Self-Determination refers to the possibility of creating one’s most desired future circumstances on purpose.
Here are a few other descriptions of this idea:
“free choice of one's own acts or states without external compulsion”
merriam-webster.com
“the power or ability to make a decision for oneself without influence from outside”
collinsdictionary.com
“Self-determination is the common-sense idea that our decisions are determined by our motives and deliberations, by our character and values, and by our feelings and desires”
informationphilosopher.com
I find such highly abstract definitions to be quite uninformative. They offer hardly any insight into practical applications of this important concept.
I offer the following alternative, which is designed to clarify the actions which we can apply in order to convert our most important motives into effective actions:
Self-determination represents the processes of planning and enacting one’s actions in accordance with one’s declared purposes.
Brook and Stainton described these (rather complex) processes in Knowledge and Mind (2000) [Note 1]:
“I engage in a careful process of identifying alternative courses of action, relevant values I hold, my objectives, the interests and situations of others, my beliefs about how various alternatives will play out, and so on. These deliberations cause me to arrive at a certain decision” (p. 143).
The practices involved in regulating one’s motives and values are collectively called metamotivation (or affective self-regulation). Briefly, those practices include: articulating one’s values and purposes, sharing them with others, and engaging in critical and moral discourses with one’s social partners whenever questions or conflicts arise about what to believe or what to do.
Harry Frankfurt [2] referred to a commitment as a decision which obviates further consideration. Commitment occurs after due consideration of the relative benefits of different motives, and it guides us to enact behaviours which are motivated by the intentional and thoughtful discrimination of alternative actions. Committed action is distinct from other activities because it’s associated with deep reflection on our highest personal and social values. We order our desires by deciding that some of them are more important than others, and we apply these decisions in context when our desires conflict with each other. We should be guided by a variety of factors whenever we have such a choice to make (for example, should I visit a sick friend in the hospital or party with healthy people?). Sometimes it’s more important to eat than to work, or it might be better to do another task before having lunch.
The benefits of applying metamotivation are clear. As Frankfurt explained, acting according to one’s well considered commitments means satisfying our most important desires while indulging less often in distracting urges. We’re more likely to achieve our most significant goals if we a) specify our most important commitments and then b) manage our desires and our actions accordingly.
Charles Taylor [3] described identity as “our conception of a person or self” (p. 281). He examined the relationship between self-reflection and the desire to be a particular sort of person, that is, a self-evaluating individual. According to Taylor, self-creation requires a great deal of self-analysis. “It is this kind of evaluation/responsibility which many believe to be essential to our notion of the self” (p. 282).
It’s possible to design one’s future identity. The actions that I’ll take in the future will indicate the type of person that I’ll be at that time, so contemplating my ideal values, and considering how to manifest them in action, can be very useful tools for managing my future. This point conveys the possibility of planning and enacting one’s (deeply considered) purposes and goals, that is, applying self-determination in action.
Augusto Blasi [4] described moral character as a combination of commitment to morality, the capacity for self-regulation, and integrity. He noted that integrity includes responsibility and identity.
“Responsibility refers to a special relation a person has with oneself as having appropriated norms and relations, and the roles of duty and obligation that derive from them ... the person makes himself responsible for behaving morally, within the limits of his understanding…[T]here is one kind of identity … that is intrinsically related to the highest integrity. This occurs when a person so identifies with his or her commitments, cherished values and ideals, that he or she constructs around them the sense of a central, essential self. This sort of appropriation … establishes such a hierarchy among the person’s goals and concerns as to create a sense of subjective unity and lifelong direction, and provides one with a sense of depth and necessity in his being” (pp. 91-92, original emphasis).
Thus the kind of human being that one has been, and the kind of person that one is willing to become, are subject to analysis at any time. We can evaluate our past actions and our future alternatives on an ongoing basis. Responsibility, morality and integrity are functions of depth of character, including the practices of articulating one’s motives and applying them in action.
Many people believe that they already know what’s morally right or wrong on the basis of their historical presumptions. They’ve already decided on everything that they need to know about making such decisions. However, while a belief in strict moral rules may be suitable for young children who haven't learned about abstraction and complexity, adults should understand that ethical principles should be applied in different ways under different sets of circumstances, and that moral discernment is developed by considering more than one ethical value at a time.
Being responsible for one’s intellectual and moral development is the first step on the path to identifying the person that one intends to become. Responsibility is instrumental to morality; we can’t practice moral discernment without being responsible for articulating and applying our ethical values and our moral purposes. Moral responsibility is the motive for learning to discuss and apply ethical principles.
And, of course, morality is instrumental to social flourishing. Flourishing in communities requires close attention to moral discernment.
Although everyone is deeply enmeshed in our contingent, historical, cultural and personal values, to fulfil our highest purposes we might need to modify our viewpoints and our lifestyles in ways that we can’t currently imagine.
Brandstätdter and Lerner [5] described the possibility of intentional personal development, pointing out that we each produce our own cognitive and emotional development, while at the same time we’re learning to represent (and to alter our representations) of the people and things around us. Our ideas about ourselves “guide and motivate activities through which we shape the further course of personal development” (p. ix). Many theorists have overlooked the intentional aspect of developmental change as focus of our goal-related activities, and “thus have missed the basic logic of human development as a self-referential process that both creates and is formed by intentionality and action” (p. x).
As Branstädter [6] suggested, “[W]e can form the intention to have particular desires, intentions or beliefs. The capacity to enact such secondary volitions, and to empower them to with sufficient strength to override ‘primary’ action tendencies … constitute an important part of intentional self-development” (p. 40).
It’s possible for us to modify our self-narratives at any time. To optimise the chances that we’ll achieve flourishing lives, we can enact commitments which flow from our most beneficent purposes. To achieve our highest goals we can practice self-determination: declaring our most important values and then enacting them on purpose. Doing so is a matter of individual responsibility, self-regulated learning, and a strong commitment to working well with our social partners.
[1] Brook, A. and Stainton, R.J. (2000). Knowledge and mind. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
[2] Frankfurt, H. (1971). Freedom of the will. The Journal of Philosophy, LXVII. Reprinted in Geirsson, H. and Losonsky, M. (Eds.), Beginning metaphysics, 1998, pp. 407-421. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
[3] Taylor, C. (1976). Responsibility for self. In Rorty, A. O. (Ed.), The identity of persons, pp. 407-421. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[4] Blasi, A. (2005). Moral character: A psychological approach. In D. K. Lapsley & F. C. Power (Eds.), Character psychology and character education (pp. 67-100). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
[5] Branstädter, J. and Lerner, R. M. (1999). Introduction. In J. Branstädter and R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Action and self-development: Theory and research through the life span, (pp. ix-xx). Thousand Oaks, Ca.:Sage Publications Inc.
[6] Branstädter, J. (1999). The self in action and development. In J. Branstädter and R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Action and self-development: Theory and research through the life span, (pp. 37-63). Thousand Oaks, Ca.:Sage Publications Inc.
