Huang & Bargh (H&B) propose that viewing goals as “selfish,” autonomous agents vying for instantiation in the human (and nonhuman animal) nervous system allows researchers and curious observers to make better sense of goal-seeking behavior. Personality psychologists have long bemoaned the fact that people are not reliably consistent from situation to situation (Mischel Reference Mischel2004). H&B contend that such inconsistencies can be explained by attending to the level of the goal within the person rather than to the level of the person. Competing goals jostle for control of behavior, and so different ones take precedence on different occasions, thereby producing inconsistency.
Our interest is in the self. H&B quote Whitman's line “I contain multitudes,” but theories of multiple selfhood have never lasted very long. A single person may contain multiple, conflicting goals, yet the person acts “as a single entity (e.g., both feet walking in the same direction) and as a unified moral agent who takes responsibility for his or her actions. It is rarely acceptable for a person to break a promise with the justification that, “I was a different person three weeks ago.”
H&B argue that traditional approaches that posit “an agentic, conscious self at the helm, deliberately forming judgments, making decisions about which courses of action to take, and then guiding one's behavior along those intentional lines” (sect. 2, para. 1) are flawed. We agree that such models are inadequate. In this brief commentary, we wish to explore how to revise it (and preserve some shreds of reality for the conscious, agentic self at the helm) within the context of the Selfish Goal model.
Where do goals come from? Some arise from ancient evolutionary systems (and are generated by unconscious processes), especially perhaps ones close to the requirements of survival and reproduction. Becoming hungry does not begin with a conscious decision. Other goals, however, may require conscious assistance. A chess game strategy is typically reasoned out consciously based on rules that were learned consciously. We strongly suspect that the rules of chess cannot be taught unconsciously. (Machines that can learn chess without consciousness are possible only because conscious beings carefully crafted them.)
Hence, perhaps it is most useful to think of the conscious self as consisting partly of the process by which some goals are favored over others. A selfish goal to, say, take a vacation trip to Zurich might find that its best chance for success is to engage conscious processes to plan and arrange the trip. In consciousness, it may have to compete with other goals, such as to save money. It may have to persuade a romantic partner who is hankering toward Aruba, and such discussions invoke selves of persons. (We also suspect that goals do not have interpersonal conversations independent of their persons!) It may have to arrange payment to airlines, and that requires using credit cards that belong to a particular self.
Indeed, the very concept of a selfish goal problematizes the relationship between self and goal. Can a goal be selfish (or behave selfishly) while still being utterly free of and indifferent to all selves? Selfishness would seem to presuppose at least some rudimentary notion of selfhood. The goal of eating is almost never indifferent as far as who eats: My hunger is not satisfied by your munching. Thus, the goal is not eating per se, but eating by a particular person (that is, a self).
In their conclusion section, H&B say it is a fallacy for people to perceive someone as a coherent whole. Yet the selfishness of goals presupposes a coherent whole in some respects, as long as the goal is not indifferent as to which body achieves fulfillment. H&B propose that many goals are “selfless,” but those goals do not seem truly selfless to us. A selfless goal would not care who eats and who goes hungry, or even whose feet the shoes are put on, or whose career is advanced by some particular success. (We assume H&B really did want their own names on their very nice publication!)
The self may well be partly unconscious. As point of reference, at least, a minimal version of self seems indispensable even for much animal behavior. (An animal too may have the goal of eating, but the animal cares very much whether it or another animal eats.) Thus, the argument that goals precede selfhood in evolution is debatable. Some aspects of selfhood seem implicit in most goals. Only the complex, overgrown human self is a late arrival, though H&B are right to question the extent of its pragmatic efficacy.
The idea of the selfish goal thus does not solve but relocates the problem of the unity and emergence of self. The human self is unique in nature and has many new and complex properties. Goals existed long before such a self emerged. Yet the selfishness of goals was presumably there much earlier in evolution, because living things care deeply about the difference between their own survival and that of a rival. (The same holds for reproduction: people are often quite persnickety about specifically who sleeps with whom.) To be sure, the difference between me and you is a minimal form of selfhood – yet one without which much of natural behavior is incomprehensible. The elaborate, remarkable human self is quite another matter, and we concur with H&B that much goal striving occurs without needing advanced, complex selfhood. To us, however, the challenge is to understand how the elaborate structure of the human self evolved out of that minimal version. We suspect, moreover, that it evolved precisely because it facilitated the pursuit and fulfillment of goals – especially in the context of civilized society and multiple, competing goals and constraints.
