was more active in subjects with higher self-control.

And the ventral striatum (an area believed to process desires and rewards) showed increased activity in those who had lower self-control.

Research has yet to fully explain why some people are more sensitive to emotional triggers and temptations, and whether these patterns can be corrected.

From the history of the problem of free will

The very idea of ​​a person’s lack of free will is not new; it has been expressed before, in philosophy and religion. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote about the illusory nature of free will: “Man can do what he wishes, but he cannot will what he wishes.”

In classical analysis, a person’s actions are dictated, on the one hand, by unconscious instinctive drives, on the other hand, by imposed moral norms, and he has no freedom of choice. In behaviorism, human behavior can be reduced to reactions to certain stimuli. Humanistic psychologists did not agree with this; in particular, Viktor Frankl believed that drives belong to a person, but do not control him.

And yet, the results of Libet’s experiment were difficult to believe, because such information reduces people from higher beings with a creative, analytical mind and will, to biorobots who think according to a certain given program. Then our consciousness is just a fiction, a toy given to us so that we do not notice how things are in reality.

In this regard, the question arises: who controls the brain of each person? If there is no free will, then whose program are we carrying out and who puts it in our brain? This opens up possibilities for absolutely fantastic assumptions, from some higher beings of another civilization to the “Matrix”, in which we all live under the control of powerful artificial intelligence.

By the way, in classical psychiatry, ideas of this kind, about external control of the brain, the “openness” of thoughts to external access is the main defining symptom of schizophrenia.

Willpower and a healthy lifestyle

Every day you make the decision to resist impulses for a healthier, happier life. Whether you're refusing that second helping of mashed potatoes, dragging yourself to the gym, turning down another round of smoothies, or resisting the urge to skip your Monday morning meeting, your will is almost constantly tested.

Limited willpower is often cited as a major barrier to maintaining a healthy weight, and research supports this idea.

For example, a study by Eli Tsukayama of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues found that children with better self-control were less likely to become overweight as they entered adolescence, due to their ability to control impulses and delay gratification.

However, as described in the previous section, resisting these impulses can weaken your ability to resist the next temptation.

Todd Heatherton, Ph.D., of Dartmouth College, and Kathleen Vohs demonstrated this in a study in which they offered dieting students ice cream after they watched a sad movie.

Some of the subjects were observed without warning, while others were instructed to suppress their emotional reactions through an effort that required willpower.

The researchers found that of all the dieters, those who suppressed their feelings ate significantly more ice cream than those who were free to react emotionally to the film.

People often blame bad moods on what is called “emotional eating.” But Heatherton and Vohs found that the subjects' emotional state did not affect the amount of ice cream they ate.

In other words, willpower depletion was a more important factor in self-indulgence than mood.

The reasons why someone diets may also play a role. As described in the previous section, Muraven and his colleagues found that your beliefs and attitudes can protect you from the effects of burnout.

In one example of this idea, he asked volunteers to refrain from eating cookies from a plate placed in front of them. He then tested their strength of self-control by having them squeeze a hand-held resistance band as long as they could.

He found that people who chose not to eat cookies for internal reasons (such as enjoying resisting the treats) showed better self-control in the exercise experiment than people who resisted for external reasons (such as wanting to please the experimenter).

It's clear that willpower is an essential component of healthy eating. In an environment where unhealthy (but appetizing) food choices are everywhere, resisting temptation is likely to deplete willpower, breaking the resolve of even highly motivated dieters.

However, overeating is a complex phenomenon, with numerous psychological and neurological causes. As a result, the role of willpower is somewhat controversial when discussing obesity treatments.

Some experts believe that the emphasis on self-control and personal choice stigmatizes people and is unlikely to motivate them to lose weight. Such experts believe that practitioners should avoid emphasizing willpower and focus on minimizing environmental influences on eating behavior.

After all, when it comes to our modern environment, resisting the urge to overeat can be a huge challenge. We are bombarded with advertisements for high-calorie treats.

Fast, cheap, processed food is readily available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and often costs less than healthier options.

However, both willpower and environment play a role in your food choices. A better understanding of both elements will improve options for individuals and practitioners combating obesity.

Willpower also plays a role in other healthy lifestyle behaviors, including the abuse of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.

According to Kevin King, Ph.D., of the University of Washington, developing good self-control in childhood can prevent substance abuse problems in adolescents and adults.

King and colleagues examined self-control in adolescents as they progressed from 6th to 11th grade. They found that teens who had more self-control problems in sixth grade, such as shouting out answers in class or acting rashly, were more likely to use alcohol, tobacco and marijuana in high school.

Unsurprisingly, willpower also plays an important role in curbing your drinking. One experiment found that social drinkers who exercised self-control in a laboratory setting went on to drink even more alcohol than subjects who had not previously delved into their “self-control bins.”

Another study found that on days when underage social drinkers found themselves having to exercise more self-control than usual, they were more likely to violate their own drinking limits.

This finding provides even more evidence that exercising willpower in one area can undermine your ability to resist temptation in other, unrelated areas of your life.

Understanding the role of willpower will likely be important for developing effective treatments for drug addiction and for helping people make decisions such as eating healthy, exercising, and quitting illicit substances.

