To have chosen otherwise
Suppose that, after deliberating about it, you choose to accept a party invitation. According to determinism, your choice to accept the invitation was necessitated by conditions that go back forever. If so, did you freely choose to accept?
Some say no. They say that determinism rules out choosing freely because you couldn’t have chosen otherwise than you did. Let “A” denote the ability to choose otherwise than you did. Why think that A is a requirement for choosing freely?
One might think that A is required by the very concept of free choice. But everyday examples suggest it isn’t. Oaths of office routinely include the language “I take this oath freely.” Charities often ask those who attend their events to consider giving “a free-will donation” at the door. When people land in trouble because they chose irresponsibly, we sometimes point out that they did so “of their own free will.” We engage in these practices without even considering the metaphysical question of whether determinism is true, let alone answering it in the negative. The ordinary concept has it that a free choice is one that you make without being coerced, manipulated, and the like, and determinism allows you to make such choices.
A more likely reason that some folks regard A as a requirement for choosing freely is this: They think that if you lacked A when you chose, then you lacked the control over your choice that choosing freely requires. In response, I say: You don’t need A in order to have control over your choice.
Determinism says that, in the typical case, you chose as you did because of your beliefs and desires at the time. You accepted the invitation because (say) you believed that accepting it would please the host, and on balance you wanted to please the host more than you wanted to spend a quiet night at home. If you hadn’t believed and desired as you did, then according to determinism (plus the relevant physics) you wouldn’t have chosen as you did. (Indeed, you almost certainly wouldn’t have existed.) In that sense, determinism ensures your control over your choice. You couldn’t have chosen otherwise, but the choice you made depended on you in a way that made it under your control.
