2. So - a decision is not a precurser to deliberate action; it is the deliberate action itself. And making a decison is choosing. And choosing is displaying a preference. Here think of somebody taking a stroll through bushland simply for the exercise. He comes to a fork in the pathway and must, therefore, bear either left or right. However comparatively unimportant it may be to him, he will find himself choosing to go one way or the other - i.e. just doing it when he could have gone the other way. This is his preferring that pathway. From which it follows that no decision is possible without the making of a value-judgement. We shall examine value- judgement in the next paper but, at this stage, let us assume that it involves somebody seeing some situation as better than some other situation and is, thereby, what is manifested in choice - and focus our attention upon just what we must be implying when we assert that a choice was made.

a. It may be felt that the claim that to decide is to choose, to make a value-judgement, is too sweeping - that some decisions are simply the formulations of beliefs that particular states of affairs do pertain: `I decided that it was about to rain, so...'. But here we must remind ourselves of what counts as believing. There must be some response which manifests the belief in question. Jones's believing that it is about to rain just is his reaching for his umbrella or whatever. And he would not do this if he did not prefer staying comparatively dry to getting very wet. So that, whereas beliefs are about what is the case, they manifest in responses to the value- implications (for the believer) of what is believed to be the case - i.e. in choices, deliberate acts designed to achieve predicted ends.

It should be plain from this that -

i) choosing is not something we do from time to time in a sit-and-think-about-it way; we are constantly choosing throughout our waking lives - and

ii) any decision at all can be made only when what we might call a `choice-situation' pertains.

b. So let's consider the essentials of a choice-situation

i) Somebody chooses to do X rather than not-X. We think of ourselves as choosing from a range of options - like the child in the sweetshop who can have an ounce of anything, but not of everything. But the whole idea of options is that any one excludes all the rest so that, in choosing, the situation is always this or not-this, whichever `this' we are considering.

ii) Just as there are no explanations waiting around to be used, there are no choices waiting around to be made; there are choosings (by people). When we say that a particular state of affairs presents a choice we are merely noting that somebody, in perceiving that situation to pertain, is aware that he or she has, thereby, certain options for different deliberate actions - i.e. that the situation which pertains is a choice-situation for him or her.

iii) i.e - He or she is aware that -

a. at least two courses of action are feasible -

b. these will predictably culminate in different states of affairs

Here note that we might speak of `having a choice but not realising this'. Think again of the bush stroll example - Jones reaches the fork in the pathway but bushes on either side have closed across the left-hand path so that he doesn't see it and automatically takes the right hand path. In this case he did not have a choice because he could not make a choice. All that we can say is that he would have had a choice if he had been aware of the other pathway. [This assumes, of course, that he is committed to walking on a pathway. He could go bush or go back. All of our identifications of the choices that people have assume certain commitments, certain constraint frameworks. Think about this; it is highly significant].

We might also speak of `making a choice when there really is no choice'. Jones reaches the fork in the pathway and assumes that he can go to one of two different places. But unbeknown to him, the paths rejoin a few yard further on so that, either way, he comes to the same place. Here refer back to 1. b. ii): Jones is mistaken in believing that he is choosing one particular end in preference to another, but he is choosing one particular means to an end in preference to another and, as established, every means becomes an end (pro-tem) and, to that extent, the ability to select one means rather than another creates a choice-situation.

iv) There must be a preference for one predicted outcome over the other. Here think of somebody who feels that it `just doesn't matter at all' when options A and B are presented and tosses a coin for it - heads this, tails that. He has chosen not to express a preference - but his so doing is his expressing a preference for not expressing a preference for either A or B.

It is important to realise that this is an analytic point - not something we discover from observing our choices. The manifestation of a preference is what counts as choosing (and indeed, as we shall see, all that can count as preferring A to B is choosing A rather than B).

Think again of Jones's stroll in the bush. He finds himself, `without thinking about it', taking the left path, not the right. This is preferring to do so, even though his reason (which he does not concern himself about - we don't have to think about our thinking in order to think) may be no more than that his left foot, not his right foot, came down just at the point of departure of the two paths and it was therefore easier to turn that way. No matter how marginal a preference is, it is still a preference.

