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3. Free Will: Two Paradoxes of Choice

Tags: Philosophy and Methodology

06/27/2006 Roderick T. Long

Economics deals with the preferences you are actually acting on. The judgment you are not acting on could still be around. So, action does not imply total judgment.

If we had free will we could control our actions. We can choose our overall pattern of actions. You are not stuck with any particular pattern. The more often you do virtuous things, the easier it gets. By changing our action we change our tendencies. Habituation can get rid of things that are expressible through action, but it might not be the case that I can get rid of trembling or flinching (non-rational expressions).

The third of ten lectures from the Foundations of Libertarian Ethics seminar with Roderick T. Long.

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