I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Saturday Reflections, I take time out to reflect.
Why does a person sometimes do things that are in conflict with the person they wish they were, or wish to become? Philosopher Agnes Callard calls this intrinsic conflict. It’s related to akrasia, a weakness of will or lack of self control.
Callard suggests that it’s aspiration that will provide a way to resolve the intrinsic conflict. In her philosophy, aspiration is a rational process of acquiring new values, preferences, and behaviors.
Some terminology:
- Enkrasia (alternatively enkrateia) – ancient Greek term meaning self-control, self-mastery, or power over one’s passions. Being able to do what you believe you ought to do.
- Akrasia – ancient Greek term for weakness of will or lack of self-control. A state of acting against your better judgement, where you know what you ought to do but you choose to do something else instead.
- Aspiration (in the Callardian sense) – the rational, purposive process of acquiring a new value.
- Proleptic reasoning – a mode of thought or argumentation that anticipates future developments, objections, or value transformations before they are fully realized. Provisional reasoning based on a potential future state of understanding.
- Intrinsic conflict – when a person feels torn between current values and the values they wish they had.
What kind of aspirations might someone have? They might want to become a competent guitar player, a daily meditator, an abstract artist, an everyday philosopher.
Perhaps the most obvious case of intrinsic conflict, though, is the case of health behaviors like overeating, overdrinking, lack of exercise, or overuse of social media (not exactly a health behavior, but perhaps mental health related).
How does aspiration towards health behavior change take place, in the real world?
There’s a model for that: the Stages of Change model, also known as the Transtheoretical Model (TTM), developed by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente starting in the late 1970s. They based it on analysis and experience with different theories of psychotherapy which gives it its official name. “Stages of Change” is apparently an incomplete name for it, as it includes processes of change and levels of change too.
The temporal stages of change in this model are:
- Precontemplation – no intention to change and may be unaware that their behavior is problematic
- Contemplation – beginning to recognize behavior is problematic, start to look at pros and cons of continuing as they are or changing
- Preparation – intending to take action in the immediate future and may begin taking small steps towards behavior change
- Action – making specific modifications in their behavior both modifying the problem behavior and acquiring new healthy behaviors
- Maintenance – have been able to sustain action for a substantial period of times such as six months and are now working to prevent relapse
- Termination – have zero temptation towards the problem behavior and feel sure they will not return to their old unhealthy habit(s)
There is also the possibility of Relapse, the return from Action or Maintenance to an earlier stage.
Some theorists have suggested that the stage of change can be analogized to stages of the innovation adoption process in Everett Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory.
So aspiration towards behavior change might be thought of as an innovation in someone’s value and behavioral system.
Is all aspiration about behavior change?
If you want to become a minimalist… that requires behavior change.
If you want to become a concert pianist… that requires behavior change.
If you want to become a New York Times bestseller writer… that requires behavior change.
So perhaps aspiration is ultimately about behavior change? And it’s an innovation in someone’s behavior and the values underlying that behavior?