Look back to the discussion of randomness (Topic 13 3. a)). If Jones says that he was just acting randomly, not choosing at all, he is suggesting that, although there would be an explanation (in causal terms) of his turning left, not right, if one could be bothered to look for it, he didn't decide to do it, he just did it. But, plainly, Jones is wrong here; he is making the common error of assuming some special `secret act' which is deciding. Doing A, when you are aware that you could do B, is deciding to do A.

v) There must be an assumption of capacity. Jones cannot choose to walk upside-down on the ceiling - though a fly can. Being middle-aged and fat and breathless, he cannot choose to walk from Newcastle to Sydney in 48 hours, though his young and very fit friend Brown can - or can he?

Certainly Brown can choose to attempt to walk to Sydney in 48 hours, but he can't choose to succeed. Choosing always is choosing to attempt. If this were not so we would all inevitably choose to succeed and there could be no failure.

So why can't Jones choose to attempt to walk to Sydney with Brown?

Here we must look at the concept of attempting - as distinct from pretending to attempt (which Jones could choose to do). Nobody can attempt to achieve a particular end without believing that there is some significant probability that the course of action taken will culminate in the end in question. Jones can choose to attempt to win the lottery (by buying a ticket) and he can choose to attempt to get fit enough (by diet, exercise and such) to attempt the marathon walk next year. But this year he just knows that he has no hope - so the question of attempting, of choosing, cannot arise.

c. We say `he has no hope' and it could be very useful here to compare the concepts of wanting, hoping and wishing and consider the relationships between them.

i) What we choose to attempt indicates what we want. It makes no sense to say that Jones does want something if

a. nothing is stopping him from attempting to get it and

b. he is making no attempt to get it.

We might say, intelligibly, that he would want it if certain circumstances pertained which do not pertain; this point will be taken up later. But his wanting it in the existing circumstances as he perceives them to be just is his attempting to get it. Thus wanting implies a belief (which could, of course, be wrong) that there is a significant probability of success.

ii) Wishing implies no such belief. We can wish that we were young again; or rich or handsome. Jones wishes that he were a lottery-winner but he never buys a ticket. Wishing is simply preferring any state of affairs which does not pertain to the state of affairs that does pertain.

iii) Hoping does imply some probability; we cannot hope for that which we are certain will not happen [What people call `hoping for a miracle' is most often wishing, not hoping]. But it is a probability which we cannot do anything to increase. Brown does buy lottery tickets and so he can hope that he wins - but there is nothing he can do about it. He chooses to buy the ticket but he cannot choose to win, only hope that it happens that way. So what he wants is to be in a position to hope, not merely to wish.

It should be clear, then, that wishes and hopes are not motivators; it is our wants which determine our choices (i.e. which are manifested in our choices). We discover what we want by observing how we choose.

It must be noted, however, that our wants and wishes are governed by our beliefs. And a change in those beliefs can change what was a want for somebody into a wish - or vice-versa. The schoolboy who wants to be an airline pilot is manifesting this want in choosing to work very hard at mathematics. When he discovers that his eyesight is not good enough he can no longer attempt to become an airline pilot - but he still can wish he were one. The fifty-year-old lady who wishes she were a university graduate can discover that there is mature-age entrance to universities and her wish then becomes a want, manifested in enrolling for a mature-age matriculation course.

But, at any given time, what we want to do just is what we attempt to do - and this is simply a matter of `what counts as'.



3. Thus, when we make choices we see ourselves as directing (or attempting to direct) the course of events to our own advantage. So that a choice-situation is for each of us, a situation in which he or she is free to act in a way calculated to procure what he or she wants.

a. The concepts of choice and of freedom are plainly inter-dependent; there can be no choice without freedom, and to be free is to be free to choose. Consider -

i) If we are told `X is green', we may wonder what X is but we have no doubt about what is being said about it. But if we are told `X is free' we feel that the message is incomplete - much as we would if we were told `X is beside'. We need to ask what X is free from, what X is free to do.

ii) The answer to this must involve choosing, electing to take a preferred course of action. For X to be free to do Y is for X to be in a position to choose to do Y if Y is preferred - i.e. to be free from constraints which could prevent X from doing Y.

