In this imagined scenario, a donkey is stood at the meeting point of two paths feeling hungry and thirsty in exactly equal measure. On one path lies a bale of hay, on the other lies a trough of water; the food and the water are perfectly equidistant from him. Should he attend first to his hunger, or to his thirst? (Just suppose here that hunger is no more an immediate threat to life than thirst, and vice-versa, and that no other relevant factors are in play.) It seems that there’s no sufficient reason to follow one path before the other. Hence, the poor wretched creature sadly dies of both hunger and starvation!
One moral that’s often drawn from this tale is that there is no such thing as free will. Why? Because either there is some factor or reason compelling us to take one course of action over another in any scenario, in which case, free choice is only apparent; or, we lack sufficient reason to take a particular course of action, and in that case, rational choice is impossible! | |||