I’ll start by saying that, at one point, I found myself so frustrated by Stolorow’s jargon that I fantasized choking the professor who assigned it. Until I realized that professor was me. Seeking to erase my grievous error, I called my co-professors suggesting that perhaps we could drop the article (not because I didn’t think it was important; just because, well, other important thing deserved our time and attention more, didn’t they?) I have Prof. Reitz to thank for her forbearance: she suggested that this might be a teachable moment if we could be patient enough to unpack it. And then I remembered why I had chosen the article in the first place.
Robert Stolorow has been a very influential writer in the psychoanalytic world, writing largely about serious mental illness, the meaning of symptoms, and the static, even rigid, philosophical beliefs that often underlie the clinical actions one takes in vivo, actions which we think (pretend?) are spontaneous responses to real time stimuli but which are more likely grounded in unexamined doctrinal (look it up) systems. In this piece, Stolorow ricochets from the easily accessible idea that some of us are Dr. Empathy and others are Dr. Outrage (comically extreme perhaps but often the shorthand with which we approach our clients/ patients/ defendants/ students/ to say nothing of the institutional world), to the obscure, even obfuscatory, language of the pseudo philosopher Incompatiblism? REALLY?? As Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers would say.
Stolorow is really just asking: can Dr. Empathy and Dr. Outrage be integrated into a consistent philosophical view, or are these positions irreconcilable to a degree we are rarely willing to admit? For example, we were all very facile about saying in our previous discussions that sure, we can empathize with the set of circumstances that “caused” someone to act grievously, while at the same time condemning the consequence of their actions. Stolorow suggests that to offer this bromide without weighing its implications, puts us in a state of philosophical inconsistency that threatens the legitimacy of either argument.
I think that the basic questions Stolorow sets forth, and that I pose for you, are these:
1) If we believe in determinism i.e. our actions are caused by either distal (for example, a bad childhood), or proximate (for example, poverty) events, how can there be any idea of moral responsibility? Moral responsibility implies that people have a choice about what they do; if we believe in free will than each of us is the architect of our actions and must assume responsibility for their outcomes. If you want to have it both ways, one question is: at what point is someone responsible/not responsible for their actions? How could you ever decide where what is determined ends, and what is chosen begins?
2) If we believe in moral responsibility, which implies that we have free will, and so we believe it correct to hold people morally responsible for their actions, than this (philosophically speaking) must be applied across the board. In other words, if you hold those in power responsible for their actions you must hold those not in power responsible for their actions or, conversely, if you excuse oppressed people from moral culpability because their circumstances dictated their actions, in order to be consistent, you would also have to understand the circumstances surrounding the crimes of those in power at any given moment. So another question is: how can you excuse one set of people but not another? Who determines who gets a deterministic pass and who doesn’t?
Finally, I will just say-to avoid our falling back on the same old answers-that I am asking you now to wear the philosopher’s hat and think about logical consistency. Each one of us can make a political argument about the way to proceed in the world; a political argument takes into account expediencies, stakeholders; and the felicity calculus: what brings the biggest bang for the buck in any particular circumstance, what is actually doable. The philosopher has no such care; s/he asks, as did Stolorow (p. 259) Can we transcend the traditional compatibilist-incompatibilist dichotomy? In simpler words, is it possible for Dr. Outrage and Dr. Empathy to share a lab coat? What would that look like?
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Sometimes I think they New York Times is reading our minds. From today's paper:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/selective-empathy/?emc=eta1
OPINION | December 03, 2009
Opinionator: Selective Empathy
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
A death sentence ruling by the Supreme Court shows that the quality of its mercy is selective...
As Professor Stein rightly notes, the Stolorow reading starts out quite promising but very quickly devolves into a lardball—full of unnecessary jargon, and dare I say it, not much of a set of interesting questions either. I don’t see the value of seeking “philosophical consistency.” In fact, I can’t imagine what that really is or whether it can ever really exist.
Aren’t we capable of complexity? Can’t we hold into our hands at once inconsistency and contradiction? Or does our own deeply-entrenched world-views—shaped by a set of cultural beliefs steeped in a particular set of intellectual traditions—make it nearly impossible for us to handle such complexity? I don’t believe individual actions are caused by either this or that but by the interplay of a range of factors that are impossible to measure, and that the onus of responsibility lies in that nexus, including individual responsibility. But the duality of thinking, this thinking in dichotomies, in either-or’s, as either it’s free will and therefore individual accountability or it’s not, just doesn’t get us anywhere far. Yeah, I do think Dr. Outrage and Dr. Empathy can share a lab coat. In fact, I think they already do, all the time. But so what? Where does that get us?