We see here how very loosely, and often unintelligibly, the term `free' is used. The silly expression `free world' suggests that all the people in (that part of) the world are free of all constraints upon doing whatever they might prefer to do - which very patently they are not. And even expressions like `free speech' make very far-reaching assumptions about what kinds of circumstances do and don't constrain people from choosing to say the things they may contemplate saying. There are, of course, various things which people are more likely to choose to do in some countries than in others. In Australia, for instance, the constraints upon choosing to beat up one's wife are probably more effective than in Papuaniugini - but we would not say, on that score, that Australia is a less free country. And before we could do any kind of statistical count, like working out points in the football league table to determine which countries were, on balance, more or less free than others, we would have to have some exhaustive catalogue of possible wants - or decide quite arbitrarily that some wants are important and others are not.

iii) But suppose no Australian man (we are such decent chaps) ever would want to beat up his wife. Can we then talk of Australian men being free - or not free - to beat up their wives? We don't choose to do things we don't want to do - so in what sense can we be free to choose? Let's say that we are free to do it if we would not be prevented from choosing to do it if we wanted to do it. Whereas choosing is occurrent, being free is essentially dispositional - so that we are free to do X if we could choose to do X if we happened to want to do X.

iv) We might summarise the relationship as: Freedom is the existence of specific options (for somebody vis-a-vis a given situation); choice is the expression of a preference within these options. Plainly Jones could not choose A rather than B unless he were free to do either A or B.

b. Being free to... always implies being free from ... When a prisoner is released from custody, he is free to travel where he likes by being free from the constraints of locks and bars. Which is why we speak of freeing prisoners. But consider freeing caged animals. People have sometimes tried to do this by opening the cages but the animals have not chosen to go anywhere; they have huddled in the corner looking embarrassed - this is where they live! This is interesting because, although they now are free to go or to stay, this cannot really be regarded as freeing them when they show no desire at all to go. Which illustrates fairly well the point that we cannot remove a constraint which does not exist - i.e. which is not in fact constraining. A freedom, therefore, is not the removal of a constraint; it is simply the absence of a constraint which could apply. Thus we can speak intelligibly of freedom only where some circumstance could constrain choosing in a given way but does not happen to in this case. It is worth noting that, if we never were constrained, never felt ourselves to be prevented from doing something which, in more desirable circumstances, we would want to do (i.e. would choose), then we could have no concept at all of freedom - and, indeed, no concept of choosing.

Look at some everyday uses of `free' -

free sample - you don't have to pay for it -

free fall - not constrained by a parachute -

free speech - nobody will clap you in gaol for what you say -

free-range-eggs - laid by fowls not constrained by cages -

free love - copulation not constrained by marriage conventions -

and so on. Always it is tacitly understood that some identifiable likely constraint is not effective in this case.

And to speak of a likely constraint is to make assumptions about people's natural inclinations - remember that we cannot be constrained from doing things we have no inclination to do. Consider for instance, why a captive balloon is called a captive balloon. Balloons don't have wants - and `captive' is mental-event language when we think about it. But we might say that lighter-than-air balloons do have natural inclinations to go up - and we call it captive because it is held down. And if we cut the rope, we `set it free'. When we are dealing with people, however, their natural inclinations are somewhat harder to predict. Different people choose very differently when the same potential constraints apply.

c. We have seen that, for the question of choosing - or being free to choose - to arise, there must be possible constraints. It does make sense to talk of being free to say what we wish and choosing to make a given statement. It does not make sense to talk of being free to think what we wish or of choosing to think a given proposition - since nothing could stop us from doing this. [When Elizabeth the first announced that she did not want to make windows into men's souls - i.e. that she was concerned about what they said and did but not about what they thought - she was, in fact making no concession at all].

