“The point that I am making now is not that action creates a self, but that action presupposes a self.”
John R. Searle [1]
THE Action Axiom of praxeology implies self-ownership: only a self which owns its organism—in that it is in exclusive control[2] of its organism by means of its will—has the possibility of acting. All action is purposeful, yet purposeful for whom? Valuation is ontologically subjective, but for whom? There must be a self for which action is purposeful and is capable of choosing and acting, or in other words, the Action Axiom straight-forwardly implies a self. Moreover, this self must be in control of its organism in order to act by means of its organism. That is to say, self-ownership is implied by the category of action, for action requires a thickly-conceived non-Humean self which is capable of recognizing perceptions and thoughts as its own. Furthermore, this self must be in exclusive control of its organism by means of its will in order to act purposefully utilizing those thoughts and perceptions.[3]
Another related consideration emerges from the long-standing free-will debate, in which it is claimed that if causally sufficient conditions for action did not exist for human action, then an element of randomness must be accepted (Nagel, 1986: 116-117) and action, therefore, cannot be purposeful. One proposed answer is to claim that the cause of the action is “me,”[4] but this is incorrect: To propose such is to claim that an entity, “me,” caused an event to occur simpliciter misses that there must be some process which functions causally[5] (Searle, 2001: 82).
However, an entity can act, and this can function causally in the direction of the Intentional contents, but in order to do so there must be a self which can consciously put forth effort in order to act (Searle, 2001: 83). This self must be the same self which is capable of recognizing its thoughts and perceptions as its own, and this self can only act if it is in exclusive control of its organism.
In other words, in order for action to occur, there must be a thickly-conceived non-Humean self which is capable of functioning as an agent. This agent acts on reasons and this functions causally in human action, yet this action is neither random nor determined (Searle, 2001: 80).
From the third-person perspective, this will always appear indeterministic, yet praxeological analysis requires a reflective understanding of the first-person ontologically subjective perspective, in which case it can be understood that the agent acted. This entire process undoubtedly implies self-ownership.
This in itself establishes a formal basis for self-ownership as a fundamental praxeological principle and is further supported by phenomenological experience and neurobiology as will be elaborated in other posts. However, it must be recognized that with respect to praxeological analysis, the self and self-ownership are formal postulates. This will be more firmly supported by a neurobiological explanation of consciousness that will be addressed in future posts, but for this post, it suffices to say that these formal postulates of a self and self-ownership are implied in the category of human action.
While self-ownership can be established praxeologically, the majority of philosophers would reject this notion based on considerations from other fields. Praxeology is just analyzing action and its logical structure, so it does not directly depend on a particular understanding of the physical world. Some may not care what philosophers think about the subject, but philosophy does influence many other fields, even if only implicitly.
Modern Western philosophy with its physicalist bent fundamentally denies the ontological existence of human action, believing instead in an out-dated notion of bottom-up physical causation of particles, where they can be no human action but rather only physical processes. These are serious objections that prevent the general acceptance of praxeology, but they are based on false notions of the physical world that will be addressed in subsequent posts in order to further defend the concept of self-ownership by exploring its neurobiological and ontological basis.
[1] John Searle, Rationality in Action (2001) pp. 87. Emphasis in original.
[2] Exclusive control is not to be misconstrued as having complete control over one’s organism, nor is it to deny external influences. The point is that there is only one self which has the exclusive and direct control over the will.
[3] As Ludwig von Mises states, knowledge is a tool for action (Mises, 1962: 35-36). See also (Searle, 2001: 92).
[4] Such as Korsgaard, Christine, The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1996) and Chrisholm, Roderick, “Human Freedom and the Self,” in Gary Watson (editor), Free Will: Oxford Readings in Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982: 24-35. (Searle, 2001: 82)
[5] Causation is a complex concept and there is significant controversy as to what causation fundamentally is. Most philosophical explanations of causation are woefully inadequate to account for the variety of phenomena observed in the world, from human action down to radioactive decay. The nature of causation is complex and fundamental to many explanations, so it will have to be addressed in future posts.
Works Cited:
Mises; Ludwig von. (1962) The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method. Indianapolis, U.S.A.: Liberty Fund, Inc. (2006), Bettina Bien Greaves (ed.) ISBN: 978-0-86597-639-9.
Nagel; Thomas. (1986) The View from Nowhere. New York, U.S.A.: Oxford University Press (1989), ISBN: 0-19-505644-2.
Searle; John R. (2001) Rationality in Action. Cambridge, U.S.A.: The MIT Press, ISBN: 0-262-69282-1.