Strengthening self-control

Our will, like our muscles, becomes stronger from constantly increasing activity; without giving them exercise, you will certainly have weak muscles and a weak will.
K. Ushinsky
In recent years, a large number of studies have been conducted to explain many aspects of willpower. Most researchers are looking for an answer to the question: how can you strengthen willpower?

If willpower is indeed a limited resource, as research suggests, then what can be done to conserve it?

Avoiding temptation is an effective way to maintain self-control.

In Walter Mischel's marshmallow study (in which preschool children had a choice between eating one marshmallow immediately or waiting an unspecified amount of time to receive two marshmallows), children who looked at candy were less likely to resist temptation than children who closed their eyes, turned away, or were otherwise distracted.

The principle of “out of sight, out of mind” also applies to adults. One recent study, for example, found that office workers who kept candy in a desk drawer indulged themselves less than when they kept candy on their desks, in plain sight.

Another useful tactic for improving self-control is a technique psychologists call “implementation intention.”

Typically, these intentions take the form of “if-then” statements and help people plan behavior in situations that may be confusing.

For example, someone who has decided to give up drinking alcohol might say to himself before a party, “If someone offers me a drink, I will ask for juice.”

Research among adolescents and adults has shown that implementing intentions improves self-control, even among people whose willpower has been depleted by laboratory tasks. Having a plan in advance can allow you to make decisions in the moment without resorting to willpower.

Research suggesting that we have a limited amount of self-control raises a troubling question: When we are faced with too many temptations, are we setting ourselves up for failure?

Not necessary. Most researchers do not believe that a person's willpower is ever completely depleted. Rather, people hold some willpower in reserve for future demands.

Proper motivation allows us to tap into these reserves, allowing us to persist even when our self-control powers are depleted.

Demonstrating this idea, Mark Muraven found that people with depleted willpower persist in self-control when they are told that they will be paid for their efforts or that their efforts will benefit others (for example, helping to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease).

High motivation, he concludes, can help overcome weakened willpower, at least up to a point.

Regular exercise of self-control can improve willpower.

In one of the first demonstrations of this idea, Muraven and his colleagues asked volunteers to follow a two-week regimen to control their food intake, improve their mood, or improve their posture.

Compared to a control group, participants who exercised self-control by completing assigned exercises were less vulnerable to willpower depletion in subsequent laboratory experiments.

In another study, he found that smokers who practiced self-control for two weeks by avoiding sweets or regularly squeezing a hand-held resistance band were ultimately more successful in quitting smoking than subjects who performed regular tasks that did not require self-control (such as writing notes). in the diary).

The findings that willpower depletion is linked to glucose levels also suggest a possible cure. Eating regularly to maintain blood sugar levels in the brain can help replenish depleted willpower reserves.

!!! But don't let the concept of "sugar" fool you. Healthy foods without refined sugar are better than any sweets for maintaining normal blood sugar levels.

Dieters looking to maintain willpower while cutting calories can eat frequent small meals instead of skipping breakfast or lunch.

Evidence from research on willpower depletion also suggests that writing a list of resolutions on New Year's Eve is the worst possible approach. Exhaustion in one area can reduce willpower in other areas, so it makes sense to focus on one goal at a time.

In other words, don't try to quit smoking, start eating healthier, and start a new workout plan all at the same time. Setting goals one by one is the best approach.

Once you get into a good habit, Baumeister says, you no longer need to use your willpower to maintain the behavior. Eventually, healthy habits will become routine and no longer require effort.

Despite a significant amount of research, many questions about the nature of self-control remain unresolved. However, it is likely that with clear goals, good self-control and a little practice, you can train your willpower to remain strong in the face of temptation.

What to remember about willpower?

In this article we looked at what will is in psychology, and such concepts as willpower and free will. In general, I think that with will everything is more or less clear, with its freedom the question is philosophically controversial, but what can be generalized about willpower?

• Willpower is the ability to resist short-term gratification for long-term goals or objectives.
• Willpower is correlated with positive life outcomes, such as good grades, higher self-esteem, lower rates of substance abuse, greater financial security, and improved physical and mental health.
• When willpower fails, exposure to an emotionally charged stimulus overwhelms a person's rational, cognitive system, leading to impulsive actions.
• A person's capacity for self-control appears to be constant. Children with better self-control as preschoolers tend to have better self-control as adults.
• People with low self-control show different brain patterns when presented with tempting stimuli.
• Willpower can be compared to a muscle that gets tired from overuse.
• Research shows that constantly resisting temptation depletes your ability to resist future temptations.
• Depletion of willpower has a physical basis. People whose willpower has been depleted have reduced activity in an area of ​​the brain associated with cognition and have lower blood glucose levels than people whose willpower has not been reduced.
• The effects of willpower depletion can be mitigated by positive moods, beliefs and attitudes.
• Willpower depletion affects a range of behaviors, including food consumption, substance use and abuse, and purchasing behavior.
• Avoiding temptations and planning for the future are effective tactics for maintaining self-control.
• With the right motivation, you can be able to continue even when your willpower is depleted.
• Maintaining stable blood glucose levels, such as by regularly eating healthy meals and snacks, can help prevent the effects of willpower depletion.
• Since exhaustion in one area can weaken willpower in other areas, it is much more effective to focus on one goal at a time rather than “attack” a list of multiple solutions at once.
• Just as muscles are strengthened by regular exercise, regular exercise of self-control can improve willpower over time.

Good luck to you! See you at the sessions!