Abstract: According to Harry Frankfurt, we enjoy free will only when we wholeheartedly endorse our actions. Thus Frankfurt views ambivalence as a “disease of the will” that undermines our freedom by undermining the coherence of our volitional identity. While I agree that there’s a link between free will and identity, I argue that the unification of the self may involve holding together an incoherent set of identifications—especially for personalities forged within culturally diverse communities. I hope to show that the ambivalence inherent in such “intersectional identity” allows for the self-reflection and creativity that is essential for free will.
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Free Will and Wholehearted Ambivalence
In this paper I explicate and critique Harry Frankfurt’s influential theory of free will. On his view, we enjoy free will only when we act on desires we wholeheartedly endorse. Frankfurt contrasts wholeheartedness with ambivalence, which he views as a “disease of the will”
(“Faintest” 100) that undermines our freedom by undermining the unity and coherence of our identity. While I agree that there’s an important conceptual link between free will and the
“unity” of our identity, I claim, contra Frankfurt, that the unification of the self may involve holding together an incoherent set of identifications. This is especially true of personalities forged at the intersections of culturally disparate communities. I argue that the ambivalence inherent in “intersectional identity” allows for critical self-reflection, intentional self-creation, and thoughtful action, all of which are essential to our freedom of will.
I.
To see clearly why Frankfurt thinks ambivalence undermines free will, let me briefly review the main points of his theory. Many creatures have “first-order desires,” which are
“desires to do or not do one thing or another” (67). But unlike other creatures, we persons also form “second-order desires,” which have as their object, not our actions, but our first-order desires. Frankfurt reserves the term “will” for our effective first-order desires—those that move
us to action (68). A second-order desire that some first-order desire should become our will,
Frankfurt terms a “second-order volition.” The capacity to evaluate our first-order desires and form second-order volitions is integral to his conceptions of free will and personhood. Frankfurt claims that when our effective first-order desires “mesh” with our second-order volitions, our actions reflect our volitional identity and thus are the products of our free will.
But why, Gary Watson has asked, should we treat second-order volitions as authoritative?
In response, Frankfurt introduced the notion of “wholeheartedness.” He claims we constitute our
“selves” by wholeheartedly endorsing some desires and rejecting others (“Identification” 170).
Further, among our endorsed desires, we must establish a “single ordering” that establishes our priorities over time (170). This process of “ordering and rejection” doesn’t necessarily remove conflict between desires (nor does rejection entail repression1); rather, the conflict is
“transformed into a conflict between one of [the desires] and the person who has identified himself with its rival” (“Identification” 170, 172).
Wholeheartedness, then, constitutes the self as a coherent and stable set of rank ordered desires. “In the absence of whole-heartedness,” however, “the person is ... himself divided”
(“Identification” 165). Such ambivalence is, for Frankfurt, a “disease of the will” that involves endorsing conflicting desires or attitudes toward the same object (“Faintest” 99-100). On this view, ambivalence destroys free will because it undermines the coherence of the self.
However, as I’ll argue, Frankfurt exaggerates the dangers of ambivalence and gives short shrift to its agentic potential. No doubt ambivalence can be self-defeating, but ambivalent agents may take constructive and self-expressive action (which they “own”) in spite, or even because, of ambivalence. Indeed, ambivalence may be central to our self-conceptions. This raises the
1 See Frankfurt, Harry. “Reply to J. David Velleman.”
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possibility (which Frankfurt denies) of wholehearted ambivalence—which I construe not as unequivocal endorsement of our actions, but as unequivocal identification with the ambivalent self our actions reflect. While we should try to resolve “self”-defeating ambivalence, the capacity to identify with conflicting perspectives allows for a richer, more internally diverse, self- conception and enables us to better negotiate a complex social world. In developing this point, I draw on Edwina Barvosa-Carter’s work on relational autonomy, which itself is a development of
Gloria Anzaldúa’s work on “mestiza consciousness.”
II.
