The Right to Choose

 

In her Internet explorations, my fifteen-year-old daughter has come up with another existential question. She was talking to a chat bot and pointed out to it that, unlike her, it had no free will. It simply followed its programming.

And the chat bot responded that she, too, simply followed her programming, her natural urges.

So, daughter wanted to know: do humans have free will, or not?

It is an open question, philosophically. Many Calvinists would say the latter: we merely follow our programming. Many behaviourist psychologists and philosophers would say the same.

I believe this is immediately untenable in our daily experience. If we really thought this, we would be unable to function. You wake up in the morning. There are Rice Crispies on the shelf. There is a toaster on the counter. Do you decide which you want for breakfast, or do you stand there and wait to see what you do?

You make a choice. You are aware of making a choice. You are aware that you could have chosen differently. You can also conclude that you made the wrong choice.

The “lower” animals, reptiles, insects, fish and so forth, seem to operate only on instinct, which is like programming. We too have instincts, natural urges, but are able to choose not to follow them. We can look at that beautiful woman, yet conclude that we have no right to have sex with her. We can refuse that piece of cake because we are on a diet. We exercise free will.

You could say that we have several levels of programming, which are often in conflict. One is our natural urges, our selfishness; another is our conscience, our innate sense of right and wrong. We can also have aesthetic concerns, social pressures, loyalties, obsessions. We choose among them as an exercise of will.

And our will grows stronger with this exercise.