# Is volitional restraint bad?
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998
**Category:** Psychology and Mind
**Created:** [September 13, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998 "2016-09-13T01:07:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/1 "2016-09-13T01:07:35Z")
Nietzsche said that “by doing we forego”.
This implies that not doing something should be a consequence of doing something else.
It is evident that it is possible for humans to choose to forego without doing. But is this a good thing?
Should we always push forward? Should we always avoid retreating? Should we interpret volitional retreat as external force internalized?
Is non-volitional impulsivity a consequence of poor inhibiton or a consequence of not pushing forward with sufficient force and at adequate point(s)?
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### Author:  [@Arminius](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Arminius)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/2 "2016-09-13T02:23:01Z")
We should not always push forward? But: [Can we slow down the modern velocity?](http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=187240)
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### Author:  [@The\_Golden\_Turd](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/The_Golden_Turd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2016, 1:36pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/3 "2016-09-13T13:36:53Z")
Acelylcholine
Sounds like your horrifically outdated in your Nietzschean understanding how action potential works, both in choice and inhibition.
Please don’t define what WTP and whatsnot means. It means nothing, no point.salvaging it. Just read the wiki on that, look up neural inhibitors as well. No more Nietzsche, just focus on Truth instead.
Serious, no more.
Dude, I said no fucking more.
Stop.
Stop.
Fucking stop, your angry voice won’t prove shit, just go read up on it.
[en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcholine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcholine)
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2016, 4:41am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/4 "2016-09-14T04:41:43Z")
I don’t recall mentioning my opinions. I asked questions, that’s what I did.
You’re not only a turd, you are also a tard. You need to loosen up on your unintelligent hatred of Nietzsche.
When I say “loosen up” I mean volitionally restrain your unintelligent impulses.
There is also no need for neuroscience. Neuroscience is too complicated. These kinds of questions require no more than self-analysis.
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### Author:  [@Prismatic567](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Prismatic567)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2016, 5:28am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/5 "2016-09-14T05:28:20Z")
Note
Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do – The Art of Fighting Without Fighting.
[allaboutmartialarts.com/bruc … -fighting/](http://www.allaboutmartialarts.com/bruce-lees-jeet-kune-art-fighting-without-fighting/)
The above is adapted from the Wu-Wei of Taoism
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu\_wei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei)
> [@](#):
>
> Wu may be translated as not have or without; Wei may be translated as do, act, serve as, govern or effort. The literal meaning of wu wei is “without action”, “without effort”, or “without control”, and is often included in the paradox wei wu wei: “action without action” or “effortless doing”.
Thus all actions must flow spontaneously,
[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow\_(psychology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology))
> [@](#):
>
> In positive psychology, flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.
The above positive approaches for humanity thus do not condone volitional restraints which is at the highest philosophical level is ultimately bad.
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### Author:  [@Ultimate\_Philosophy](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Ultimate_Philosophy)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2016, 1:03pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/6 "2016-09-14T13:03:44Z")
We need nueroscience just as cars need mechanics. We are the drivers of the car, but it helps to know what’s under the hood too.
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### Author:  [@The\_Golden\_Turd](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/The_Golden_Turd)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2016, 12:04am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/7 "2016-09-15T00:04:02Z")
You ask qustions of neural science, you should be related to knowledgeably carry forward in neural science.
Wu Wei is only the result of Ding Fa, fixing standards. In observing nature or rules, one sees the other, both preceeding and succeeding the other. A populace controlled by laws, a army by the ordering of the flags, a creek flows by the rocks and banks, our ability to observe and interprete are by similar modes. Wu wei aims ultimately for comformity through emulation, sensing Fa and intuiting Fa, in the population through displays of the emperor and the conduct of his officials. Fa is coercive, but isn’t merely a legalist concept, it has the same prototaoists origins as other adopted taoist ideas later on would embrace. These ideas are ideologically intangled.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2016, 1:11pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/8 "2016-10-01T13:11:55Z")
> [@Magnus Anderson](#):
>
> Nietzsche said that “by doing we forego”.
>
> This implies that not doing something should be a consequence of doing something else.
>
> It is evident that it is possible for humans to choose to forego without doing. But is this a good thing?
