The place of rage and hate

[Mudhammam]

I don't buy this argument for 2 main reasons:

1) It assumes that once one will wins, the others are discarded. I remember plenty of experiences where I kept on changing my mind on what to do. In one case, I was deciding on whether or not to take a job or go to school. I changed my mind back and forth for days until I hit the deadline to respond. Only then did was my decision was forced. If no deadline existed, I would of spend a lot longer deciding.

2) "Out of character" decisions exist. I'm not the cases when others would consider the decision out of character, but only when the person that made the decision considers it out of character. In these cases, they seem very contrary to any battle of the wills. It seem like the decision was random, and when asked why they made such a decision the answers range from "I don't know" to "just felt like it."

You should definitely read Schopenhauer's Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will. To summarize, he would (and I largely agree with him regarding determinism from a philosophical standpoint) counter 1) by suggesting that you're confusing wishing with willing. Human beings may possess a variety of conflicting motivations that result in inconsistent behavior but that's not to say that your will, granted your freedom to act as you see fit isn't prohibited, won't ultimately prevail. When a different option becomes more desirable and you change your mind, you're not changing your will as it is properly understood, you're changing your stance towards the motivation that previously won out; new information comes into view that lessens that desire or strengthens an opposing one. Your example, when a "decision was forced" and you couldn't exactly determine what your will was or would be, demonstrates that it is often only after the fact that we come to realize our character and to think to ourselves, for better or for worse, "I did that?!"

As for 2), regarding "out-of-character" behaviors, I'm not so sure I agree given the mosaic nature of personality and the many layers of causation beneath thoughts and actions. When a person does something absent of any apparent reason, or acts uncharacteristically, that doesn't mean a reason doesn't exist, or that they didn't act according to their will. They simply didn't understand what their will, which is their empirical character, actually entailed. That will can be influenced by reason, however, is what fundamentally separates us from other primates, and introduces the concept of morality.