It certainly seems like we make our own choices. And to a limited extent, we certainly do. People are not powerless to will themselves into different behavior; in fact, they do so every day. There are obese people who make changes in their lives and through hard work and willpower, drop their weight and live a healthier lifestyle. We also seem to make small decisions in our lives, such as whether to eat McDonald’s or Subway for lunch or whether to apply for a particular job. These small decisions are effortless and frequent, thus giving us the illusion that we are completely in control. Yet other examples show that free will has many limitations.
When a person isn’t free to choose
One of the more obvious examples on the limitations of free will can be seen in the example of a gay youth. There are some people out there who will naively believe that being gay is a “choice,” as if someone wakes up in the morning and decides that it’s a good day to be gay. Having spent many years dealing with youth suffering from a sexual orientation that was different in some way, it’s hard to convey just how utterly absurd this notion is. Nobody “chooses” to be different in a way that will get them ostracized, ridiculed, and labeled as a pervert or degenerate. Nobody chooses this path of torment, any more than you would wake up tomorrow and decide it would be a good thing to be locked in a torture chamber for 12 hours of excruciating pain and agony . . . as if this is something you would purposely seek out. You would never “choose” this torture any more than people “choose” to seek the ostracism that ultimately comes from being different in an intolerant society.
Here’s a more realistic appraisal of the average situation: A child is born into a loving, often highly religious family. Between the ages of 4 and 6, when sexuality first begins to emerge in earnest and crushes are rampant, he might notice something is different. Maybe he has a secret crush on his teacher Tom rather than the female teacher his playmates are enamored with. He seems to seek out the affections of male caretakers more than female ones. But he actively suppresses these thoughts, dismissing them as nothing, and since his parents are also actively repressing their child’s sexual development, the issue gets pushed aside.
Then shortly before puberty arrives, it re-emerges. In preparation for puberty, the brain begins sending out stronger signals that aren’t so easily ignored. Now it becomes clear that something is wrong. Like many children, he privately masturbates, only now he can’t stop thinking about boys when he does so. He knows this is very wrong, at least according to the beliefs his parents indoctrinated him in. He knows that having such thoughts means he is surely going to hell. So he tries to suppress it. He begins to pray incessantly over it, begging God to take it away and rid him of this affliction. He makes a pact with himself to only start thinking about girls. Yet his thoughts inevitably revert back to boys. He tries to analyze attractive women or pretty girls in his school, willing himself towards a different orientation through sheer hard work. It doesn’t work. In fact, it only further illustrates the gap between what he feels towards females versus what he feels towards males. He fights this war for many years, losing battle after battle, until he eventually stops fighting and gives up, mentally beaten down and exhausted. At this point there are only two paths forward: Either he can stop beating himself up and accept who and what he is, or he can rid the torment inside him by committing suicide. Most such kids will gradually work to accept themselves, beginning a lifelong journey to try and overcome the damage inflicted by society. Sadly, every year thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender youth choose the latter, killing themselves to kill the evil they’ve been told exists inside them.
These kids didn’t choose this affliction, it chose them. When they realized the differences,, they tried to fight it. They usually fought it more than any person has ever fought anything in their life. Yet in spite of their most heroic efforts, despite pouring every ounce of energy and determination they could muster into a frantic attempt to will their way towards a different sexual orientation, their attraction remained as it was. Forces beyond their control are pulling them in a particular direction, and despite their strongest will to be something else, they are unable to alter this aspect of themselves. Try as they might, they can’t make the gay go away. Clearly, they are not free to choose their attraction and mold their thoughts to what they desire them to be. They do not have free will.
To call this affliction a choice is such an insult precisely because it ignores what these kids went through. It’s akin to telling a woman who is brutally raped that she must have somehow willed it to happen and therefore invited the attack. To insinuate that sexual orientation is a choice – that it’s a simple matter of deciding to be something different – shows an insulting lack of empathy and compassion and a total disregard for the struggle these individuals went through.
Not all examples are so obvious as this one, but there are numerous other circumstances in which we simply don’t have the freedom and control over our thoughts that we think we have.
See also…