This is why I was saying rebellious existentialism is sort of incoherent, since it takes a preference (that of being an individual) and forgets where this preference came from (not from the individual!). — darthbarracuda
But that's an entirely false dichotomy. Preferences are an expression of the individual. They are not somebody else's preferences, nor are they community 'property'. They are, by definition, what makes me me! No matter how they came to be what they are, their source is always me. They were not transferred to me from any external source. — Barry Etheridge
But eventually you will realize that all of these preferences are meant to keep you alive - that's the universe's game, to keep you alive until you can procreate and defend the clan. — DarthBarracuda
But eventually you will realize that all of these preferences are meant to keep you alive - that's the universe's game, to keep you alive until you can procreate and defend the clan. Therefore, in order to rebel, you must discontinue living. — darthbarracuda
Many years ago I met someone who genuinely believed in a deterministic universe and that everything was fate and we had no free will.
He used it as an excuse for his actions. — bassplayer
Your argument fails to dismiss free choice, because you would need to produce a human inclination which could not be overcome by the power of the will, in order to prove your point. But each and every activity of the human being may be overcome through the power of choice, as is demonstrated by suicide. — Metaphysician Undercover
The power of the will? What is the will, if not the manifestation of the most prominent preference, or the conglomeration of a multitude of compatible and cohesive preferences? — darthbarracuda
A lot of the existentialists were all about radical freedom, and anti-essentialists. Like Sartre said, existence precedes essence. Which I find to be entirely incoherent, since to exist is to have certain properties and qualities outside of your control. — darthbarracuda
This is the power to not choose, to decline or deny any preference. Since it can decline any preference whatsoever, it cannot be a preference itself. To say that will power, which is the power to deny any preference, is itself a form of preference, is contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover
...then what exactly causes us to choose one option rather than another? — darthbarracuda
But whatever it chooses, it must choose. — darthbarracuda
It doesn't make sense to have a strong preference yet pick the route of least preference satisfaction... — darthbarracuda
I don't think you understand the way that the will works. Do you understand the concept of "will power"? This is the capacity which we have to resist from following our natural preferences, habits, and things like this which give us pleasure. Once we apply the will power to prevent ourselves from engaging in these unwanted activities, produced by unwanted preferences, we give ourselves the freedom to choose other things. So the will acts to negate all preferences, resist any activity, giving the rational mind time to consider many options. The choice produced by the rational mind is not one of "preference", but one of reason. Then the will releases the suspended choice, allowing the individual to act according to reason rather than preference.The will must choose a certain route of action depending on how strong the various preferences influencing it are. — darthbarracuda
But whatever it chooses, it must choose. It doesn't make sense to have a strong preference yet pick the route of least preference satisfaction, otherwise what exactly would a preference even be? There's nothing free about the will here. The will must choose a certain route of action depending on how strong the various preferences influencing it are. — darthbarracuda
In the second sense, an agent's prefered-2 action is what this agent effectively choses to do in the specific circumstances in which she is called to deliberates and act. — Pierre-Normand
This preference #2, is only determined after a choice is made, posteriorly, it describes the choice which has been made. "She choose X, therefore it was her preference". Since free will is directed toward choices which will be made, this preference #2 is irrelevant to the free will/determinism issue. Preference #2 cannot act as a cause, and to introduce this sense of "preference" is to create ambiguity with the possibility of equivocation. — Metaphysician Undercover
Why would you say this? It appears as contradiction. How can you say that "it chooses", if whatever it chooses it must choose? How is that a choice at all? — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, it absolutely does make sense. This is how we proceed to kick our bad habits. We just face the fact that certain things are not good for us, and force ourselves not to choose those things, even though they are our preferences. — Metaphysician Undercover
The choice produced by the rational mind is not one of "preference", but one of reason. Then the will releases the suspended choice, allowing the individual to act according to reason rather than preference. — Metaphysician Undercover
What does reason accomplish if not goals, and where do goals come from if not preferences? — darthbarracuda
But to kick our bad habits requires us to have the preference to be rid of these bad habits. An override. — darthbarracuda
Practical reason is an ability to arbitrate between potentially conflicting goals. Some specific goal may be judged to take precedence over another goal, in a particular practical situation, when there is a good reason for it to do so. Practical reason is the ability to understand such reasons and to be motivated by them to act accordingly. Reasons themselves, unlike raw desires, baby squirrels of meteorites do not come from anywhere. It's a category error to ask where a reason comes from. One can ask where the human ability to reason practically (i.e. to be sensitive to reasons) comes from, but reasons themselves stand on their own. If someone's reason to do, or to believe, something is bad, what is required in order to show this reasons to be bad, and thereby motivate an agent to abandon it, isn't a story about the causal origin of that reason (or the causal origin of the specific goal that it recommends one to act upon), but rather a good counterargument. — Pierre-Normand
The fact is, as I have argued, and Pierre-Normand now agues, that we use reason to judge conflicting preferences, and this is called making a choice. — Metaphysician Undercover
So you have not addressed the process which judges the preferences to make a choice. You have simply asserted that a "preference" causes the choice, so it is not a choice at all. But this is simplistic nonsense because clearly different preferences are judged, and not a single one of them actually causes itself to be chosen. They are judged as passive possibilities, not active causes. The active cause of the choice comes from that which is judging. — Metaphysician Undercover
I see no reason to distinguish between preferences and reasons, as if they are two completely separate things. Reasons, in my view, are just static preferences. — darthbarracuda
We judge things according to principles, not goals. We look for objective principles, and we can judge our goals as to whether they are consistent with the principles which we believe are objective.But to what standard do we judge conflicting preferences, if not the goals we have in mind to accomplish? — darthbarracuda
We choose an option depending on what our overarching goals are. Do I go to the movie theater, or donate to a charity? In both cases, I have a preference to have fun, and a preference to be moral. And this is where we get into the idea of character, or the static preferences a person has. The character is what ultimately decides between two or more preferences, based on what the person's higher-order goals are and a deliberation as to which of the possible routes of action helps attain this goal the best. But of course none of us decided what our character would be, or who we would fundamentally be as a person. — darthbarracuda
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