Concept
Choice
Overview
A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate motivators and models.
Freedom of choice is generally cherished, whereas a severely limited or artificially restricted choice can lead to discomfort with choosing, and possibly an unsatisfactory outcome. In contrast, a choice with excessively numerous options may lead to confusion, reduced satisfaction, regret of the alternatives not taken, and indifference in an unstructured existence;
and the illusion that choosing an object or a course, necessarily leads to the control of that object or course, can cause psychological problems.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
iii, 3) he inclines to its being an intellectual appetite when he describes choice as "a desire proceeding from counsel." And the reason of this is because the proper object of choice is the means to the end: and this, as such, is in the nature of that good which is called useful: wherefore since good, as such, is the object of the appetite, it follows that choice is principally an act of the appetitive power. And…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
Names Choice several times; states what Choice is.
We want things that are incompatible with one another; therefore we have to make a choice of what we _really_ want, of the course of action, that is, which most fully releases activities. Choice is not the emergence of preference out of indifference. It is the emergence of a unified preference out of competing preferences. Biases that had held one another in check now, temporarily at least, reinforce one another…
John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct
Names Choice several times; states what Choice is.
But when we are conscious of our choice, but are not conscious of our impulses and motives, we get the impression that our choice is unmotived, and hence come to believe in "indifferent freedom,"--the ability to choose as we will. We shall shortly take up in more detail the theory of Leibniz regarding the freedom of will; and it is needful here to remark only that the conception which makes it consist in ability to…
John Dewey, Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
Names Choice several times; states what Choice is.
Philosophers who discussed Choice
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Liberalism.