Integration, Ambivalence, and Mental Conflict

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1 Integration, Ambivalence, and Mental Conflict Luke Brunning CONTENTS 1 The Integration Thesis 2 Value: Singular, Plural and Personal 3 Conflicts of Desire 4 Ambivalent Identities 5 Ambivalent Emotions 6 Fragile Unities 7 New Ideals? 1

2 - Chapter One - The Integration Thesis Philosophers as diverse as Michael Smith and Harry Frankfurt have argued for forms of integration as an ideal of mental structure. This ideal appears throughout the history of philosophical thought about mental life. Because it is such a good focus for many themes of contemporary interest, I draw on the moral psychology of Plato s Republic to outline the integration thesis which describes an ideal of a mind structured by reason under knowledge of what is valuable. Integration can be instantiated in degrees, but more is preferable. The absence of mental conflicts and ambivalence are central to this ideal. Plato s ideally structured mind requires the harmonization of our desires and emotions, both with each other, and with our rational judgments. If our minds are unified, two consequences follow. First, we are better able to act well. Second, our well-being is undiminished. Thus the integration thesis posits a tight relationship between conflicting mental states, the negative phenomenology of conflicts, and the inability to act. From a Platonic perspective, the rationally unified mind is always desirable, and is a form of health. However, the aim of the thesis is to challenge both the Platonic conception of the ideal in particular the purported opposition between integration and conflicts and its desirability. There are three options here: Integration is never desirable; it is desirable but its desirability needs to be balanced against other ideals; it is always most desirable as an superordinate ideal. - Chapter Two - Value: Singular, Plural, and Personal On a Platonic view the integrated mind is structured under a conception of value. Yet how is value structured? Do apparently plural values reduce to one value, or are values plural? If plural, do values conflict tragically or can they be harmonized? Are there pertinent differences between moral and personal values? One might think the attractiveness of the integration ideal depends on how we answer these questions. If value is monistic, then mental integration may not be a distinguishable ideal from that of rational action (so much the better, Plato would think). If values are tragically plural, we may be required to liable to mental conflicts as a way of being sensitive to conflicting sources of value. I argue that value pluralism is likely to be true. However, the ideal of mental integration has appeal both to value monists and to value pluralists. Monists (and non-tragic pluralists) can argue that a prior concern with rationality generates pressure for someone to be integrated. (Exploring these relations helps to qualify the connection between integration and ideals of rational action). Yet both the monist and pluralist can also be interested in how mental integration shapes the manner of our agency, not just the outcomes of our choices. In most situations we want to act effectively and effortlessly. I explore the adverbial contours of 2

3 action, to develop this thought. With reference to the work of Richard Holton, I consider the practical capacities that relate judgement, intention-formation, intention-maintenance, and action. Even if values are tragically plural, the removal of mental conflicts and achievement of integration will seemingly reduce someone s exposure to tragedy. They will act better and not suffer. The value monist can also endorse integration for this reason. Thus both monist and pluralist can be interested in mental integration because achieving it supports our ability to act. Integration appears related to a particular form of stable life, but this can be questioned. We also have to question whether conflicting valuations are problematic for an agent, and if there is a difference between moral and personal values. Thinking about the topology of value helps to clarify the arguments that support the integration thesis, and the argumentative burden borne by opposition to this view. - Chapter Three - Conflicts of Desire In this and the next two chapters I argue that the absence of integration does not necessarily impair agency or diminish well-being. Thus both chapters addressing the strength of the integration thesis instead of claiming that some form of integration is never ideal. Here, I focus on conflicts of desires. We can distinguish between contingent conflicts between desires (e.g. in the absence of time, or money) and non-contingent conflicts where the objects of desire are such that they cannot be jointly satisfied. I explore the dispute between those like Richard Wollheim, who think desire conflicts are ordinary, and those like Michael Smith who think unintegrated desires are subject to rational criticism and display defective rationality. I side with Wollheim. Smith thinks that we are more rational in virtue of how organized our desires are and supports this by analogy with belief. I reconstruct his argument and show it fails for several reasons. First, I draw on the work of Niko Kolodny to argue that a concern with coherence as such is not rational in the case of belief, so even if the analogy with belief holds, it would not lend support to Smith s view of desires. Secondly, it is not clear that there is an end to which desires tend, which is the analogue of truth in the case of belief. Thirdly, and most significantly, it is highly contingen that coherent desires are easier to satisfy. Fourthly, Smith double-counts desires. Finally, the focus on desire structure per se detracts from the more important concern with having desires that are most properly ours; we can have coherent desires yet remain alienated from them. However, notwithstanding the weakness of Smith s general case for integration of desires, some desire conflicts look especially bad. People have brute conflicts of desire, i.e. cyclical desires in stark opposition to each other e.g. someone craves help, only to want to reject it once offered; (there are also clinical examples). These desires are not oriented at satisfaction and they present good candidates for conflicts that undermine action and well-being. However, these cases are not subject to the rational cultivation 3