In the courtroom, it’s still the individual on trial. It’s already too late to really address the complexity that gave rise to “the action” (the crime) for that individual and for those who were his victims. If we really want to address the complexity, we would truly and honestly focus on PREVENTION—prevention that gets at the socio-psychological-political-economic roots of the behavior/the action in the first place. But we don’t go there. We are still focused on the after-the-fact-of-the-matter and so the conversation is still the same old, same old.
So my question would be: what would real prevention look like and how would that make a difference in outcomes? We might start finding answers by asking, for example, what are the common denominators in the two stories from the NY Times article cited by Professor Stein. What can be changed? What can’t be prevented? What would need to be changed to produce a different outcome for all the parties involved in the stories? What are we capable of changing so as to make it LESS likely (decrease the probabilities) that such tragedies would occur?
It violates blog protocol to have all the professors respond before students. So come on, folks, comment away so I can!
Dr. Stein, your questions are deserving of a case study more than something you can generalize to every person. First, if anyone is sold on the idea of full blown determinism I have a bridge I can sell them. I didn’t determine where I lived before I had the ability to afford my own place; my siblings; the color of my skin, eyes and hair. Psychotic individuals who have mental disorders aren’t considered “responsible” for a crime when their mental disease or defect prohibited them from understanding that what they were doing was wrong. So I conclude you’re not responsible if (a) you don’t possess the mental faculties which research says are necessary for decision-making or (b) someone else made the decision for you. Part b can be broken down further into (1) science, in this case genetics, or (2) not knowing any better. I know you’d prefer a philosophical explanation; I like talking in theory, but that doesn’t take the pragmatic approach for me, where I end up with substantial answer to your questions.
I’ve said, numerous times, “this was meant to be/it wasn’t meant to be.” I admit, it’s a bit of a cop-out. It makes me feel better when something I want to happen doesn’t work out. Somehow it keeps me from feeling hurt, which I don’t give much conscious thought to because it’s natural human tendency to act in a self-protective way. I can shield myself from feeling responsible, but if I was forced to face reality and know all the reasons X didn’t occur – I’d realize there was some other things I (me, myself) could have done to change the outcome. Now, if I let myself buy into determinism, I’d essentially be attributing blame for these missed opportunities to other people and institutions (which I have no control over because they have control over themselves – except when under duress, another way the law holds you not responsible for your actions). Yes, there are laws in this country, but California has a prison population of 153,000 – obviously the law (the institution) doesn’t determine how citizens behave. “Well, if you break the law you go to jail” – not necessarily. We all know you can have two people commit the same crime but one ends up in jail and the other goes free. The free man goes on to do more things at free-will, maybe ending up a bit wise and acting more cautiously (because he knows how close he came to getting some of his freedom to decide the color of his shirt and pants and that makes him a little more self-protective) but not because an institution determines how he WILL behave.
Can Dr. Empathy and Dr. Outrage share a lab coat? I think they share a lab coat all the time. I understood Stolorow's philosophical argument about why determinism and free-will are mutually exclusive, but I don't believe a person can be just one or the other. I agree with Prof. Waterston that people are complex beings and that they can apply both philosophies simultaneously. I understand that a person's past experiences influence a person's character and actions, but I also believe that people have free-will to determine their actions. Although their environment might push them to take certain decisions they still have the ultimate say.
The article made me question whether I was Dr. Empathy or Dr. Outrage, and I guess I am a little bit of both. If I accept that people are responsible for all of their actions then that would mean that women who are victims of domestic violence deserve the abuse for consciously staying in an abusive relationship. I person who believes in free-will is responsible for the outcome of all of their actions even those that end up causing them harm. On the other hand, if I adopt only the determinism philosophy it would mean that all people who have seen domestic violence when young are doomed to become batterers or victims due to their history, and hence are not responsible for their actions. Both of these scenarios are too extreme and too simplistic. I am really torn about this subject because I cannot explain my actions through these philosophies and it makes me question their validity. Why are we so worry about labeling ourselves as something specific?
I must agree that Stolorow’s reading had me a bit lost and confused at first with all the terms. Towards the end, the question that I got out of the reading was, was exactly what Professor Stein is asking us: “In simpler words, is it possible for Dr. Outrage and Dr. Empathy to share a lab coat? What would that look like?” As I read the difference between Dr. Outrage & Dr. Empathy’s outlook on the same situation, I began to understand how different they were. Stolorow then went in depth and explained how they were mutually exclusive and questioned on whether a person can be both - “integrated agent-causal view” which means that they believe in a person being morally responsible for their actions yet at the same time believe in determinism.
