Conclusion

This concluding chapter reviews the central contention of this book, which is that understanding the two faces of spontaneity—its virtues and vices—requires understanding the implicit mind. While alternative interpretations of each of the case studies discussed are available, the shared features of these cases illuminate a pervasive feature of our lives: actions the psychology of which is neither reflexive nor reasoned; actions that reflect upon us as agents but not upon what we know or who we take ourselves to be; and actions the ethical cultivation of which demand not just planning and deliberating but also, centrally, pre-committing to plans, attending to our contexts, and, as Bruce Gemmel—the coach of arguably the best swimmer of all time, Katie Ledecky— said, just doing the damn work. Finally, open questions for future research are discussed.