The Meaning of Free Choice
Being free to make choices is part of being an active learner, of being in charge of your life. That is why one of our textbooks is How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. But what, exactly, does it mean to be "free to make choices?" Consider the following Peanuts cartoon:
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Why does Linus say "Life is full of choices, but you never get any!" when he clearly does have a choice about whether to throw a snowball at his big sister, Lucy?
The problem for Linus is that he wants to choose a course of action and be free from the consequences of his actions. He want to be able to hit Lucy with the snowball without her retaliating by beating him up. But none of us is free from the consequences of our actions. We can only choose our actions, not the consequences of our actions.
If we want certain consequences we cannot choose any old behavior and expect to get what we want. If we want a good grade in a course, we cannot choose to ignore assignments and skip the examinations. To get consequences we want, we have no choice but to do what is necessary to get those consequences. To earn an A in a course, you must do the assigned work and score well on the exams.