Q&A: The Intuition for the Existence of Free Choice
The Intuition for the Existence of Free Choice
Question
One of the Rabbi’s arguments for the existence of free choice is the personal intuition each of us has that we possess free choice. But seemingly animals have that same intuition [they get angry and kick and want and run, etc.], and yet our intuition tells us that they are mistaken [as the Rabbi wrote in his book, Buridan’s donkey really would die of hunger if the physical conditions were found]. And since we are seemingly an evolutionary continuation of those same animals, there is no reason to say that we are different from them, especially in something so essential?!
Answer
I have never been an animal. When I am and experience that, I’ll form an opinion.
Discussion on Answer
In my opinion, the fact that animals seem to act by choice (they get angry, love, etc.) does not mean that they really have an intuition that they are choosing. It only means that they are complex in a way that does not seem to us like a reasonable input-output system, but that assumption is mistaken, because even such branching and complicated reactions can be input-output too, just complicated.
The claim is that we feel our own capacity for choice (and we do not feel that of animals), and therefore a person need not give up his intuition unless it is proven otherwise.
The idea is that animals do not act as beings with free choice, but only as a complex input-output system. The difference between them and us is only that we feel that we are not input-output, while they do not necessarily feel that way.
I didn’t understand.
Animals act like beings that are certain that free choice exists. That is proven by their actions and by the fact that they get angry when another animal does something against them.