I believe that a person is capable of an “integrated agent-causal view”. This all comes down to the type of situation in which the agent reacts to. For example, a person that has been abused all their life by their parents, they will grow up with all this built up anger inside of them and the only way they know how to deal with their issues is through anger and violence. Yet on the other hand, if someone were to hit someone because they wanted to then they ought to be morally responsible for their actions.
I want to add an additional consideration. Even if you believe in free-will and not so much in determinism (which does not express my personal opinion but I'm just saying), you don't exist in a vacuum. Your life gets mixed up with other individuals acting with free-will and your behavior is impacted by someone else. No man is an island, even if we grant her/him free will.
I agree of course with the posts wondering why we need to choose. But I also want to underscore Professor Stein's point that we need to think critically about our uneven application of these ideas. We can appreciate that there is a combination of determinism and free will at work, but we can't say (as we have many times in class, at least implicitly) that certain people's behaviors/lives are determined (the poor, racial minorities) and others are illustrative of free will at work (those who "benefit" from things as they are). It sounds a little like Orwell in ANIMAL FARM, "Everyone is equal. But some are more equal than others."
I don’t think it has to be so extreme professor. It is not black and white…. I agree with Professor Waterston
I think its conflicting human nature in desperate search for balance and justification. We do have free will, in a very constricted society, but just like religion, we like to believe in determinism and things we cannot control because
1) if that is the case, some things we just cannot control and
2) if we cannot control it, we cannot take responsibility for it, it’s beyond our control, and so we cannot be blamed for it. “I was late for class today because the trains were delayed.” That’s beyond my control and I cannot be held responsible. One can argue, “wake up earlier.” Or “our relationship was just not meant to be. I did nothing wrong, its fate or destiny.” That type of thinking takes off the possibility that maybe one failed as a partner. Maybe one can look at the circumstances surrounding any said situations and determine that way where determinism ends and as a result the actions the individual CHOSE to commit (as free will of course).
In my opinion it’s all a chain reaction… Someone at some point chose to throw their garbage onto the rails which by chance caught fire, which then delayed the whole system, including myself to make it in time for class.
To the last question, I would have to answer no. Dr. Outrage and Dr. Empathy cannot “share a lab coat” because their views and feelings are so close minded that neither will budge, otherwise they wouldn’t be called Dr. Outrage and Dr. Empathy, they would be called Dr. Outrage, whose rage will pass and is capable of empathy and Dr. Empathy who is capable of rage…. It’s a narrow definition.
I think that we are capable of feeling both at different times towards the same situation, and maybe empathy is more than some who are outraged can feel, but who could sympathize….
Regardless, I strongly believe that Dr. Outrage can empathize or at least sympathize, but his morality and feeling are so strong, that he/ she sticks with outrage and brushes off any other feelings and the same goes for Dr. Empathy, who might get outraged inside too, but his or her feelings of empathy are stronger.
We cannot choose where we start from; we can only choose where we want to go and how to go about getting there. And sometimes, because of where we came from, we might not be able to get there.
Dr. Stein's blog post is very challenging in the perspective that her questions cry out different answers and opinions. On these case if determinism and choice, I will have to agree with Danielle's comments and the points she makes. Just like Danielle points out--and in relation to the due process clause--many people's decisions are in many times influenced by psychological and social factors that, at times, they do not have control over. For example, Danielle states that sometimes "people don't have the mental faculties or do not know any better" to make decisions for themselves. In reality, our society does face this problem of mental illness and not being able to recognize between right and wrong. That is, many of these people's childhoods may have been negatively impacted which caused them to developed mental deficiencies, or in other cases, it may be a problem with their genetics (Danielle, line 17). Therefore, the actions of these people have been predetermined by psychological and social forces.
However, in certain occasions, determinism is not the factor that has predetermined these people's actions but personal choice. As the U.S. Supreme Court has declared in its due process clause (fifth amendment), before a person can be tried under the full potential of the law, s/he must be mentally able to stand trial. In other words, even the courts have acknowledged that certain peoples' actions may have been predetermined by something else other than personal choice. Nevertheless, for those people who may not suffer or be affected by some mental difficulty, free will is the sole factor for the actions taken or carried out. In several occasions, people may face social, psychological, religious, and economic obstacles that drive to commit to a certain action(s) but they are full aware of the consequences of those actions. At that level, I think people should be held liable for their actions, but we may use empathy to judge their actions and administer punishment. For example, Someone who murders a person based on self-defense, s/he will go through the legal system as any other person, yet the judge and jury may feel more empathetic with h/her based the reasons she committed the crime. Personally, I feel it is very hard as to where we draw the line between determinism and choice.
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