One of the cornerstones of Western philosophy is found in the Delphic maxim: “Know Thyself.” This is frequently understood as the idea that the way to a meaningful and ethical life involves deep reflection on and awareness of one’s mental life; that is, understanding how one should live requires self-conscious examination of one’s beliefs and desires and explicit deliberation over whether these are the beliefs and desires one wants to live by.

It’s not surprising that philosophers would be attracted by this notion: after all, reflecting on the human condition is a large part of what they do. But it’s also attractive outside of philosophy. We admire those who are “thoughtful,” admonish people to “think before they speak,” and praise people for “knowing who they are.” In his book, Talking to Ourselves, John Doris takes on this venerable truth about how to live. His argument, based in psychological research, is that this kind of reflection happens more rarely than we think in human life and when it does it is often inaccurate. In the first half of the book, Doris sets up a skeptical problem for the reflectivists, those who endorse the idea that morally responsible agency requires “deliberation informed by accurate self-awareness” (p. 99). In the second half, he develops his positive account of morally responsible agency, which, he argues, both avoids this skeptical conclusion and is built on the prevailing scientific research on human cognition.

One of the most compelling features of Doris’ book is how he weaves together four threads of philosophical thought: reflection, continuity of the self over time, unity of the self, and agency. All of these threads have been the subject of robust philosophical discussion and some philosophers might balk at such an ambitious undertaking. Doris’ book is short, and as he notes, cannot do justice to the literature that has been written on these subjects. But it is this feature that makes the book an engaging and accessible read. By not getting bogged down in internecine fights, Doris is able to lay out his case in a clear and compelling way.

Doris centers his account on moral responsibility. A main reason (though not the only reason) we care about whether and how a person remains the same person over time is because we are concerned with fairly parceling out blame and praise. If there is no continuous person, then it seems unfair to blame someone for her past bad actions. If the self is disunified, there are similar problems. One of the challenges put forward by the empirical literature is a picture of the mind as composed of various processes that seem, at times, to be unconnected to each other and, at others, to be opposed to each other. Under such conditions, how should we think of what it means to be a morally responsible agent?

Another classic trope of Western thought is the solitary thinker: picture Descartes in his cabin in the woods or Rodin’s “The Thinker.”  Doris’ positive theory of agency pushes back hard against this notion. He argues that we need to take seriously humans’ social and collaborative nature and recognize the significance of interpersonal interaction to both our reasoning and our agency.  While this idea needs to be worked out in more detail, it’s welcome to see empirical philosophy that not only challenges traditional views, but also builds on the scientific research to create new theories.

In addition to its sky-eye view of the philosophical terrain, one of the strengths of this book is its overview of a vast amount of empirical literature. Again, this strength could be seen as a flaw. Doris does not spend much time discussing the details of the studies he relies on and only briefly discusses some of the recent controversy surrounding skepticism about the replicability and strength of their findings. But, as he rightly notes, this is always going to be an issue for those engaged in naturalistic philosophizing who attempt to embed theories in the latest scientific research. While some of the research is likely to be debunked in the future, at this point we have decades of research supporting the view that there are different types of processes, some fast and implicit, others slow and conscious, and that these processes often come to “incongruous” (Doris’ term) conclusions. Even worse, perhaps, is the fact that implicit processes are often hidden from conscious reflection, with the result that we are often plain wrong about our underlying motivations for behaving in certain ways. (For a deeper, but still accessible, dive into this literature, see Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow.)

Talking to Our Selves should appeal to all kinds of readers, philosophers and psychologists, students and the general public. For those who are aware of the current state of affairs, Doris is careful to situate his views with respect to other researchers and positions. It’s an excellent model for those pursuing work at the intersection of philosophy and social science. But even for those who have not been following contemporary philosophy in this area, by focusing on the bigger picture, Doris has written an accessible and engaging book and one which gives the reader a sense of where empirical philosophy is headed.

© 2018 Emily Esch

Emily Esch, Associate Professor of Philosophy, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University