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Huang & Bargh (H&B) propose that viewing goals as “selfish,” autonomous agents vying for instantiation in the human (and nonhuman animal) nervous system allows researchers and curious observers to make better sense of goal-seeking behavior. Personality psychologists have long bemoaned the fact that people are not reliably consistent from situation to situation (Mischel Reference Mischel2004). H&B contend that such inconsistencies can be explained by attending to the level of the goal within the person rather than to the level of the person. Competing goals jostle for control of behavior, and so different ones take precedence on different occasions, thereby producing inconsistency.
Our interest is in the self. H&B quote Whitman's line “I contain multitudes,” but theories of multiple selfhood have never lasted very long. A single person may contain multiple, conflicting goals, yet the person acts “as a single entity (e.g., both feet walking in the same direction) and as a unified moral agent who takes responsibility for his or her actions. It is rarely acceptable for a person to break a promise with the justification that, “I was a different person three weeks ago.”
H&B argue that traditional approaches that posit “an agentic, conscious self at the helm, deliberately forming judgments, making decisions about which courses of action to take, and then guiding one's behavior along those intentional lines” (sect. 2, para. 1) are flawed. We agree that such models are inadequate. In this brief commentary, we wish to explore how to revise it (and preserve some shreds of reality for the conscious, agentic self at the helm) within the context of the Selfish Goal model.
Where do goals come from? Some arise from ancient evolutionary systems (and are generated by unconscious processes), especially perhaps ones close to the requirements of survival and reproduction. Becoming hungry does not begin with a conscious decision. Other goals, however, may require conscious assistance. A chess game strategy is typically reasoned out consciously based on rules that were learned consciously. We strongly suspect that the rules of chess cannot be taught unconsciously. (Machines that can learn chess without consciousness are possible only because conscious beings carefully crafted them.)
Hence, perhaps it is most useful to think of the conscious self as consisting partly of the process by which some goals are favored over others. A selfish goal to, say, take a vacation trip to Zurich might find that its best chance for success is to engage conscious processes to plan and arrange the trip. In consciousness, it may have to compete with other goals, such as to save money. It may have to persuade a romantic partner who is hankering toward Aruba, and such discussions invoke selves of persons. (We also suspect that goals do not have interpersonal conversations independent of their persons!) It may have to arrange payment to airlines, and that requires using credit cards that belong to a particular self.
Indeed, the very concept of a selfish goal problematizes the relationship between self and goal. Can a goal be selfish (or behave selfishly) while still being utterly free of and indifferent to all selves? Selfishness would seem to presuppose at least some rudimentary notion of selfhood. The goal of eating is almost never indifferent as far as who eats: My hunger is not satisfied by your munching. Thus, the goal is not eating per se, but eating by a particular person (that is, a self).
In their conclusion section, H&B say it is a fallacy for people to perceive someone as a coherent whole. Yet the selfishness of goals presupposes a coherent whole in some respects, as long as the goal is not indifferent as to which body achieves fulfillment. H&B propose that many goals are “selfless,” but those goals do not seem truly selfless to us. A selfless goal would not care who eats and who goes hungry, or even whose feet the shoes are put on, or whose career is advanced by some particular success. (We assume H&B really did want their own names on their very nice publication!)
The self may well be partly unconscious. As point of reference, at least, a minimal version of self seems indispensable even for much animal behavior. (An animal too may have the goal of eating, but the animal cares very much whether it or another animal eats.) Thus, the argument that goals precede selfhood in evolution is debatable. Some aspects of selfhood seem implicit in most goals. Only the complex, overgrown human self is a late arrival, though H&B are right to question the extent of its pragmatic efficacy.
The idea of the selfish goal thus does not solve but relocates the problem of the unity and emergence of self. The human self is unique in nature and has many new and complex properties. Goals existed long before such a self emerged. Yet the selfishness of goals was presumably there much earlier in evolution, because living things care deeply about the difference between their own survival and that of a rival. (The same holds for reproduction: people are often quite persnickety about specifically who sleeps with whom.) To be sure, the difference between me and you is a minimal form of selfhood – yet one without which much of natural behavior is incomprehensible. The elaborate, remarkable human self is quite another matter, and we concur with H&B that much goal striving occurs without needing advanced, complex selfhood. To us, however, the challenge is to understand how the elaborate structure of the human self evolved out of that minimal version. We suspect, moreover, that it evolved precisely because it facilitated the pursuit and fulfillment of goals – especially in the context of civilized society and multiple, competing goals and constraints.