But whether a possible constraint is an actual constraint, whether it does prevent somebody from doing what, otherwise, he would have chosen to do, must depend on the somebody in question. If Jones has gone home for the day, or robbed a bank or thrown an egg at the Prime Minister, then plainly he was free to do it. Fear of losing his job or being put in gaol or manhandled by security guards plainly was not for him an effective constraint.

The one quite unequivocal distinction is between doing things and having things done to you. We do not choose to fall but we do choose to jump. When we contemplate jumping we can change our minds but once we are falling it is out of our hands. Look at some very simplistic examples of someone choosing to (attempt to) cross a river or not in a rowboat - when

i) there is no boat available -

ii) he is both tired and hungry and he has left his lunch on the other side -

iii) he is tired but somebody on the other bank is in danger from a bull and is asking to be rescued -

iv) he has promised his girl, who has been walking with him, that he will row her across the river when they reach it -

v) he is threatened by an escaped prisoner that, unless he rows him across, he will bash his head in -

vi) he is tied up and dumped in the boat and rowed across.

Plainly, in i and in vi the question of choosing does not arise; in i the options are simply not open and in vi he is not doing it, it is being done to him. But in ii, iii, iv and v there is a choice which he must make; the question in each case is: between what and what - what are the constraints which might apply? In each case he discovers whether they have constrained his choice by observing what he finds himself doing.

d. Even whilst allowing, however, that it is his choice, that he could (decide to) go hungry, ignore the person in distress, break his promise to his girlfriend or tell the escapee to go to hell and risk being killed, we can't help wanting to distinguish those cases where `he freely makes the choice' from those where `the choice is imposed upon him'. Where it is just his tiredness against his hunger, it is, we feel, wholly his choice. Where he is thretened and made to row the boat, we feel that is not really his choice; he is not doing what he wants at all. But, of course, he didn't want to go hungry.

In case iii the conflict is between his own tiredness and somebody else's well being. This, therefore, involves morality (which we shall be considering in a later paper). In iv it is less clearly a moral question; are his concerns about his girlfriend's disappointment or about his own future standing with her?

At present, however, what we are concerned with is the distinction we tend to make between what we think of as `internal' and `external' factors affecting our choices. Being tired and being hungry are wholly internal, being threatened is external - and other people's hopes and dangers are also external - at least to the extent that they are not directly happening to us.

OK - we do think like that - BUT - we are talking about the agent, not the object; there were options. And, since every choice is somebody's reaction to some set of circumstances (which just happen to be as they are), every choice can be seen as an internal reaction to external circumstances. Here imagine that Jones and Brown both go to the bank to collect the staff-pay for their respective employers and are both waylaid on the way back by thugs who demand that they hand over or else. Jones returns to his employers empty-handed and crestfallen and explains that he has given up the money - he `had no choice'. This is accepted and he is sympathised with and given a cup of tea. But Brown returns to his employers triumphant, with a black eye but with the cash intact; he fought the thug and beat him. The external circumstances were the same - but Jones and Brown are different people.

So we can explain choices only in terms both of what the external circumstances were and what sort of person the agent (the chooser) is. We are inclined to say Jones handed over the cash because he is a bit of a coward/sensible and cautious; Brown fought the thug because he is brave/foolhardy!

But these are not really becauses; being a coward just is choosing in one way and being brave just is choosing in the other. We all discover our own natures (and other people's) by observing the choices which we and they find our selves making. What we do (i.e. choose) is all that can count as the kind of people we are.

