The Good Life & The Unified Will

Big Frank has been reading William Irvine's enlightening book, A Guide to the Good Life. In it he recommends the Stoic's approach to tranquility - the good life, as it were. One important point Irvine makes, following Epictitus, is that "Some things are up to us, some things are not up to us." Wanting things that are not up to us can leave us feeling "thwarted, miserable, and upset." "If we don't get what we want, we will be upset, and if we do get what we want, we will experience anxiety in the process of getting it." Irvine expands on Epictitus's dichotomy of control by saying that in fact there are three categories: (1) things over which we have complete control (such as the goals we set for ourselves); (2) things over which we have no control at all (such as whether the sun rises tomorrow); and (3) things over which we have some contol but not complete control (such as whether we win while playing tennis).

Both points one and two above (thing over which we have no control and things over which we have complete control) are relatively easy to understand. It is the third that requires a change of approach. This third goal, in order to preserve tranquility, needs to center on what you can do internally - the internal goals that you set for yourself are what are focussed on - not the outcomes: play the best game of tennis that you can; prepare as best you are able for exams; or state your thoughts and feeling directly to someone. In this way you are confining yourself to outcomes over which you have control. Beyond that - as far as ultimate outcomes are concerned - you cannot have control.

However, it is a challenge knowing when to muster your energy and strength to play your best game, to prepare yourself with firm purpose for some sort of test, to state directly your thoughts and feelings to another. This knowing and acting require an undivided will. Harry Frankfurt has quite a lot to say about this. He talks of "wholeheartedness" and quotes Saint Augustine (in Reasons of Love):

"The mind orders itself to make an act of will . . . ., but it does not fully will to do this thing and therefore its orders are not fully given. It gives the order only in so far as it wills, and in so far as it does not will the order is not carried out . . . . It is . . . no strange phenomenon partly to will to do something and partly to will not to do it. It is a disease of the mind . . . . So there are two wills in us, because neither by itself is the whole will, and each possesses what the other lacks." [Confessions 8.9]

Frankfurt diagnoses this disease of the mind as ambivalence - a divided will. The remedy is a unified will, one that is wholehearted. "Being wholehearted means having a will that is undivided. The wholehearted person is fully settled as to what he wants, and what he cares about. With regard to any conflict of dispostions or inclinations within himself, he has no doubts or reservations as to where he stands. He lends himself to his caring and loving unequivocally and without reserve." This wholeheartedness stems from, as Frankfurt puts it "self-love": this person does not oppose, or seek to impede his own will, as he is not at odds with himself. "He is free in loving what he loves, at least in the sense that his loving is not obstructed or interfered with by himself."

With this wholeheartedness, with this self-love, this purity of heart, one knows intuitively what are worthy internal goals and those are pursued without hesitation and without regard to outcome.

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Photo above was taken by Big Frank near St. Regis, Montana - evening sky with heart.
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Latest part of Chapter Three in Cliches to Live By posted.