Q&A: Weakness of Will and Determinism
Weakness of Will and Determinism
Question
Regarding “weakness of will” –
the claim you make many times is that every conscious choice a person makes is in fact a reflection of his values, so that even when a person commits a transgression out of the “evil inclination,” this actually shows that on his scale of values the momentary pleasure is ranked higher than the halakhic prohibition. So it would seem impossible to say that a person “does not act according to his values.”
My question:
A. If everything a person does is merely a reflection of the set of values he holds, that seemingly means there is no free choice, since a person does not “choose” anything, because all his actions are the deterministic result of his values (= a reflection of his values), and he also has no possibility of “choice” regarding them either (since a person does not “choose” to hold a certain set of values).
B. How can one explain a person who on one day overcame the “urge to transgress” 3 times, and 3 times did not overcome it and committed the transgression, alternately (did not transgress, transgressed, did not transgress, transgressed, etc.)? Did his values change 5 times over the course of that day?
Answer
- That is precisely the claim of weakness of will. See the two columns that deal with this here. In brief, he can choose on two planes: 1. the values to which he is committed. 2. whether to act according to the values he chose, or not to choose and instead be dragged along.
- Determinists also need to explain such a thing even apart from weakness of will. They would attribute it to changes in other incidental circumstances.