Free choice
Hey, what’s up? I enjoy reading everything here and am really looking forward to it.
I have a question. I went through your articles here about free choice, etc.
I don’t understand how there is free choice. After all, according to the picture of the choice that you call teleological, the person chooses not because there is a reason for his choice, but because there is a purpose for his choice, meaning that he manages to translate the future purpose into a reason for his current action. All of this would only explain to us that the principle of free choice does not contradict the principle of causality, but seemingly it still follows that the will is not free, because even if the person decided based on a purpose that is important to him, such as the desire to meet with a friend, etc., the fact that the friend is important to him and he wants to meet with him is still related to previous events with the friend, such as shared experiences that they have accumulated or a certain belief in the value of friendship. Or, for example, in another example, a person who decides to give charity in order to realize some value and purpose, such as the value of helping others, then the fact that this purpose is important to him is related to the fact that he has deepened and observed or educated himself about the importance of this value, or all kinds of experiences and insights that he has accumulated throughout his life that have made him value the value.
I mean to say that even though we called it teleological choice, we still haven’t managed to get out of the mess that everything has a reason and in any case there is no option to choose because every choice, even a choice for a purpose (a choice in order to, not a choice because) happens because of previous reasons that if we follow them, we will reach the moment when the person was born and the experiences he went through and the environment in which he was raised,
In other words, you came to claim that a person does not choose because of his impulses, but rather that he has the real ability to choose future values and goals and has a certain ability to weigh purpose against his current efforts and decide, etc.
So I ask that it is not true, because whether he will have that purpose that he chooses for himself or whether the purpose will be strong enough in his eyes for him to choose it is seemingly completely related to the experiences he has had and the insights he has learned during his life, etc., up to a chain that if we follow it, we will reach the moment he was born.
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If we take a person who is very self-aware and ask him why he gave charity, he will say that he believes in the value of helping others, and if we ask him again, "What do you believe in?" he will also have the answer that he studied and came to a conclusion, etc. Then we ask again, "Why did you study and deepen your knowledge?" he will always have the answer until we reach his birth.
That is, every person who chooses something can also explain why they chose it, so how is that not a contradiction?
I don't know if you consider me a "very self-aware person", but I guess you'll agree that I'm at least included in "every person". It's not like that for me. And I think it's not like that for you either. What exactly did you learn and delve into that brought you to the conclusion that murder is forbidden or that it's appropriate to give charity? Nothing.
I think the questioner misunderstands the concept of freedom (free will) as if it were a state of affairs that has no necessary conditions to rely on. But this is an absurd view in my opinion. Freedom is necessarily a reliance on one's free will (as opposed to the mechanical causal forces that also exist within one), that is, a reliance on teleology. It is as if the questioner is saying: It is great that there is liberation from mechanical causality, but that is not enough for me because I also want to be liberated from teleology.
Answer to R’ Michael
I didn't understand
I think you don't murder because it is very ruled out for you for a thousand reasons, of education, environment, logical conclusion, emotional difficulty in causing suffering, religion, etc.,
But I don't think you will answer me (as a person whose self-awareness I value) that one of the reasons you won't murder is simply because you chose not to murder for no reason.
I don't recognize, from myself yet, that I make a choice and can't explain why I made it, of course not precisely and not always,
But just as I have a strong intuition that I decide by choice and not just activated by myself, I also have a strong intuition (not that everything in the world has a reason, etc., but) that everything I do has a reason, an internal reason, etc. But a reason that makes me decide
Or in the words of the one who responded after me
There is no difference in terms of free choice if I have to do something because of a certain causality and if I have to do something because of a certain teleology
You are wrong. You will never be able to explain your value choices. Intuition is not a reason. We are looking for why there is intuition. You assume it is the result of reasons and I claim it is a choice.
You're not a murderer simply because you chose to be?
Can't you explain your choice?
And when you explain to me, I won't be able to ask you, "Maybe you have an explanation for why the reason you provided is significant to you?"
Prof. Leibowitz emphasized that a voluntary decision cannot be justified.
Perhaps this will help to better understand the matter
I don't understand what Prof. Leibowitz meant,
Do you understand?
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