In Search of Normativity of Unconscious Reasoning

PUZZLES CHURCH is "DEEPLY" PUZZLED by "the idea that we can be ignorant of our own reasons" (2005, 31). I was, at first sight, puzzled by this puzzlement. There is no question that we, indeed, are ignorant of many of our reasons. In cases of routine behavior, for instance, we are often not, or only dimly, aware of the reasons for doing something. When I use the indicator when taking a turn to the left with my car, 1 have no conscious reason for doing so. It has become routine behavior, acquired during my lessons in car driving. My non-awareness may even be considered as sign of my excellence as a driver. This non-awareness is most noteworthy in all those cases in which we, again routinely, withdraw from a particular action. Education and training not only teach us how and why to perform certain activities, they also give us reasons to refrain from all sorts of other actions. There are many reasons to do certain things; there seem to be many more reasons for not doing other things. To suppose that having reasons would by necessity involve conscious awareness of these reasons would life make impossible to live. So, ignorance seems to be very common, not to say trivial. This raises the question whether there is anything nontrivial in the attempt to make sense of ignorance of our reasons. What element or aspect of ignorance is it that may evoke philosophical interest? Jennifer Church seems to have in mind different overlapping concerns. In the first part of her paper, she addresses (1) the issue of legitimacy; that is, the specification of conditions under which attributions of unconscious content are legitimate or illegitimate; and (2) the issue of normativiry; that is, the question how and why unconscious reasons can be normative for me. The first question can be discussed without reference to a self; the second question cannot. In the second part of the paper there arise new concerns: (3) the issue of having reasons that can not be recognized as reasons by oneself, "strange reasons" so to say, with spatial reasoning as a paradigm case; and (4) the issue of being moved by ones reasons through the visceral connection between desires and beliefs on the one hand and motor activity (external or internal) on the other hand; this connection is secured by our emotions.