Five main types of determination according to W. James

Intelligent determination, determination based on intelligent understanding

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The first can be called a type of intelligent determination. We manifest it when the opposing motives begin to fade away, leaving room for one alternative, which we accept without any effort or coercion. Prior to rational evaluation, we are calmly aware that the need to act in a certain direction has not yet become obvious, and this holds us back from action. But one fine day we suddenly begin to realize that the motives for action are sound, that no further clarification is to be expected here, and that now is the time to act. In these cases, the transition from doubt to certainty is experienced quite passively. It seems to us that reasonable grounds for action follow of themselves from the essence of the matter, quite independently of our will. However, at the same time, we do not experience any sense of coercion, realizing ourselves free. The rationale we find for action is, for the most part, that we look for a suitable class of cases for the present case, in which we are already accustomed to act without hesitation, according to a known pattern.

It can be said that the discussion of motives consists, for the most part, of going through all the possible conceptions of the course of action in order to find one under which our course of action in this case could be subsumed. Doubts about how to act are dispelled the minute we manage to find a concept that is related to habitual ways of acting. People with rich experience, who make many decisions every day, constantly have in their heads many UECs, each of which is associated with well-known volitional acts, and they try to bring each new reason for a certain decision under a well-known scheme. If a given case does not fit into any of the previous cases, if the old, routine methods are inapplicable to it, then we are lost and perplexed, not knowing how to get down to business. As soon as we have managed to qualify this case, the determination returns to us again.

Thus, in activity, as well as in thinking, it is important to find a concept appropriate to the given case. The specific dilemmas we face do not have labels ready-made and we can call them quite differently. An intelligent person is one who knows how to find the most appropriate name for each individual case. We call a sensible person such a person who, having once set for himself worthy goals in life, does not take a single action without first determining whether it favors the achievement of these goals or not.

Situational and impulsive determination

In the next two types of determination, the final decision of the will occurs before there is confidence that it is reasonable. Not infrequently, we fail to find a reasonable basis for any of the possible ways of action, giving it an advantage over others. All methods seem to be good, and we are deprived of the opportunity to choose the most favorable. Hesitation and indecision tire us out, and there may come a time when we think it’s better to make a bad decision than not to make one. Under such conditions, quite often some accidental circumstance upsets the balance, giving one of the prospects an advantage over the others, and we begin to incline in its direction, although, if a different accidental circumstance had turned up before our eyes at that moment, the end result would have been different. The second type of determination is represented by those cases in which we seem to deliberately submit to the whims of fate, succumbing to the influence of external random circumstances and thinking: the end result will be quite favorable.

In the third type, the decision is also the result of chance, but chance, acting not from outside, but in ourselves. Often, in the absence of incentives to act in one direction or another, we, wanting to avoid an unpleasant feeling of confusion and indecision, begin to act automatically, as if discharges were fired in our nerves spontaneously, prompting us to choose one of the concepts presented to us. After a weary inactivity, the desire for movement attracts us; we say mentally: “Forward! And there come what may!” — and we take action. This is a carefree, cheerful manifestation of energy, so unpremeditated that in such cases we act more like passive spectators, amused by the contemplation of external forces randomly acting on us, than persons acting according to our own will. Such a rebellious, impetuous manifestation of energy is rarely observed in sluggish and cold-blooded persons. On the contrary, in persons with a strong, emotional temperament and at the same time with an indecisive character, it can be very common. Among world geniuses (like Napoleon, Luther, etc.), in whom stubborn passion is combined with an ebullient desire for action, in those cases where hesitation and preliminary considerations delay the free expression of passion, the final determination to act probably breaks through precisely such elemental way; so a jet of water suddenly breaks through the dam. That this mode of action is often observed in such persons is a sufficient indication of their fatalistic mode of thought. And he imparts a special force to the nervous discharge that begins in the motor centers.

Personal determination, determination based on personal uplift

There is also a fourth type of determination, which puts an end to all hesitation just as unexpectedly as the third. It includes cases when, under the influence of external circumstances or some inexplicable internal change in the way of thinking, we suddenly pass from a frivolous and carefree state of mind to a serious, concentrated one, and the value of the entire scale of values ​​of our motives and aspirations changes when we change our situation. with respect to the horizon plane.

Objects of fear and sadness are especially sobering. Penetrating into the realm of our consciousness, they paralyze the influence of frivolous fantasy and give special strength to serious motives. As a result, we leave various vulgar plans for the future, with which we have hitherto entertained our imagination, and are immediately imbued with more serious and important aspirations, which until then did not attract us to ourselves. This type of determination should include all cases of so-called moral regeneration, awakening of conscience, etc., due to which many of us are spiritually renewed. The level suddenly changes in the personality and the determination to act in a certain direction immediately appears.

Volitional determination, determination based on volitional effort

In the fifth and last type of determination, a known course of action may seem to us the most rational, but we may not have reasonable grounds in favor of it. In both cases, intending to act in a certain way, we feel that the final performance of the action is due to an arbitrary act of our will; in the first case, by the impulse of our will, we give force to a rational motive, which of itself would not be able to produce a nervous discharge; in the latter case, by an effort of the will, which here replaces the sanction of reason, we give to some motive a predominant importance. The dull tension of will felt here is a characteristic feature of the fifth type of determination, which distinguishes it from the other four.

We will not here evaluate the significance of this tension of the will from a metaphysical point of view and will not discuss the question of whether the indicated tensions of the will should be separated from the motives by which we are guided in actions. From a subjective and phenomenological point of view, there is a sense of effort, which was not in the previous types of determination. Effort is always an unpleasant act, associated with some kind of consciousness of moral loneliness; so it is when, in the name of pure sacred duty, we sternly renounce all earthly goods, and when we firmly decide to consider one of the alternatives impossible for us, and the other to be realized, although each of them is equally attractive and no external circumstance does not induce us to give preference to any of them. A closer analysis of the fifth type of determination reveals that it differs from the previous types: there, at the moment of choosing one alternative, we lose or almost lose sight of another, but here we do not lose sight of any alternative all the time; by rejecting one of them, we make it clear to ourselves what exactly at this moment we are losing. We, so to speak, deliberately stick a needle into our body, and the feeling of inner effort that accompanies this act represents in the latter type of determination such a peculiar element that distinguishes it sharply from all other types and makes it a psychic phenomenon sui generis. In the vast majority of cases, our determination is not accompanied by a sense of effort. I think we are inclined to regard this feeling as a more frequent mental phenomenon than it actually is, because in the course of deliberation we often realize how great an effort must be if we wanted to realize a certain solution. Later, when the action is performed without any effort, we remember our consideration and mistakenly conclude that the effort was actually made by us.