Do our choices ever feel indeterministic?
To the question “Why don’t my actions feel pre-determined?” I responded by emphasizing the difference between necessitation and such other things as coercion, compulsion, and manipulation. A necessitated choice needn’t be ‒ and needn’t feel ‒ coerced, compelled, manipulated, forced, pressured, or anything of the sort.
Accepting that distinction, some folks still object that their “torn” decisions feel not just uncoerced (and so on) but indeterministic. Having decided among options that are very closely balanced, they say that it feels as if their decision wasn’t necessitated because they could have decided differently than they did. I’ll say two things in reply to this objection.
First, there’s no reason to think that an indeterministic choice, as such, would feel any particular way. Granted, when we make choices that are uncoerced and uncompelled, we can (often) feel the absence of coercion and compulsion. But ‒ as I emphasized above ‒ that’s not the same as feeling the absence of necessitation. Failing to detect the necessitation in one’s choice isn’t the same as detecting its absence. Failing to detect the earth’s motion through space isn’t the same as detecting that the earth is motionless.
Second, I doubt that people feel as if they could have decided differently in the same conditions as those in which they made their decision. Suppose you were torn between buying car A and buying car B. After thorough research, you deliberated carefully, and some factor barely tipped the scale in favor of B, which you then chose. If you imagine having chosen A instead, then either (1) you imagine that factor having less relative weight than it did or (2) you imagine choosing A despite wanting B, all things considered. If (1), then you imagine conditions different from those in which you actually chose. If (2), then what you imagine isn’t a decision that you made but a mental spasm that stuck you with the car you didn’t want.