Looked at, as it were, from the other direction - if the action were not as it is because Jones is as he is, then it would not be Jones's choice at all. So, although we are doing it, there is always a sense in which it is being done to us - not solely by ourselves (which would be a nonsense) nor yet solely by external circumstances (which would be like falling, not like jumping) but by the interaction of our own natures with the external circumstances in question, as we perceive (i.e. believe) them to be.

e. Here it is useful to consider what could be called the motivation-mix. To say that there are always potential constraints is to say that there are facts known to us (more properly, beliefs held by us) that motivate us to behave in one way and other beliefs which motivate us (i.e. incline us) to behave in the other. We have conflicts of interests. What we find ourselves choosing to do indicates which side had the greater motivating force at that particular moment. This sounds very mechanistic - and so it is. Think of a simple triangle of forces, the kind of thing you need to know about for navigation. If a vessel is steaming on a 54º course at twelve knots, the sea is running in a direction 210º at two knots and there is a current of four knots in a 6º direction, then you can calculate exactly where the vessel will be in one hour's time. And, of course, you need to know these things in order to point the ship in the right direction and regulate the speed to ensure that it is where you want to be in one hour's time. The point here is that the ship has to end up where it does because these forces all have the comparative strengths and the directions which they do have.

Something very like this is happening whenever we choose. Jones would like to see the film at the local cinema. This is its last night. He is tired from a hard day's work and there is a reasonable programme on the telly. His Aunty Mary has said she would like to call in to see him about nine o'clock and he's a bit hopeful of an inheritance. But he's pretty sure that Mavis will be at the cinema and he could `bump into her accidentally' - ... and so on. The `conflicting motivations' are all nicely lined up - but which will prove to have the `bigger push' can be discovered (by Jones or anybody else) only when he does or doesn't put on his coat and set off for the cinema.

The difference between this and the navigation case outlined is that, in that case, we did know independently just how many forces were operating and exactly what their strengths and directions were - whereas in this case -

i) whatever does motivate Jones is, ipso facto, a motivating force - we can react to motivations without thinking (reflexively) of them as motivations -

ii) their individual strengths can only be guessed at; we can, retrospectively, work out a set of motivating factors to explain our choices, but we can observe only their joint-effect vis-a-vis any given choice.

Nevertheless, as with the final position of the boat, what we find ourselves doing is what we must do because these motivating forces, as a totality, are what they are.

It follows, then, that all our choices are explainable (in principle) just as any other events are - i.e. that they have to be what they are because the world is as it is - bearing in mind, of course,that each of us is part of that world. Consider -

i) the two elements involved are the external circumstances as Jones perceives them and the nature of Jones. The first is explainable in terms of physics, the second is explainable in terms of genetics (plus conditioning - but the conditioning is dependent upon genetics too).

ii) thus, if Jones had sufficient information (which plainly he never would have) about the history of the universe and what we think of as the causal patterns between events, and also an adequately programmed computer with all this data built into it, he could press the appropriate buttons and learn what he will choose to eat for breakfast on 30 June two years hence.

We see, then, that choosing is not quite the sort of performance that most people have thought it to be. How can we identify choices ( free choices) by a distinciton between what we decide to do and what we have to do when what we choose is (necessarily) what we have to choose?

f. But, before tackling this problem, we should clear up another rather uncomfortable implication of the conclusions reached so far. Since what Jones wants is intelligible only in terms of what Jones chooses to do (i.e to attempt to achieve), it follows that whatever anybody ever finds himself choosing to do (i.e. doing when he was aware that he might have done something else) is, ipso facto, what he most wants to do at that moment. [He could, of course, regret it a moment later - but this means only that he has become aware of what for him are counter-motivating forces but which he had not thought about earlier].

So, how do we explain the intelligibility of the claim `Certainly, I did choose to do that (it was my decision) but I did not want to do it'? Why is this not blatantly self- contradictory? Well, by very straightforward language-rules, it is. But, as we have seen, there are many ways of stating things - so long as there is something intelligible to state (compare being almost certain). In this case we are assuming that people are (self-consciously or otherwise) cognisant of -

i) the difference between fear-motivation and hope- motivation. Within the motivation-mix, within our (isolated) wants, there are pleasures we wish to achieve and there are also pains we wish to avoid. We might say, simplistically, that choosing between tea and coffee, when we like both well but can have only one, is a `conflict of hopes', that choosing whether to have a tooth extracted or to put up with toothache is a `conflict of fears' and that (as in the example given earlier) choosing whether to enjoy the film and risk alienating Aunt Mary or to forgo the film and be safe from Aunt Mary's wrath is a complex of fear and hope motivations. To the extent that our choice, when it occurs, seems to us to have been hope- motivated, we allow that we wanted to do it. To the extent that it seems to have been fear-motivated, we say that we did it but we didn't want to.