4 Smith seems to favour, in which reflection on inconsistencies seems efficacious in changing mental structures; instead, prolonged therapeutic attention may be required. Any ideal of integration would repudiate these conflicts. Thus any critique of mental integration contests the strength of the thesis, instead of arguing conflicts are never bad. Smith s thesis seems to gain strength in thinking about marginal cases. - Chapter Four - Ambivalent Identities Chapter One described the purported opposition between integration and ambivalence, according to which the latter undermines action and causes diminished wellbeing. I contest these claims in this chapter and the next, in focusing on the related work of Harry Frankfurt, Christine Korsgaard, and David Pugmire. I make an initial distinction between ambivalence as an abundance of attitudes towards an object, and ambivalence that evidences that someone is unable to have a stable attitude at all (impoverished ambivalence). I bring these ideas into focus by Frankfurt s theoretical account of examples of how ambivalence affects our volitional life. First, my attention turns to impoverished ambivalence, I argue this negatively impacts on action and cause suffering. Like brute desire conflicts, it is problematic precisely due to its resilience to direct rational address. Second, I examine abundant ambivalence. I focus on our practical identities, our emotions, and our volitional life. Hence I introduce Christine Korsgaard s idea that our practical identities need to be integrated. I critically examine our general attitude towards ambivalence and argue that it s our response to ambivalence, not ambivalence per se, that often impairs action or diminishes well-being. These responses are shaped by factors like social norms, which structure how we think about ambivalence itself. Frankfurt is wrong to think ambivalence is necessarily a form of irrationality or greed. Indeed, ambivalence can be constitutively important to someone s identity or, if values are plural, it can be a form of sensitivity to value. - Chapter Five - Ambivalent Emotions This chapter develops on Chapter Four. I critically engage with David Pugmire s work on emotional ambivalence. Pugmire makes two claims, which I reject; first that an integrated mind is necessary for deep emotions; second, genuine emotions can never be stably configured in ambivalence simpliciter. The first claim relates ambivalence to the integration thesis: if the absence of deep emotions diminishes well-being and are only possible if other aspects of the mind are integrated, to that extent the ideal of integration is affirmed. The second claim would support the integration thesis because ambivalence would necessarily be a form of diminished well-being as it would entail that someone s 4

