Joy
Posts: 188
Joined: Sep. 2007
|
Mark Frank:
| Quote | | He is a compatabilist and I think he is pretty much right. We choose according to our desires which is quite compatible with our desires causing our choices. |
I'll have to look up compatablism to get a feel for it. But I'm not the least bit convinced we choose according to our desires, since too many of us choose undesirable options in our lives.
For example, say your teenage daughter is pregnant, it's late for abortion by the time she decides you need to know. Boyfriend's long gone. There's a number of options for you, some relatively worse (or just meaner) than others based on the situation and your adopted 'morality' and ethics and relationship with said daughter.
After careful consideration, you offer to raise the child (and continue to support daughter) even though you thought you were done raising kids, you absolutely don't want more (and got that fixed long ago to make sure), you'll be retirement age when the kid gets out of school (meaning your savings for retirement will be nil by the time he's on his own).
The choice isn't one you wanted to make. Nothing you decide will be particularly desirable. There are other options that would allow you to continue living your life as you'd planned to live it - desired to. You'll be giving up hopes and dreams (a lot of self-interest) that you'll ever have any extra cash to do anything for yourself. And maybe you don't even particularly like kids.
But you make your choice, offer it as an option for someone else's choice (daughter) and then you have to live with it despite whatever it costs you on the self-interest and desires end.
Now, it could turn out that the child is the light of your life, and ends up rich and famous and takes great care of you in your old age. Or he could grow up to be a loser and you'll never be free of either him or his mom due to setting up a dependency cycle they won't or can't escape. However it turns out, how is that choice not 'free' even though it did require consideration of multiple factors and future considerations?
|