ii) What we should say, of course, is that, if circumstances had been different, we wouldn't have wanted to do it - and we wish (refer back to 2 c. above) that they were different. Here we are dealing with what might be called the `but-for factor'. `I would (want to) come to the pub with you but for the rain' - `I would never have engaged Jones but for the pressure from the Union' - `I would prefer a car to a truck but for the rough roads round here'. But with that we might also say `Yes, I like curry very much; I would have chosen it but for the fact that there is my favourite, pickled pork, on the menu'. So it isn't the existence of but-fors that make us say we didn't want to - there always are but-fors or there could be no (considered) choice - it is the kind of but-for which governs our feelings about whether or not we wanted to choose as we did.

iii) Since there always are but-fors involved, the actual choice is not simply what we want to do; it is what we must want to do in these circumstances as we see them. And (consider fear and hope motivations), most-wanting is logically equivalent to least-diswanting (a simple obversion). To hope for X is to fear not getting X and to fear X is to hope that X won't occur. But they are psychologically very different - one is felt to be a choice, the other is a dilemma, a so-called Hobson's choice. So let us say that whatever we find ourselves choosing is, ipso-facto, what at that moment we most want/least diswant. Then the paradox of choosing to do what we don't want to do melts away.

Here consider the concept of duty; but for (!) the but-for factor there could be no such concept. The performance of any task as a duty implies that, but for the obligation, we would not chose to do it - i.e. would most want to do something else. This will be highly relevant when we examine morality.



4. Now let's return to the question raised in 3. e. above: Within those situations where we are the agents, where we are making the decisions, what are we distinguishing from what when we characterise some of these decisions as free choices and others as merely doing what we must do?

a. Our decisions are our actions; these are events in the world. Every event is in principle explainable; therefore our decisions had to be whatever they were.

i) When we ask `Why did you do that?' we are not asking a different kind of question from when we ask `Why is the roof leaking?' In both cases the response can be for us an explanation only if we can say `Had I known that, I would not have asked. I see that, that being so, this must be so' (or `the probability of this must be high'- refer to Topic 13, 1. f.)

ii) If the action were not as it is because the agent is as he or she is, then it would not be the choice of that person; he or she would be object, not agent.

iii) If we did not accept universal causality (i.e. that everything is in principle explainable) there could be no point in making choices. It is only our assumption that this course of action, rather than that course of action, must culminate in the desired state of affairs (or in a higher probability of that desired state of affairs) that gives any rationale to acting this way rather than that way.

Thus we see that, once we have accepted that causality is intelligible only in terms of necessity (as established in Topic 13), there is no way in which any objective distinction can be made between what we (freely) choose to do and what we do because we must.

b. Since we all plainly do make such a distinction, it must be made subjectively. There is certainly a difference we are all familiar with between feeling free to choose and feeling compelled to act in one way, whether we want to or not. Here consider:

i) A drug-addict. The very term `addict' implies that there is no freedom of choice. But there is a circularity here; we do not identify an addict by some other criterion and, thereby, predict that he or she must take drugs periodically if they are available - we simply describe people as addicts because we observe (i.e. believe) that they `can't help' choosing the way they do.

ii) A kleptomaniac. Such people are not regarded as thieves but as having diminished responsibility. Other people choose to steal things; they `can't help' taking things which do not belong to them.

iii) People with massive pride, self-esteem. Their awareness that certain things `just aren't done' prevents them from seeing such things as options.

iv) Cowards, bad-tempered people, shy people. They find that they can't control certain of their responses. What this amounts to is that they wish that they found themselves (most-)wanting things other than they do find themselves (most-)wanting. They do not chose to be cowardly, ill-tempered or shy - but they do choose (from time to time as appropriate conditions occur) to run away, to lash out at other people, to withdraw from any kind of prominence. And this just is being cowardly, ill-tempered or shy. [Note again the point made that we discover our characters by observing our choices]

v) People `with consciences'. The awareness that an action, however attractive it might be in itself, will cause them to suffer shame or guilt feelings inhibits, for them, the choice of that course of action. They find that they just can't do those things.

