The question
CLAIM-016 says a will is the agent’s own to the degree that its commitments arise through, remain integrated with and are answerable to its constitutive organization. Velleman’s objection asks why a higher-order attitude should count as the agent’s own. The same objection applies to an avowal: a report that a commitment is one’s own is one more attitude. This question asks whether integration has any mark other than such reports. If it has none, the ownership criterion cannot be told apart from endorsement. Filed Deferred, as its line is.
Why the record needs it
The audit deferred CLAIM-016 because its “ownership criteria remain insufficiently defended”. The grounds added since include THEORY-054, which places autonomy in integration rather than in the order of endorsement. That account’s own promotion condition asks for a measure of integration that is not endorsement. Without one, the distinction CLAIM-016 draws against hierarchical accounts cannot be checked. The question is also needed before QUESTION-011 could be reopened.
What the record holds
- THEORY-074: an implicit measure of true-self accessibility correlated only .05 with self-reported authenticity and .20 with need satisfaction, and each predicted meaning in life on its own. So an avowal is not the only measurable trace of a self the agent takes as hers. Limit: the separation “is confounded with method”, and the two self-reports were not separated from each other (r = .52).
What would answer it
A non-self-report measure of integration, such as the overlap of everyday and true self-concepts or a behavioural index, that predicts something avowal does not and survives a multitrait-multimethod design. It would also need to resist manipulation in the way THEORY-040 requires. More correlations among self-report scales would not answer it.