For those of us who want to have control over all our mental states, compatibilist substitutes - such … - Nomy Arpaly

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What can i tell you about the choices we make? Fate reads like the polar opposite of decision, and so much of life reads like fate.

Nomy Arpaly

For those of us who want to have control over all our mental states, compatibilist substitutes - such as desiring what we desire to desire - will always be like being told, when you desperately want there to be a God, that yes, God exists, as God is simply the good within people.

Control, Desire, God Exists, People, States, Yes

Same Author Quotes

Characters in Hollywood movies encounter a lot of car chases. Characters in novels rarely wash their hands or do their laundry. And in the work of moral psychologists, people deliberate and reflect a lot. They deliberate, one sometimes feels, whenever they perform an action, and certainly whenever they act for good reasons.

Car, Character, Characters, Encounter, People, Perform

Other things being equal, ill will is worse than moral indifference (as in causing suffering for money vs causing suffering to cause suffering), though things are rarely equal.

Cause, Causing, Indifference, Moral, Suffering, Things

Sometimes we deliberate - for example when we plan a long trip or - if we are not math wizards - when we solve long division problems. However, if we deliberated every time we acted we would never get through the day. Most of the time, we act for reasons without deliberation. I am not just talking about cases of simple, habitual action, like brushing your teeth, but also about more sophisticated action.

Math, Simple, Long, Deliberated, Trip

I think it's ok to have wishes that conflict with each other - it's irrational to try to make them both come true, but not irrational simply to have them.

Conflict, Think, Thinking, Trying, Wish, Wishes

If I make a stupid decision but don't execute it because I'm, say, lazy, then I'm lucky, not rational. However, at other times a person acts for good reasons just as she does what she thinks she shouldn't do, not knowing that they are good reasons. Just like sometimes we are a lot less rational than we think we are, it is also true that sometimes we are a lot more rational than we think we are.

Stupid, Thinking, Decision, Say, Rational