Interestingly, Frankfurt’s compatibilist theory of free will accommodates the significant role socialization plays in forming our character. However, his theory doesn’t say enough about how cultural influences shape our desires. For example, a young man raised in a small Bible Belt town who experiences homosexual desires likely would internalize heterosexist values and reject such desires while endorsing his effective first-order desires to conform with local gender and sex norms. That his second-order volitions and effective first-order desires mesh, despite persistent “outlaw” desires, doesn’t dispel the suspicion that his effective hetero-normative desires don’t reflect his “real” self. Being socialized in an isolated, homogenous community affords little opportunity to develop the critical self-consciousness which Frankfurt sometimes recognizes as essential for agentic development.
In contrast to such wholeheartedness, ambivalence is inescapable for those socialized at the intersections of culturally disparate communities. Barvosa-Carter has pointed to the significance of Anzaldúa’s notion of “mestiza consciousness” to capture the ambivalent mode of self-awareness and self-creation characteristic of intersectional identity. The term “mestiza” refers to a woman of mixed Spanish and American Indian descent. As Barsova-Carter notes,
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however, “mestiza consciousness” may refer to any “subjectivity characterized by a diversity of different identities ... that mingle and collide within the self” (6-7). Thus mestiza consciousness is not uncommon. Given the complexity and interconnectedness of our world, most of us have multiple identities shaping our endorsements. Unlike the young man’s repressive hetero- normative socialization, the ambivalence inherent in intersectional identity allows for critical self-reflection, intentional self-creation, and thoughtful action.
Borvosa-Carter has coined the term “mestiza autonomy,” which she defines as an
“account of autonomy in which an agent who has a diversity of social relations and group memberships critically reflects upon the contents of her particular social and personal identities to forge a set of guiding endorsements” (9). Despite her claims to the contrary, it seems that such an account is compatible with Frankfurt’s notion of wholeheartedness. An agent who displays mestiza autonomy, in Barvosa-Carter’s sense, has a coherent set of guiding endorsements— though they’re drawn from multiple sources. Barvosa-Carter defines the “ambivalence” within mestiza autonomy as “an equivocating connection to selected principles that [the agent] ultimately does not endorse and will not act upon” (14). This is not what Frankfurt means by ambivalence. Whatever this “equivocating connection” amounts to, it isn’t something that entails conflict within the agent’s guiding endorsements.
Frankfurt’s view implies that, insofar as our identities beget conflicting endorsements, we have less free will. But given the inherent multiplicity of, and conflict within, mestiza consciousness, the standard of volitional coherence fails to recognize the agentic capacities of intersectional subjects. As Anzaldúa argues, la mestiza’s plural identity allows her to break from set patterns of thought in a holistic movement of self-creation that incorporates conflicting identifications without forcing coherence—she “learns to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be
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Mexican from an Anglo point of view” (101). Significantly, la mestiza’s ambivalence doesn’t leave her unable to act in a self-affirming way; rather, the “Western mode” (to use Anzaldua’s term) is crippling insofar as it forces an inauthentic coherence.
Insofar as la mestiza’s contrasting identities beget conflicting endorsements (e.g.,
“traditionalist” versus “assimilationist” attitudes), their co-existence in one psyche begets ambivalence. On the Western (either/or) conception of identity, which Frankfurt endorses, la mestiza’s integrity as an agentic person hinges on her ability to overcome ambivalence and, where there is conflict, unequivocally side with her indigenous self, her Euro/Spanish-American self, or some third conceptual and/or normative perspective. While it’s possible to construct a coherent, non-ambivalent personality from diverse sources (as with Borvosa-Carter’s notion of mestiza autonomy), such a person wouldn’t exemplify mestiza consciousness because she wouldn’t view herself as authentically Indian, Mexican, and/or Anglo, but rather as an atomic individual who has constructed her own identity out of cultural materials from which she stands apart. Mestiza consciousness, by contrast, is structurally conflicted. On the view I’m urging, la mestiza has internalized and reflectively endorsed different rank-ordered sets of endorsements associated with different socially given identities.2 None of these trump the others; so when they conflict she can’t wholeheartedly endorse any particular first-order desire or attitude, because there’s no further “real self” apart from her conflicting identifications. However, as I’ll argue, we can act with free will even when our actions reflect deep ambivalence.