5 emotions were shallow. Against Pugmire s first claim I argue there can be deep emotions in a compartmentalised mind; the comparison with narrative conflates narrative coherence with narratives of coherence; some transformative emotions are not embedded in the mind; and, deep emotions may rely on disintegration. I argue that Pugmire s second claim fails as the conceptual links between emotions are complex and variable; there is no direct link between specific emotions and actions; and his appeals to the management of emotion can be turned on their head. In general, our emotions are often deep yet ambivalent, but there is no direct link between this and diminished wellbeing or curtailed action. - Chapter Six - Fragile Unities In this chapter I argue that some ways a person can lack conflicts are incompatible with an ideal of integration. Apparent integration can rest on ethically troubling sensitivities. The absence of conflict can indicate something is awry. To show this, I introduce examples of projective identification, the Kleinian name for a process whereby people split off aspects of their mind and respond to them as if they were in the minds of other people. Projective identification leads to the interpersonal relocation of intrapersonal conflicts. This can rid someone s mind of conflict and its phenomenology. I argue that projective identification can be a form of insensitivity, in both ethical and epistemic senses. However, I also chart the meta-norms of sensitivity; we do not always have to be sensitive. That said, I stress the importance of being integrated into reality. Moreover, mechanisms like projective identification can become traits of character (e.g. arrogance and narcissism). This prevents conflicts from arising because such people are generally insensitive. I respond to objections, which consider whether the mind really is rid of conflicts, and whether we have to posit unconscious conflicts. I then argue that because defensive projective identification can lead to the absence of conflict the ideal of integration, of Chapter One, is called into question yet again. Someone can be free of conflicts in a way that cannot be part of an ideal of mental structure. I then expose the dangers of other attempts to seek mental integration. Smith s sense of ordered desires can make mental life less stable, less sensitive. Trying to integrate some of the activities deeply linked to our most valued practical identifies can reify them and alienate us from what we value. Craving the absence of ambivalent emotions can lead to emotional insensitivity, such as arrogance, narcissism, and sentimentality; or naturally ambivalent processes like grieving may be disrupted. Finally, I develop Jonathan Lear s idea of an ersatz unity and focus on the ways that attempts to secure mental integration by rational means can disrupt forms of unconscious unity. 5

6 - Chapter Seven - New Ideals? In this chapter I ask whether some forms of conflict have a wider value in mental life. In turn, this chapter builds on the arguments in Chapter Five and prompts the reconsideration of what mental integration involves. Mental conflicts should not be fetishized but they can have value. Tensions between practical identities prompt the creative reinterpretation of their character, which makes them stable. Ambivalence is connected to better action. Rozsika Parker shows how maternal ambivalence catalyzes creative parenting and maternal individuation. Ambivalence can track salient values. Someone who acts ambivalently can honour values then cannot directly act on. Additionally, abundant ambivalence or conflict promotes careful reasoning. First, in the traffic light sense in which we slow to consider more reasons and in a second, qualitatively different, way as Amelie Rorty argues in recent work that I shall develop. Richard Wollheim urges us to think that emotional ambivalence is importantly related to the experience of emotion in general; what would it be like if we could not be ambivalent? Some aspects of mental life seem constitutionally ambivalent, such as grief. Chapter Five suggested that the search for unity could generate various forms of insensitivity. The ideal of integration should accommodate our resistance to insensitivity. The Kleinian notion of the depressive position a state of mind in which insensitive projective identification is absent, and someone is able to tolerate mixed emotions appears to describe a good ideal of integration, especially if values are tragically plural as I argue in Chapter Two. In this state, various aspects of our mind are integrated into our character. However, I reject this state as the ideal of integration because, as I argue in the previous chapter, projective identification and going to bits are often acceptable or desirable. Being inflexibly integrated and together is not desirable, personally or ethically because it closes someone to unexpected forms of experience, which can have ethical import. Thus an alternative ideal is that of the ability to navigate between various states of mind. This is compatible with thinking that the depressive position also describes an ideal state. There are two related mental ideals. A significant consequence of this, however, is that conflict may be required of us; a conclusion in stark contrast to the conception of the integrated mind I introduced in Chapter One.! 6

ALIGNING WITH THE GOOD

DISCUSSION NOTE BY BENJAMIN MITCHELL-YELLIN JOURNAL OF ETHICS & SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY DISCUSSION NOTE JULY 2015 URL: WWW.JESP.ORG COPYRIGHT BENJAMIN MITCHELL-YELLIN 2015 Aligning with the Good I N CONSTRUCTIVISM,