Choice in a two systems world: picking & weighing or managing & metacognition

Abstract

Intuitively, choices seem to be intentional actions but it is difficult to see how they could be. If our choices are all about weighing up reasons then there seems no room for an additional intentional act of choice. Richard Holton has suggested a solution to this puzzle, which involves thinking of choices in a two systems of cognition framework. Holton's suggestion does solve the puzzle, but has some unsatisfactory consequences. This paper wants to take over the important insights from Holton on the phenomenology of choice and the possible explanation via a two systems framework, but wants to suggest an alternative more satisfactory account. This account is built around the idea that choices are what Pamela Hieronymi calls managerial acts. After developing the claim the paper then defends it against the objection that managerial control cannot be understood in a system1 context, by examining recent research on uncertainty monitoring and early forms of metacognition.

Free will without consciousness?

“…Similarly, we can ask whether the agent needs to be consciously aware of consciously making the decision (i.e., to have a conscious metacognitive judgment of making a decision; D2). Such higher-order awareness does not appear necessary for free will (but see [79]); in fact, in all the reviewed studies, this was not even tested. Importantly, in real life, we rarely make such meta-judgments over our decisions, including those we regard as free.…”

Two Distinctions That Help to Chart the Interplay Between Conscious and Unconscious Volition

“…Consciousness can provide what Vierkant (2018), following Hieronymi (2009), calls “managerial control” of deliberation processes leading up to a choice/intention formation. That is, control aimed at facilitating and enabling the process of intention formation, even when part of that process is unconscious.…”

“…349–350). Furthermore, Vierkant (2018, p. 7) argues that refraining from reopening deliberation after forming an intention that is co-caused by unconscious preferences is also part of the managerial control of deliberation. There is a fourth function of consciousness that makes it a necessary part of some processes leading up to intention-formation and that may also count as contributing to managerial control.…”

Doing Things with Thoughts: Brain-Computer Interfaces and Disembodied Agency

“…However, some authors draw a distinction of different forms of mental agency and argue that not all forms of mental actions are similar to bodily actions. For Tillmann Vierkant (2018) and Pamela Hieronymi (2009), the so-called managerial control is the only kind of mental action that is similar to bodily actions. Managerial control is an "intentional mental action with the purpose of creating an environment that will facilitate cognitive activity and the management of attitudes" (Vierkant 2018, 6).…”