2 - Choice and Freedom

Summary

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHOICE

The role that choice plays in the analysis of individual behavior has recently become the object of novel attention for historical and conceptual reasons. These reasons are worth some brief considerations at the opening of our discussion of choice and freedom since they have to do with the importance that the fulfilment of autonomy has gained in contemporary life, fulfilment for which choice is fundamental.

The Changing Role of Choice: Facts

Since capitalism unbounded its strengths at the end of the eighteenth century, the enlargement of the extent of choice that it permits has always been pinpointed as both a constitutive feature of such a system of production and a prominent justification for its accomplishments. In the last few decades, the extent to which people can make choices and are aware of the choices they make increased dramatically. Since the days in which Henry Ford used to say that “people can have the Model T in any color – so long as it's black,” capitalism overhauled people's lives by putting into the hands of individuals the possibility of shaping their own destinies in ways that were then unthinkable.

Such a momentous revolution involves all domains of our daily experience on the Earth – economic, social, and political. Witness what is happening with one of the most common domestic appliance: the TV set. Thanks to cable and satellite the amount of choice – channels and programs – at, literally, the finger of the consumer has grown exponentially allowing viewers to “talk” to their TV sets as they already do with their computers.