In his poem, “I Am Joaquin” (a founding document of the Chicano movement), Rodolfo
2 This is not to suggest that every member of a given community has the same rank ordered set of desires and attitudes. All communities contain a degree of internal diversity. However, a commitment to some group affiliation necessarily places certain constraints on our endorsements and their rank order.
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Gonzales illustrates the agentic potential of mestiza consciousness.3 Gonzales’s speaker, Joaquin
(a Chicano everyman), rejects binary thinking and, despite the psychic conflict it entails, takes ownership of (and thus responsibility for) both his Euro/Spanish-American and indigenous identities. Thus, one salient aspect of Joaquin’s conflicted identity is its ambivalence between poles of dominance (“tyrant”) and subordination (“slave”). If Joaquin were to disown the attitudes and desires shaped by his identification with subjugation, he would be denying a social reality and foreclosing the possibility of resistance; and if he were to wholeheartedly embrace those same attitudes, he would succumb to hopelessness (see Meyers, 170). By contrast, ambivalence regarding his own subject position (and the attitudes shaped by it) allows Joaquin to respond to the reality of his subjugation without allowing it to totalize his identity.
Suppose he could resolve his psychic conflict by developing a more fine-grained self- conception. Joaquin could compartmentalize his identity and adapt to norms appropriate to certain culturally specific contexts: he may speak Spanish sometimes and English at others. But this strategy won’t always work. If Joaquin were to conceive of himself as dominant in certain contexts but subordinate in others, the same problem would just reemerge within localized contexts. He would foreclose resistance within spheres of subordination (e.g., in the workplace), and within spheres of dominance (e.g., in the household) he would foreclose empathy for his subordinates. Maintaining a more fluid ambivalence between poles of dominance and subordination allows Joaquin to simultaneously inhabit conflicting subject positions and gives him the cognitive flexibility needed for reflective agency across contexts.
I take Joaquin as a counterexample to Frankfurt’s claim that “No one can be wholeheartedly ambivalent” (“Faintest” 106). Joaquin’s subjectivity is ambivalent, yet he insists
3 Gonzales wrote “I am Joaquin” twenty years before Anzaldúa coined the term “mestiza consciousness.”
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that his “blood is pure.” The purity of his “mixed” blood signifies the wholeheartedness of his commitment to ambivalence. Gonzales’s poem suggests that embracing conflict within the self is the only way for Joaquin—given the materials out of which his subjectivity has been forged—to be whole, healthy, and agentic. While Joaquin’s identity is divided by conflicting endorsements, at a “higher” (say, third-order) level he is decisively committed to embodying that conflict. Such ambivalence is not a form of (higher-order) wantonness; rather, it entails special concern for the second-order attitudes and desires that figure prominently in our self-conception.
On the one hand, mestiza/os like Joaquin are proud of their Spanish cultural inheritance.
On the other hand, they may be ashamed of Spanish treatment of American Indians. Such attitudes can’t be neatly delineated as they tend toward further conflict: shame about pride, pride about shame, etc. Thus many mestiza/os are conflicted (e.g.) about participating in rituals such as
Founders Day, which celebrate their conquistador heritage. La mestiza may desire to participate and desire not to participate. Whatever she decides, la mestiza may feel she has betrayed part of herself. So she looks for compromise. She tries to strike an uneasy balance between participation and protest. While such ambivalent actions aren’t emotionally satisfying, they represent thoughtful reflection on her situation vis-à-vis her core (albeit conflicting) commitments. La mestiza addresses conflict between second-order volitions, not by outlawing those that reflect either her Spanish or Indian identifications, but by finding compromises that allow her to hold together her plural identity. In so doing, her actions express her “real self” better than wholehearted expressions of, say, Spanish pride or Indian pain.
