“The concept of choice is much debated about in philosophical discussions and so I would like to clear my thoughts on it.
In my opinion, the concept of man having or not having complete choice is, to quite much extent, related to the concept of his being free to act i.e Free Will. While I believe that man always has a choice, he does not always enjoy free will related to that choice. This statement may seem contradictory so I would try to explain it a bit further:
When I say that man always has a choice, I have in my mind, more or less, Sartre’s existentialist concept of choice. Taking a little extreme case, a man being robbed forcefully has a choice to get robbed off his possessions and go home without any further trouble or he can choose to refuse to let go of his belongings and instead get killed. This is my concept of choice. Man always has a choice, no matter what the circumstances are, but the matter that puts restraint on this concept is that man is not always free to choose among his options with total consent. One option, returning to the above case, is expedient and beneficial financially but it can cost him his life. The other option, although depriving him off his material belongings, may safe his life. There is another man who wants to choose the best school for his son. This man has the freedom associated with his choice. He would obviously want to choose the best school and he is free to do so, provided his financial position. No one is forcing him in adopting any particular choice. This is choice with freedom. The former was choice with force. Options are there in both kinds and man can choose one among them, but he will have to pay the ultimate price. Though in the former case, less responsibility would rest on the chooser than in the latter case, although the might have to pay equal price.
Some may still call both men ‘free’ but I do not consider the former case of choice with freedom. This is force and coercion, not freedom and free will. This would be akin to religious concept of free will where a man, broadly speaking, is given two options: Enjoy all sorts of pleasures in this mundane existence od few days and then bear the eternal damnation, or lead this life within the bounds of the divine law and dwell among the blessed in the heaven forever.
So what I believe is that while choice is always there, this is not the case with freedom. There can be either choice with will, for which man is free or there can be choice with force, for which he is coerced.”
-Initial Meditations, Umer Latif.
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I believe you're taking the freedom to 'think' or 'make intent' as free will and using the very two interchangeably, you have reached the conclusion that in making choices, a man is always free.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, though, a man is free only to think or plan to make choice mostly and when it comes to practically act upon it, he's inhibited by innumerable natural, humane and random circumstances
Right. BUT, within those humane and environmental limitations, man has choices to make. The point is there are sometimes choices which are all against man's will. He still has a choice to make, but that's sort of coercive choice. That's where I would differentiate the 'choice' from 'free will' or 'freedom', as the examples show.
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