>
> Should we always push forward? Should we always avoid retreating? Should we interpret volitional retreat as external force internalized?
>
> Is non-volitional impulsivity a consequence of poor inhibiton or a consequence of not pushing forward with sufficient force and at adequate point(s)?
I am not sure that it is possible for humans to choose to forego without doing. If I forego any given thing and alternately remain idle (in some position, perhaps seated, lying down, standing by, or spending time frivolously) I am nonetheless doing something through which I have foregone the alternative.
In the same aphorism Nietzsche says “I do not want to strive for my impoverishment with open eyes”. Nietzsche’s eyes are opened to the fact that one is always engaged, even if one is lethargic or frivolous, and his self-consciousness tells him that it is best, when in choosing to say no, one chooses a yes through which to engage oneself. (It goes without saying that it would be equally clear to Nietzsche that sometimes a human body needs rest and therefore to be in the position of rest is also sometimes nutritive for the body.)
The implication, I think, is that Nietzsche abhors a morality which says no but does not reveal its yes.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/9 "2016-10-02T18:35:46Z")
There is a categorical (= qualitative) difference between doing (= action) and not doing (= inaction.)
While it is true that you can interpret not doing as a form of doing you are at the same time overshadowing the aforementioned qualitative difference. That’s not a good thing.
One of the reasons people have a negative attitude towards restraint is the fact that they are unable to differentiate, and thus have a choice between, reduction of activity and its increase.
Often you will hear people complaining of “excessive strictness”. This is because when they restrain themselves they do not reduce but increase activity.
They overwhelm themselves.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/10 "2016-10-02T19:15:29Z")
There is no overshadowing any qualitative difference in saying to sit idle or to engage are two different acts. Categorizing two different things as acts does not by necessity mean they are qualitatively indistinguishable, so your assertion is a non sequitur.
I am not sure what your comments on restraint were intended for. There could be many reasons for differing attitudes towards restraint, but what is at issue is whether in any given instance restaint is what is called for, and further what qualities are necessary to possess it.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2016, 9:21pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/11 "2016-10-02T21:21:59Z")
If there is a qualitative difference between doing and not-doing this means that it is possible to forego without doing.
In such a case, not-doing would mean “reducing activity” and doing would mean “increasing activity”.
But is not-doing not a form of doing? Grammatically speaking, it seems to be. But in reality, they seem to be opposite movements. One toward less activity (not-doing) and the other toward more activity (doing.)
Restraint is about not doing i.e. reducing activity.
The question here is whether one should reduce activity by focusing on its reduction without focusing on increasing any other activity (volitional restraint, or foregoing without doing) or by focusing on increasing some other activity without focusing on reducing the activity in question (non-volitional restraint, or foregoing by doing.)
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2016, 9:48pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/12 "2016-10-02T21:48:26Z")
I understand there is a qualitative difference between doing and not-doing. In the instance you provide, that it is possible to forego without doing, the activity of foregoing, and likewise the not-doing, are dependent on the doing in question, and are not instances of being in themselves. For example, if the object I was doing was swinging a bat with much force, I could not do this action and thus forego it and effectively be ‘not swinging a bat’, but such a negative statement says nothing about what I actually am doing, nothing relevant about my actual state and self-understanding. If the foregoing in a decrease of the force through which I swing the bat then I am still doing, I am swinging the bat one could say perhaps with mild force, etc.
“focusing on increasing some other activity without focusing on reducing the activity in question” - this is the answer I would give to your final question, though I would not yet say for certain that no focus should be given to the activity which needs restraint, but a certain kind of focus, and so perhaps there is a combination of both answers.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2016, 10:44pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/13 "2016-10-02T22:44:34Z")
An example of not-doing would be activities such as relaxation and meditation. The goal of these activities is to reduce nervous activity – not any kind of activity but nervous activity – to the point there is no longer any mentally coordinated action.
The immediate object of manipulation is nervous activity. To not swing a bat means that one is not swinging a bat, but more importantly, it means there is no nervous impulse to swing a bat. If there is, it would entail eliminating this impulse (which is what “reduction of activity” refers to.)
Not doing, then, does not simply mean doing something else. It literally means not doing.