For Anzaldúa, her Latina and lesbian identifications are important aspects of her personality. However, these can’t be unified into a simple “Latina lesbian” identity. As Cheshire
Calhoun points out, “Within Hispanic culture, lesbianism is an abomination. Within the lesbian
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community, Hispanic values and ways of living do not have central value” (239). Despite incoherence, Anzaldúa is committed to inhabiting both identities. Paul Benson notes that such a situation leaves “no alternative but to maintain a divided identity, not because of thoughtlessness, self-deception, or lack of self control, but precisely because of ... reflectiveness, integrity, and steadfast care” (105).
Again, we might ask why Anzaldúa couldn’t identify as Latina while rejecting its homophobic aspects, thus enabling her to endorse desires issuing from her (purified) Latina identity while outlawing socially given heterosexist attitudes. But the question ignores the multiple forms of oppression (racist and heterosexist) working against Latina lesbians. Anzaldúa is critical of Latina/o heterosexism, but while her non-heterosexist attitudes had been partly forged within the (Anglo-)lesbian community, her critique of Latina norms concerning family, gender, and sexuality is internal to a Latina/o normative perspective. That is, Anzaldúa seeks out and emphasizes non-heterosexist modes of life that already exist (however marginalized) within
Latina/o traditions. For a mestiza like Anzaldúa, who was educated in Western universities, to criticize Latina/o culture from an Anglo-feminist perspective would reproduce the dynamics of
Western cultural imperialism by implicitly advocating for the superiority of Western knowledge and morality, thus alienating her from her Latino/a identity. Notice that such “internal criticism” requires ambivalence, since it requires that we inhabit the conceptual and normative perspective of the system of values we seek to change.
While it’s true that we can identify with some aspects of a culture and disown others, we can’t pick and choose as we please. Some aspects of a culture are so fundamental to the common identity of its members that to disown them entirely would be to renounce membership in the
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community. Consider the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents U.S.
Catholic sisters and is at odds with the Vatican over sex and reproductive issues. Rather than reject Catholic teachings from an external, “radical feminist” perspective (as the Vatican has claimed), the LCWR stresses its Catholic identity. Thus on “pro-life” issues, which are central to
Catholicism, LCWR president Sister Pat Farrell notes that her group questions “any policy that’s more pro-fetus than pro-life.... We’ve strongly spoken out against the death penalty, war, hunger.” By framing her critique in terms of a shared endorsement of “life,” Farrell affirms her
Catholic identity even as she criticizes the Church’s overemphasis of “fetus” rights. If Farrell were to wholeheartedly reject the Church’s abortion stance, she would be excommunicated— thus alienating her from an important aspect of her identity.4 Rather than positioning herself in strict opposition to the Church on abortion, she positions herself as a participant in a larger
“Catholic” conversation by drawing attention to the Church’s neglect of a spectrum of life issues it already recognizes. In Anzaldú’s terms, Farrell is learning to be a feminist from a Catholic point of view, and a Catholic from a feminist point of view. Farrell’s ambivalence is not, as
Frankfurt’s view implies, symptomatic of a lack of self-knowledge—to side wholeheartedly with either her feminist self or her Catholic self would be to betray a valuable part of her “real self.”
Further, it isn’t always possible to cleanly separate negative from positive aspects of a culture. Consider a heterosexual feminist woman who views traditional marriage as patriarchal but also wants to marry a man. Suppose she decides to marry but rejects aspects of marriage linked to patriarchy or sexism—e.g., she does not call herself Mrs., take her husband’s surname, or wear a wedding ring. While this may satisfy her feminist endorsements, insofar as her
4 E.g., when the “Danube Seven,” a group of Catholic women who opposed the prohibition on women’s ordination, defied the Church and claimed priesthood for themselves, they were excommunicated. They lacked the linguistic, cultural, and institutional authority to redefine Catholicism. By contrast, the LCWR has worked to expand the role of women within the institutional framework of the Church.
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decision to marry was motivated by an endorsed desire for public recognition of her committed relationship, her rejection of traditional symbols of marriage (all tainted by a patriarchal history) would leave her desire for a publically recognizable form of commitment unfulfilled. She may be unable to separate the positive aspects of marriage from its negative aspects. The two are blended together in a way that requires constant negotiation, creativity, and ambivalence to inhabit the identity of “married heterosexual feminist woman.”
