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Date Posted: 14:42:43 01/21/08 Mon
Author: HWAET!
Subject: Desire vs. Instinct, Determinism vs. Will

At risk of mistating what Jon was getting at near the end of class today, the concern seems to be: if all human desire follows the appropriative mechanism, then even one's preference for one model over another is borrowed; it therefore seems inaccurate to say that one "chooses" one's model, because this "choice" merely follows desires appropriated from models belonging to larger, unseen triangles. It may seem that "choice" or free will is trapped here in determinism--that one's desires inevitably follow from a progression of triangles that has been developing since "the beginning." In this deterministic view, one cannot be said to "choose" among desires, models, or objects, because one is only following a series of desires set in motion long ago.

I'll venture that the triangles do not eliminate "choice," or its agent, free will. If we regard desire as instinct, then certainly free will disappears, because choice merely gives way to the strongest instinct. Desire is different from instinct in that the strongest desire does not automatically (keyword) reign. At first my desire to ignore my neighbor outweighs my desire to clothe him, and were I a creature of instinct, I would automatically follow this strongest of instincts without deliberation. As a creature of will, though, my first and strongest desire still may be to ignore my neighbor, but I have the ability to pause and, as it were, switch triangles, choosing to be influenced by St Paul, and help my neighbor. At the end of the day, it is true that my desire to help my neighbor (and therefore to imitate St Paul) grew until it outweighed my initially stronger desire to ignore my neighbor--but this switch could not have occurred without the ability to pause and think about it, an ability which animals (and instincts) lack.

One can still object that in the above paradigm the strongest desire, like the strongest instinct, always wins. This is true, but it does eliminate the fact that we have the unique ability to deliberate over our desires and agonize over our triangles--an ability, in other words, to choose.

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