It should be plain from this list that where we put the division between having a free choice and not having a free choice is totally arbitrary. It depends very largely upon where we feel that nobody could doubt that this person will behave in that way in that situation - i.e. that the decision is wholly and confidently predictable. Parents of children who have been kidnapped for ransome would normally feel that they have no choice but to pay, however much they may hate doing so.

c. It is now apparent that the real difference is not between those choices that are already determined by history (in principle predictable) and those which are not; there are no random events. It is between those which we can in fact predict confidently and accurately (in the manner of someone who has studied the whole table-cloth - refer back to Topic 13, 2.e.) and those where we must wait to discover what we do decide, where we cannot be sure what we will do until we do it.

But - and here think of the motivation-mix again - we tend to be less familiar with our desires than with our fears. So that (consider especially situations like the kidnap case above), we tend to see hope-motivated choices as `more free' than fear-motivated choices - doing what we most-want as more free than doing what we - least-diswant - notwithstanding that they are one and the same and, in both cases, what we (being ourselves in these circumstances) must do.

Here think about reading a novel that was written many years ago. What happens is all down there in print but, for the reader who has not reached that bit yet, there is all the `openness' and excitement of discovery that there is in real life. Better still, think of watching a football replay on the telly when you don't know the result of the game. So far as you are concerned, it is all happening now; it is no less exciting, no less a matter for decision-making by the players, because it is (in fact) already settled who won and by how many goals. We are all like actors performing our parts in a play (which just is whatever play it is) - except that actors know what comes next and we don't. We are not making the play up as we go along, but we are exposing it to scrutiny. Try to imagine an experiment where very competent actors are not given the script at all but simply fed their lines by the prompt as the performance progresses so that they don't know what they will do or say next. Life is a bit like that.

d. But it would be very silly to say that what this amounts to is that we don't really have choices at all. We have seen what a choice situation is and must recognise that these are always there and that we do make choices, big ones that we think of as choices and little ones that we think of as simply getting on with our business, every moment of our waking lives. Whenever we are aware that different courses of action are for us possibilities and discover, from watching ourselves, that one of these is an actuality, we have made a choice.

Nor is there any implication that it can make no difference what we choose since what will happen is already determined. This is the half-baked notion sometimes called fatalism. Of course it makes a difference - what we choose is part of what is determined. We are not standing outside the universe pushing it about; we are, every one of us, integral parts of it. If any one of us chose differently - i.e. acted differently with different results - then it would be a different universe. It is what it is (in part at least) because we are what we are - i.e. because we choose as we do.

Here imagine a boulder perched on top of a hill. Eventually,through erosion and such, it will topple and roll down, coming to rest in a given place. Where it will come to rest must be determined by the topography of the hillside, gravity and such like - so that people who are very clever at that kind of thing could predict fairly accurately where this would be. Now, a seed lands somewhere on the hillside and a tree grows up. When the boulder does topple it runs into that tree and bounces off in a quite different direction from that it would have taken had the tree not been there. So we can't say that the tree's being as and where it is makes no difference - it makes a considerable difference.

And all of our choices make a difference in exactly the same way; they are part of the universe being as it is and not some other (conceivable) universe. And, of course, unlike the tree, we are aware of what effects we are having (what roles we are performing in the play) and, thereby, feel responsible. As indeed, by any intelligible account of responsibility, we are.

This paper probably needs a period for digestion. But, once it is digested, you will find that the strange and mysterious has been rendered quite ordinary and intelligible - and that you have lost nothing at all of the free will that you thought you had to participate in the shaping of destiny. If this troubles you, just think about what counts as `shaping' and what counts as `destiny' - and you should see the point.