Freedom
and the Power of Preference
Keith Lehrer
It
is the power of preference that leads us to think and aver that things are up to
us or in our power. Our preferences
are the source of our freedom. But
we must have our preferences because
we prefer to have them and not because they are imposed upon us.
We have reasons for our preferences.
But reasons for our preferences must be reasons because
we prefer them to be. We must be
agent and author of our preferences for them to be free.
But our preferences, it seems, are part of the natural causal order.
So how can we have our preferences because prefer to have them?
How can things be reasons for our preferences because we prefer that they
are? How can we be the agent and
author of our preferences, when our preferences are part of the causal order?
How, on the contrary, can we have preferences because
we prefer to have them if they are not part of the causal order? When we reflect on how preferences empower us, we
understand that we must empower them. But
how? These are the questions I
shall seek to answer. The keystone
to the answer is a kind of special
preference that loops back onto our preferences including itself.