‘When a determinist claims that our free choice is ‘determined’, this does not mean that our free will is somehow ‘constrained’, that we are forced to act against our will—what is ‘determined’ is the very thing that we want to do ‘freely’, that is , without being thwarted by external obstacles.’ Žižek In Defence of Lost Causes [447]
OK; but this doesn't address the question of why it feels constraining. If I choose to make tea rather than coffee, and am then told that actually I had no choice, I was always going to choose to make tea, it feels weirdly (though, I suppose, notionally) violating, as if the cosmos has stuck its imaginary finger into my head and swizzled my volitional dial.
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2 comments:
you're constrained by being you. unfortunately that means you don't have true free will, but if you did then you wouldn't have much in the way of personality. self-determination seems good enough to me.
I don't disagree. But given that this is the case, why should it feel like it isn't?
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