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Intelligibility and Free Choice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Bernard Wand
Affiliation:
Carleton University

Extract

Whether or not men have free choice is a question which arises within two distinct moral contexts. At issue in the one is their ability to decide among genuine alternatives; in the other their ability to do what they think they ought to do although their desire to perform their duty is weaker than their desire to do otherwise. The former has to do with moral decision; (he latter with moral effort. Although the two are distinct they are not unrelated. For in any moral decision a fully conscious, or rather self-conscious agent, will always take into account the likelihood of his effort succeeding in action and this will have an important bearing on the decision he makes.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1962

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References

1 See below pp. 256 ff.

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