Activity 6.3

Chapter 15 - The Will

Can behaviors become so habitual that we experience no free will?

Actions primarily occur out of habit with little thinking required and will is the secondary function of our actions.  James described two types of will, one being impulse (precipitate) response and the second being inhibition (obstructed) response.  James (1899/2001) stated, “voluntary action, then, is at all times a resultant of the compounding of our impulsions with our inhibitions” (p. 87).   To be able to act in a way that balances the impulsive and inhibited actions results in the character that the teacher should aim to duplicate in the learner.  As James (1899/2001) explained, “your task is to build up a character in your pupils; and a character, as I have so often said, consists in an organized set of habits of reaction” (p. 90).

The process of learning involves effort in the way of attention, and the habits formulated manage the will, belief, and attention toward learning.  I consider myself a “creature of habit” and my actions are a representation of my habits.  I consistently get up at the same time each day (4:30 a.m.), and this demonstrates my habitual actions.  There are many days when I would like to sleep later because it is raining, cold outside, or some other reason.  However, my impulses and inhibition that determine my free will are dominated by the involuntary actions of my habits.  The result is I get up at the time I have trained my body and mind to start the day.

“[Research] suggests that what we think of as free will is largely an illusion: much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act – and how well we think and act on the spur of the moment – are a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize” (Gladwell, 2013).  James and Gladwell agree that free will plays a small part in an individual’s daily operations.  “Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from rising in the morning to our lying down each night” (James, 1899/2001, p. 33).  This illustrates the enormous responsibility of the teacher in assisting the learner in developing and building the schemata of numerous ideas, maintaining voluntary attention, and creating habits that form behavior. 

Thus, are your pupils to be saved: first, by the stock of ideas with which you furnish them; second, by the amount of voluntary attention that they can exert in holding to the right ones, however unpalatable; and, third, by the several habits of acting definitely to these latter to which they have been successfully trained. (James, 1899/2001, pp. 91-92)  

Reference:

Gladwell, M. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/free-will?page=1