Difficult Actions: is climbing success up to us?
Philosophy tells us that climbing is a difficult action. Of course, climbing is physically and mentally challenging. However, in the study of difficult actions, these internal feelings are not quantifiable. To Berislav Marusic, the only relevant sense of difficulty is how likely it is that one will fail to complete the intended action. The greater the difficulty the greater the likelihood of failure. When we pull on the wall, we (consciously or not) judge our likelihood of failure based on the perceived difficulty of the climb we’re about to attempt. Perhaps we’ve tried the boulder before and we’re expecting to fall on the same hard move as last time, or we know the route is well within our ability to onsight so we assume we’ll send it, or we’ve just been told the ungraded boulder in the gym is V10, and now the sequence that looked promising suddenly doesn’t seem so doable—and we expect to fall.
Or at least this is how many of us view our climbing. We create expectations, assumptions, and judgments for our climbing performance before we’ve pulled onto the wall, and no matter now physically able we might be to overcome these predetermined limits, we are bound by them, nevertheless. However, if this is how we perceive our abilities, what happens when we try something really, really hard?
Berislav Marusic, professor at the University of Edinburgh, studies this pursuit of trying hard things. Or, rather, the decision we make to try the hard thing. Marusic poses a paradoxical understanding of the decision to do something difficult:
“Decisions and promises to do something that we have evidence is difficult to do pose a substantial epistemological problem. I shall call it the Epistemological Problem of Difficult Action. On the one hand, if we believe that we will do what we are deciding or promising to do, then, it seems, we believe against the evidence, for, since we have evidence that it is difficult to do, it seems that we have reason to doubt that we will do it. On the other hand, if we don’t believe that we will do what we are deciding or promising to do, then, it seems, our decision is not serious and our promise is not sincere” (Marusic, 1) [1].
When we decide to do a difficult thing, we violate one of these principles:
(1) Evidentialist Principle: if we have evidence that it is likely that not p, we should not believe p.
(2) Seriousness Condition: our decision is serious only if we believe that we will do what we are deciding to do.
In applying this problem to my own climbing, my first instinct was to back away from my decision into the realm of something much more comfortable; an attempt. When I have a limit bouldering day on my project, I’m going out there to try it. Not to send it. If I have evidence that it is likely that I will not send the boulder, and I don’t believe I will, I’ll just decide to try it. This is quite common in the practical realization of Marusic’s paradox. We “know” (i.e. expect, assume, etc.) we won’t send, so to justify spending our time under the boulder, we tell ourselves we’ll be satisfied with trying. Whether it’s for training purposes, or the whole crew is there, or for fun, we find a way to rationalize our appeal to trying. However, Marusic doesn’t find much weight to this answer.
When we decide to “just try,” what are we committing ourselves to? There are two possible answers depending on how substantial our decision is. First, if we fully commit to trying, assuming we are trying to accomplish the difficult action to the greatest extent (i.e. make is as far on the boulder as possible), we are still deciding against the evidence. Trying will still be difficult. Further, we’ve decided just to try because we know that deciding to complete the action will be more challenging. We decide only to try, and thus we give into the claim that we should not decide to do what we have evidence is difficult to do. The second option is that we don’t decide to try with enough seriousness to accomplish any amount of the difficult action (i.e. trying some of the moves and shrugging the boulder off as “too hard”). However, in this case, we haven’t decided to do anything at all.
Deciding to try doesn’t solve the problem of the irrationality of deciding to do something which we believe will be difficult to do. Either we decide to try to do something difficult and we try to our fullest extent, which is still deciding against the evidence that we will likely fail, or we don’t try that hard and we haven’t made much of a decision at all. In other words, a serious decision to try might as well be the same as the decision to complete the activity.
This resonates well with how I viewed my climbing for a long time. It seemed hasty to decide to send something. How can I just decide to send my project? What if I fall? What if I don’t do it? How can I decide the hand I will be dealt? However, I’ve since questioned if this hesitation places too much agency beyond me. What does it mean to worry “what if I fall?” Am I not the one on the wall? Is it not my hands, my feet, holding on? Deciding to try leaves room for the “what ifs” and the punts and the unexpected slips and the failing to reach my potential that will undoubtedly happen if I start climbing at my limit. However, deciding to try also creates expectations that these things will happen. And by expecting to fall, I mistakenly relinquish some of my control over my climbing. As Henry put it the other day, “falling off a climb is always an option.” Interestingly, I probably would’ve phrased it as always being a possibility, not an option. But these two nouns have incredibly different meanings.
There are three definitions of possibility:
1. A thing that may happen.
2. The state of being likely.
3. A thing that may be chosen or done out of several alternatives.
The third meaning is synonymous with option, but the first is not. An option is inherently something to be chosen. There cannot be an option without an actor. A meteor hitting the cliff is a possibility, but it is not an option. However, me falling on a move is both a possibility and an option. The question is whether there’s a scenario in which me falling on a move is a possibility, but not an option?
This is what my first inclination was getting at; that me falling is always a possibility. As Henry also says, “all you have to do is let go and lean back!” However, this is an option and a possibility. And when falling is an option, this should take precedence over it being a possibility given the stricter conditions. In order for falling to be a possibility but not an option, it must be the cause of wholly external factors. For example, the entire flake I’m climbing on snaps off the wall. A foot slip, however, as external as it might seem, doesn’t quite qualify as merely a possibility. Of course, our feet can slip at any moment, but they don’t because we place them well and apply pressure through them. In the case that we stop doing so, they may slip. However, we, as the actor, cause the foot slip, making it not just a possibility but an option. We can all wish to be the victim of truly random slips: dry fires, wet fires, foot pops, etc. But whose fault is it when we dry fire?