Volitional restraint has an advantage over non-volitional restraint. The advantage is that it creates room for activity. It allows for clarity.
Non-volitional restraint is prone to repression since it tries to create room for activity as it introduces it.
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/14 "2016-10-03T00:48:37Z")
The examples you gave of not doing are still examples of things one is doing. When one is relaxing one usually enters particular positions and engages in for example deep breathing. To call these activities not doing is to pervert language.
The “advantage” you describe is also illusory because “room” you are speaking of is not an actual entity. If behaviour changes, there is no reason that it is the result of any abstract room created within the individual. A change of behaviour does not imply any such figmentary “room”, nor is there any reason to believe such room to exist.
If one needs to restrain a feeling of laziness, for example, one does not need to stop and relax to create a room in order to engage in exercise, but merely to change orientation and activity.
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### Author:  [@fuse](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/fuse)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2016, 5:01am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/15 "2016-10-03T05:01:59Z")
> [@Magnus Anderson](#):
>
> Nietzsche said that “by doing we forego”.
>
> This implies that not doing something should be a consequence of doing something else.
“By doing we forego” - I like that. I read The Gay Science years ago, but I didn’t remember that phrase.
Nietzsche is saying he prefers morality that is grounded in the positive, Do ‘x’ ! As opposed to morality grounded in the negative, Don’t do ‘x’ ! (Do no harm!) There’s nothing problematic about volitional restraint (N. effectively praises “self”-moderation below, not as a moral paradigm, but as a condition of those with stronger will), just entire moralities grounded in restraint.
From Twilight of the Idols, same topic:
> [@Nietzsche](#):
>
> The church fights passion with excision in every sense: its practice, its “cure,” is castratism. It never asks: “How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a craving?” It has at all times laid the stress of discipline on extirpation (of sensuality, of pride, of the lust to rule, of avarice, of vengefulness). But an attack on the roots of passion means an attack on the roots of life: the practice of the church is hostile to life.
>
> The same means in the fight against a craving — castration, extirpation — is instinctively chosen by those who are too weak-willed, too degenerate, to be able to impose moderation on themselves […] Radical means are indispensable only for the degenerate; the weakness of the will — or, to speak more definitely, the inability not to respond to a stimulus — is itself merely another form of degeneration.
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### Author:  [@Fixed\_Cross](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Fixed_Cross)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/16 "2016-10-03T05:11:08Z")
> [@Anderson](#):
>
> 
>
> Volitional restraint, is it bad?
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2016, 8:42am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/17 "2016-10-03T08:42:18Z")
@Xenophon:
The point is that one is reducing nervous activity. One becomes slower, more silent, overall. In extreme cases, one becomes unconscious. You are missing this aspect.
There is indeed such a thing as “room”. What makes you think there isn’t? The fact that you don’t perceive it?
There is only so much activity that a nervous system can handle. When the threshold level is exceeded – when nervous system is overloaded – one becomes overwhelmed. A common coping mechanism is repression which means storing some of the nervous activity within the body (which is felt as tension.)
Clearly, there is such a thing as “room”. When you dissipate some of the nervous activity – say through meditation – you create “room” for new activity.
You have an idealistic understanding of how coordination works. It’s not a simple “change of orientation”.
Can an athlete running at full speed suddenly “change his orientation” and stand still? No, he will end up overwhelming himself due to the momentum he has built.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2016, 10:35am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/18 "2016-10-03T10:35:48Z")
The above example of athlete trying to stop after acquiring running momentum is not exactly adequate because the athlete is trying to reduce activity. Abruptly, yes, but nonetheless to reduce activity.
There is an intuitive preference of gradual slowing down over sudden slowing down but that appears to say little about the problem of the idea that the process of directing one’s behavior consists merely in “change of orientation”.
There is indeed such a thing as “change of orientation”. The question is: what kind of change?
I insist that there is an important distinction to be made between doing and not-doing.
You can focus on increasing activity (doing) or decreasing it (not-doing.) I think that in the ideal case the two processes run in parallel (think how the heating of the computer processors has to be balanced with cooling fans running in parallel.)
A more appropriate example to demonstrate my point is an emotionally overwhelmed person who wants to think.
