<br><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">You would certainly agree that there is a difference between an exiled<br>intellectual agreeing to be a Nazi agent, and say, a Gestapo prisoner
<br>betraying his comrades under torture. The first is choice, the other one is<br>compulsion. In my view there is a clear distinction between the two, and<br>everything else being equal, most reasonable people would agree with it.
</blockquote><div><br>There is certainly a difference, yes, but not one of kind -- more one of degree. Instead of asking the still unresolved metaphysical question 'do people make choices? yes or no?' or 'is there such a thing as free will?', I would submit that it is more productive to ask the normative question "to what extent ought this person's 'choice' count as his or hers?"
<br><br>Even though children, the insane, and the mentally retarded can all be said to make "choices," it is more or less agreed that these choices don't count as theirs. If a child or an insane person commits a crime, we attribute the crime to youth or insanity -- not to the person him or herself. In these cases we say that something foreign (
e.g., mental illness) makes the 'choice.' But why should we stop with youth, insanity and mental retardation? Why shouldn't we count poverty too (at least to some extent)?<br><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span><br>
Of course, there might be good reasons to count some people's choices as "theirs" but not others, but these are ethical and political value judgments. To pretend otherwise strikes me as a little naive.<br> <br>
-N<br></div></div>