Finally, even if it were possible to construct a coherent set of endorsements from ostensibly conflicting identities, it may not be possible to establish a single rank ordering that wouldn’t reductively privilege one identity over another. For example, someone conflicted between a desire to be a good parent and a desire to succeed in business arguably can’t establish a stable rank order of priorities that privileges her child without undermining her career goals.
Nor can she consistently privilege her career without sacrificing her child’s welfare. Again, it seems the best option is to maintain fluidity in the ordering of her desires so she can respond to situations as they arise.
One may object that she should establish a rank order of desires fine-grained enough to allow her to make context-specific decisions which reflect her “real” priorities. However, such a requirement would be too cognitively and emotionally demanding. She need not always decide in advance, given a certain choice context, which of her first-order desires she wants to be her will. Further, it may be unsettling to know that, if forced to choose between, say, an important meeting and her child’s dance recital, she would wholeheartedly endorse attending the meeting
(or that she would wholeheartedly endorse attending the recital). Such absolute “self-knowledge” may undermine her self-conception as both a good parent and a dedicated businesswoman.
Ambivalence, by contrast, would allow her to hold together her conflicting identities by retaining
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fluidity among her rank ordered desires.
III.
Recall that, for Frankfurt, ambivalence is destructive of free will because volitional conflict leads to “self”-betrayal. But this presupposes that a real self (the one our conflicting desires “betray”) must be simple, and, as I’ve been arguing, there’s multiplicity within our identities. Frankfurt’s insistence on the coherence of the self makes little sense once we’ve jettisoned the Cartesian notion of a self ontologically distinct from our embodied, socially constituted identity. Given the inherent plurality of our identities, our ambivalent endorsements can reflect (third-order) compromise between conflicting (second-order) volitional movements.
Actions that flow from ambivalent endorsements wouldn’t be self-defeating. As the outcome of multi-perspectival reflection, such actions arguably represent our real (i.e., plural) self most faithfully. An adequate “real self” theory of free will, therefore, must allow for the possibility that our freely willed actions may reflect ambivalence.
Since we are (at least partially) socially constituted, our metaphysical descriptions of persons and the conditions for free will have important social and political implications.
Frankfurt is right to claim an important role for self-unification as it relates to human freedom since making ourselves whole involves actively integrating our communities as well as our psyches. And yet, as cultures sustain conflicting identifications within themselves, so do persons.
Thus the only way to truly “unify” ourselves is to take ownership of the multiplicity within us, which is a reflection of the multiplicity of the social forces that have shaped us. This suggests that an adequate “real self” theory of free will must allow for the possibility that our freely willed actions may reflect ambivalence.
In his more recent work, Frankfurt allows that some persons are situated such that, for
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them, holding ambivalent attitudes is best, all-things-considered. “But,” he insists, “no one can desire to be ambivalent for its own sake” (“Faintest” 106). True. However, it seems that wholeheartedness for its own sake is no more desirable. Wholeheartedness is compatible with
(inter alia) racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and insipid dullness. It matters greatly what we are wholehearted about. Further, Frankfurt fails to fully appreciate ambivalence’s constructive role in the process of authentic self-unification—not only by motivating us to consider our desires and attitudes from multiple perspectives and resolve conflicts where possible, but also (and more importantly) by allowing us to find creative ways to express and
“own” our inconsistency where necessary. He thus fails to see that we can be wholeheartedly ambivalent. As such, Frankfurt’s account of free will relies on an overly simplistic, abstract, and idealized model of human agency.
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Gross, Terry. “Interview with Sister Pat Farrell.” Fresh Air. NPR 17/156858223/an-american-nun-responds-to-vatican-condemnation>. (July 17, 2012). FREE WILL AND WHOLEHEARTED AMBIVALENCE Meyers, Diana. “Intersectional Identity and the Authentic Self.” In Mackenzie and Stoljar (eds.), Relational Autonomy. (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 151-180. Watson, Gary. “Free Agency.” In Fischer (ed.), Moral Responsibility. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 81-96. FREE WILL AND WHOLEHEARTED AMBIVALENCE