If we can choose to look at our climbing as a never-ending set of options (i.e. to fall or not to fall), we are possibly left with the conclusion that our success in climbing is up to us. Rocks break, but external factors aren’t part of the equation. An action can still be up to us regardless of whether it is susceptible to external influence. That action is up to us in spite of external influence; if all external factors remain in our favor, we have the option to succeed.
This conclusion is quite identical to Marusic’s only successful response to his initial paradox: the Pragmatist Response. As a reminder, Marusic’s paradox is that when we decide to do something difficult, we either decide to act against the evidence (that it is likely that we will fail) or our decision to act is not serious. The Pragmatist Response solves the paradox by appealing to practical, rather than theoretical reasoning.
Practical and theoretical reasoning provide us with two ways to go about settling the question of whether we will do what we decide to do. When we use theoretical reasoning, as the name implies, we “predict whether we will p; in particular, we predict whether we will p, given that we are deciding or promising to p. In that case, our evidence determines whether we should believe that we will p” (Marusic, 19). Theoretical reasoning allows us to make predictions based on available evidence. This is the type of reasoning we engage in when conducting science. We build theories based on what we can believe given the evidence. However, when analyzing our own behavior, this type of reasoning doesn’t account for our own agency. Rather, “if we settle the question through practical reasoning, we decide whether we will p. In that case, our practical reasoning for [doing] p, and for deciding or promising to p, determine whether we should believe that we will p” (Marusic, 19).
Practical reasoning creates practical knowledge, which G.E.M. Anscombe wrote about in her groundbreaking publication, Intention. Anscombe was one of the first to tackle this concept of first-person knowledge in which “agents know what they are doing ‘without observation or interference’’ (Newstead, 157).[2] One account of the radical conclusions made in Intention explains that “the practical knowledge Anscombe attributes to agents does not track anything in the world: it appears to create or foresee actions that take place in the world in the future. It can thus appear miraculous” (Newstead, 160). For some of us, this might capture the way we perceive deciding to send a difficult route—especially one that is at or above our current limit. How can I decide to accomplish such a feat? Indeed, it feels quite miraculous to decide to send something, and then actually send it. Before my send go on Baby Trebuchet, Henry asked me if I was going to send. I was planning to just give it the good ol’ warm-up burn, but I thought about it for a second and told him “I’m going to send it.” Then I did. The next day I told him I was going to send Proper Soul. Then I immediately pulled onto the wall and soon found myself clipping the anchor of my first 5.14. These vocalizations of my intentions were far from miraculous if I add in the weeks of projecting leading up to the sends, but both routes had been within my reach to complete for quite a few goes, or, in the case of Baby Treb, for quite a few sessions. So even if my affirmation wasn’t the bespeaking of a miracle, it also wasn’t worthless. Looking back on these examples, it seems like all I needed was a little bit of confidence. And saying my intention out loud to another person provided me with enough accountability that I had no choice but to believe I was actually going to do it. These examples also fit quite well within the rest of the paradigm of the Pragmatist Response.
Not only does Marusic say we have to use practical reasoning if we want to rationalize deciding to do something that we know is difficult, but he also adds the condition that the action must be entirely up to us. For example, if I say I am deciding to win a climbing competition, I am deciding to do something difficult. However, I can’t use practical reasoning to rationalize this claim. This is because the action is not entirely up to me. I can perform my absolute best and do everything in my power to win and still not win. This is because the performance of the other competitors is not up to me. Rather, I could rationally say I am deciding to send every boulder in the final round. In the climbing context, this sounds a little odd. But, if my climbing is truly up to me, I theoretically have the option to send all the finals boulders.
I must clarify that when the difficult action is entirely up to us, Marusic doesn’t mean that it is easier or that we will do it quickly. The whole scope argument of the argument is limited to difficult actions. According to Marusic, “when something is up to us to do then it is in our power to do it; we alone can bring it about; our agency suffices to make it happen” (20). Thus, “when something is up to us to do, then the only way we will fail to do it is if we don’t go through with it. As long as we continue trying to do it, we will succeed in doing it” (20). This explains why deciding to send all the finals boulders seems a little hasty. Even though it is up to me to send them, this doesn’t mean it’s within my present ability to send them all back-to-back in four minutes.
Outside of a time constraint, if I say I am deciding to send Pure Imagination, Marusic would say the only way I will fail to do so is if I cease to try. You still might wonder why I wouldn’t make it easier on my emotions by simply deciding to try Pure Imagination. However, “the decision or promise to continue trying to do something is no different from the promise to do it—since one will do it as long as one does not cease to try” (21). When I decide to send Pure Imagination, I may believe that I will do it so long as I seriously decide to do it.
The next time you find yourself at the cliff blaming the conditions, or your height, or your shoes, or your belayer, or your genetics, try reminding yourself that all things considered, it is truly only up to you to succeed at whatever you’re trying to climb. You may find this scary, but it can’t be scarier than thinking something or someone else will reach your full potential for you.
[1] https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/belief-and-difficult-action.pdf?c=phimp;idno=3521354.0012.018;format=pdf
[2] https://philarchive.org/archive/NEWIAI