this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

"Having the capacity for free will" is not even remotely the same as "being capable of making completely disposessed choices in every single circumstance". When considering one's options, different people in different situations give different weights to different factors.

Consider a person acting under the threat of being murdered if they don't comply with some demand, like in an armed robbery. The fact that making certain choices, like refusing to cooperate, is in practice nearly impossible for them in this case has no bearing on whether or not they "have the capacity for free will" in a general sense. Likewise someone being manipulated by a person they fell in love with.

In the same vein, a narcissist is strongly compelled by internal factors to act only in ways that gratify their overinflated ego. While it may conceivably not be 100% impossible for them to go against this compulsion, it is extremely unlikely that it will even occur to them to do so, and given that it does occur to them to do so, it is extremely unlikely that they will choose that course of action. They act in predictable ways for this reason. The weights they place on certain factors are consistently different from average. This is entirely unrelated to the question of "free will".