Is it philosophically possible to do something you don't want to do?

Is it philosophically possible to do something you don't want to do?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    No

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Yes, people can be made to "do" things they don't want to do whatsoever like being raped or eaten or set on fire. Sometimes people have no choice whatsoever in what they "do" because things can be done to them by others. When it comes to things that people "choose" to do they can still do things they don't want to do if the alternative is something they want to do less.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      What I'm saying is given a limited set of options of choosing an action, people have to pick the one they want the most. It would actually be impossible for them to not pick it because even if they tried to intentionally pick the one they wanted less like being shot instead of punched, they'd still be doing what they "want"

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Most people don't want to get punched or shot. Being able to choose between 2 things you don't want doesn't mean you want either of them.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Let's put that scenario aside for moment.
          Some ugly bastard offers you a million dollar if you will eat his ass, and for this thought experiment we will assume you're not a giant homosexual.
          If you rim him in exchange for the million dollars, are you doing what you want?
          If yes, what if you need the million dollars to afford life-saving surgery for yourself or your loved one, are you still doing what you want? Pretty soon you end up back at the scenario where you're eating shit because you have a gun pointed at your head and it's not clear when, if ever, it stopped being of your own free will. After all you always have the choice to just die instead of doing the thing.

          Or if you think you're already not acting of your own free will when you're whoring yourself for a million dollar, what about when you're rimming him just so he will return the favor? It's still doing something you don't really want to do normally in exchange for something you enjoy, but it's hard to honestly say you're doing something you didn't want to do is it?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            maybe the word I should've used is prefer, but want still works. I agree with the first paragraph, even the person with the gun to their head is still doing what they want MOREso than the other limited options. They may not want it given other options such as freedom but that isn't an option for them

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The problem is that you treat "preference" as a justification when it isn't. Someone preferring a bad outcome to a worse outcome isn't a moral justification for forcing that outcome on someone.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I never said it was a moral justification. I was asking whether it's possible for someone to even do that which they don't prefer given a scenario of finite options

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >I was asking whether it's possible for someone to even do that which they don't prefer given a scenario of finite options

            The answer is still yes because humans aren't omniscient or perfectly rational.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >If you rim him in exchange for the million dollars, are you doing what you want?
            No.
            >but it's hard to honestly say you're doing something you didn't want to do is it?
            No.

            Doing something they don't want to do for a positive incentive or to avoid a bad outcome doesn't mean the person wants to do it. When you start talking about "free will" it sort of begs the question what's the point or why is it valuable if you're only able to choose between bad outcomes that you don't want.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You don't have unlimited options, therefore, even if both are bad options you don't want, you're still choosing the one you want the most (as oppose to the one you want less). That's his point, you can't escape this

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The fact that you're choosing the one you "want most" is irrelevant to whether you want it or not because people don't choose what options are available to them. It's just a ridiculous argument to make because people can give someone a choice between 2 horrific outcomes where a person absolutely does not desire either outcome whatsoever like "ok now jump off this 20 story building or I'm going to set you on fire". You probably don't want to jump off the building or be set on fire, you might not even have a good idea of which one you "want less" because having experienced neither you won't know for sure which is even the better outcome. It's not a good argument in favor of "free will". If people can force a set of options on you where all of them have bad outcomes that you wouldn't choose if they weren't being forced on you then you don't have free will.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Before this question can be answered the obvious fact has to be stated that we as human beings live in reality and are thus bound by laws of reality. We might wish to float off into the sky but cannot do so, we need to eat or else we will die. Leaving aside having to deal with those obvious facts of reality we can get to people choosing.

            So, aside from dealing with reality you can still be forced to do things you don't want to do. This can be achieved by a second party using violence or the threat of violence to force people into a choice framework they do not wish to be in. A robber saying "your money or your life", makes you hand over your money to said robber or be shot. Certainly you prefer one option over the other, but without the robber using the threat of violence upon you you'd never have given him the money in the first place. In other words, it can occur if a second party leaves you worse off than you otherwise would be had they not interacted with you in the first place.

            And in response to this option it's not the same. This is a second party offering you a trade, you can decline it, leaving you no worse off than if the option had not existed at all in the first place. In all trades one gives up something, but one only accepts the trade if ex ante one thinks the received object is more valuable than the object given up.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          yes, but people also wants to stay alive, therefore willing to do something like giving out their wallet to not be dead.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Technically they still don't "want" to do it. Get it.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Yes and philosophers should be intimately aware of this as they were all homosexual nerds who were relentlessly bullied into doing things they didn't want to do as children.

    t. your childhood bully that has finally found you again

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    yes, see Plato's Republic, Book IV, and his discussion of the tripartite soul.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    yeah they're called taxes

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Yeah, I don't want to go on living

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Yes. In fact everything you do is something you don't want to do.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Yes in practical sense, no in any actual analysis. At the end of the day, people will do stuff even if they don't want to. Like kill a child to save another, if they have no choice. In one sense you could say "he killed the baby even if he didn't want to kill", but in another sense, he saved another baby because he wanted to. Two mutually contradictory moral positions can be had.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Born to shit forced to wipe

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