Do We Choose to Be Who We Are?

And what, by the way, is choice?

Monarch caterpillar. Photo by the author, Tucker Lieberman. You may use it, too. It’s on Pixabay.

While reading Iain McGilchrist’s philosophy book The Master and His Emissary, I was indirectly reminded of an old debate about whether people choose to be gay.

When the debate is framed in an adversarial way (as it usually is), gay people typically find it necessary to give a resounding “no.” As long as you describe your gayness as an essential, immutable part of your being, you have a legal argument to defend yourself against discrimination and a theological argument to defend yourself against religious shaming.

But if the debate is framed in a more curious, open way, with threats of discrimination and shaming removed from the picture, the question Is it a choice? can lead to other questions, like So what if it is a choice? or What even is a ‘choice’?

We Are Our Disposition Towards the World

“Our primary being lies in a disposition towards the world,” Iain McGilchrist writes. He’s not talking about sexuality or gender. He’s talking about the brain and personhood more generally.

By this, he means: You can’t break down your core self into specific thoughts and feelings about the world, much less into reflective statements describing those thoughts and feelings, such as “I think that…”…