Should he simply “change his orientation” away from his emotions toward whatever he wants to think about or should he first calm himself down?
The former may work, there is no doubt, if the individual can dissipate emotions at the same time he’s starting to think. But what if he cannot? What if his emotions remain in his system? Don’t you think they would end up confusing his process of thinking?
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### Author:  [@Xenophon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Xenophon)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2016, 11:16am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/19 "2016-10-03T11:16:35Z")
Even if one foregoes nervous energy, one will possess a different mental or physical state and not merely a not-nervous state.
The example of the runner is the same as the one I gave with swinging a bat. If a runner slows down then the runner is not not-doing but is instead running slowly, or slowing down his pace, etc.
I do not have an idealistic idea of how coordination works. Your final questions seem to betray a confusion. If you look at the first post I put here I already made it clear that when one changes one’s active orientation intelligently one will do those things which are necessary and nutritive including rest when it is needed.
I do not think such room exists because I have personally acted and restrained myself and I know such room is unnecessary. For there to be something like necessary restraint there must first be some kind of inappropriate impulse which must be restrained. For example, a man might have the impulse to swear at a woman who has broken up with him, but needs to restrain himself and decides instead to stay busy and distract himself. The act of doing the other thing would act as the restraint for the unacted impulse. To change this orientation, room is not first needed. In fact, to change an orientation from anger to calm oneself down, taking breaths or intuiting, as you mentioned, that one should calm down and perhaps to engage in release, would be a shift in orientation from a mind which was angry, though you call it the process of making “room”.
What I am trying to highlight is that one is always making a choice towards some kind of action. If one is in need of restraint it usually means there is an undesired impulse to begin with, but to reorient oneself to a different impulse would imply a new way of acting, even if the action in question is rest or a variation of a previous action.
> [@Magnus Anderson](#):
>
> Should he simply “change his orientation” away from his emotions toward whatever he wants to think about or should he first calm himself down?
For example here, unless a given individual remains engaging in the same activity then his orientation will be changed either way, and the “should” of the matter would be determined by whatever the individual needs. If it is necessary for the individual to engage in rest then it is probably best for the individual to rest, given the other impulse would have been disasterous. This doesn’t by necessity mean that rest is best after a misguided impulse, because another individual might have an exceptionally strong constitution and not be in any need of rest after restraining an unwanted impulse.
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### Author:  [@Magnus\_Anderson](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Magnus_Anderson)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2016, 12:56pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/is-volitional-restraint-bad/42998/20 "2016-10-03T12:56:30Z")
You are repeating yourself unnecessarily. I know what you mean. I simply don’t think it’s relevant. Not only that, but you’re also overshadowing reality by doing so.
A cup is filled with water. It is in a state of being full of water. When you empty it from water, it changes its state to a state of being empty of water. Indeed, we go so far as to say that the cup is completely empty, containing no substance within itself.
This is true but not in the literal sense. If we took a closer look, we could see that there is still something within it e.g. air molecules. Though that is true, it is irrelevant to us. The point is that there is less substance in it (tenuity) than before (density.)
There is no absolute vacuum. In fact, there is no absolute anything.
None of that changes the fact that for all practical purposes the cup is empty.
The same is with nervous system.
Think of nervous system as a kind of plate that can be filled with nervous activity.
When this plate is completely filled with nervous activity, one is maximally motivated. When it is empty, one is at rest (perhaps unconscious.) When its capacity is exceeded, one is overwhelmed.
The brain has the capacity to control the degree of motivation (e.g. how filled, or activated, one’s nervous system is.) You can increase or decrease motivation.
Rest, or not doing, is an absence of nervous activity. Remember, there is no absolute vacuum, so even if there is no nervous energy in one’s nervous system, there is still something in there. But more importantly, it is rare for a man to achieve a state of total absence of nervous activity within one’s nervous system (in the same way that one can achieve a state of total absence of water, or other dense substance, within a cup.) Instead, rest is often associated with a range of lower degrees of nervous activity.
Resting, being a process, refers to a decrease in nervous activity.
Doing qua state refers to a range of higher degrees of nervous activity.
Doing qua process refers to an increase in nervous activity.
You are basically denying all of this by reducing the reality of self-direction to mere “change of orientation”.
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