Do you get to choose who you are?

Free will has to be among the weirdest concepts.

We take it for granted whilst simultaneously not talking it for granted. We feel, at a gut level that we have free will and base a lot of our behavior and our policies upon the idea that we have free will while also, at a gut level, knowing that we don't have free will and supporting policies in accordance with determinism.

I'm on the side of determinism. Just take a simple issue like sexual orientation. If you're sexually attracted to women, can you just flip that switch and be attracted to men? Just try it. I bet you can't. Name a city. Most of you probably didn't name Moscow or Tokyo. Were you free to say what didn't occur to you?

Even within the philosophical view of compatibilism, which defends the idea that free will is compatible with a deterministic universe, you still need to face the reality that you don't get to choose who you are to begin with.

I would no longer dare to definitively say that determinism is more correct than compatibilism; but, questions about the limits of free will should make us think about how we navigate our moral thinking.

I think that there's a compelling case to be made that the worst of us are really broken machines. That doesn't negate the importance of political freedom for a moment. You should be free to be who you are. But, again, do you get to choose who you are?