the philosophy of choice

[quarrel]

On March 15, astronaut Chris Hadfield answered some school kids’ questions about his job. One child asked for advice for aspiring astronauts. Commander Hadfield listed three key points that apply equally to all ambitions:

1. Education, which means not just schooling but being curious and constantly wanting to learn new things.
2. Physical health. Think about what you eat, and exercise.
3. Decision-making. Practice making good choices by starting early and doing it often. You’ll start bad but get better.

That last item struck Shaterri as odd, but it’s one I’ve encountered before. In the wake of the Occupy movement, I’ve noticed more stress on the idea that every single dollar you spend on anything tells the company providing that product or service that whatever they do to make it is OK by you, so please keep doing it.

Then there’s the more extreme take I ran into a couple of weeks ago. Let’s say you like strawberries. Is there anything wrong with eating them? Not really, at least not inasmuch as that action isn’t wanton and it isn’t out of synch with the goal.

But is there anything wrong with liking strawberries in the first place? If you never voluntarily chose to like them, then — at least according to this point of view — kind of. The idea is that it’s undesirable to allow anything other than your own will and conscious mind to determine anything about you. If you are biologically predisposed to enjoy the taste of strawberries, well, fine. Some people start out that way. But if you surrender to it and consider that “just the way you are”, you make yourself a victim of chance. Better to realize that you can alter all your tastes (for example, deliberately developing a taste for beer or coffee, or nurturing an aversion to cigarettes) and make a conscious, deliberate choice to allow yourself to continue enjoying strawberries rather than unthinkingly obey your biochemistry. The result is the same but the method is more responsible (and, for the long run, more flexible).

I did point out that this view got silly at the edge cases. Sure, it’s technically possible to change the fact that you’re 6'1" or right-handed (or…male?), but for the vast majority of such people, remaining that way is a trivial decision given the cost, risk, effort, and unintended consequences that come with changing, so how estimable is it, really, to stay that way on purpose? Is that really a “choice”? And he couldn’t explain why he thought that never choosing was bad, but it was okay to choose so long ago that you don’t remember choosing. And then he had to leave.