A World of Bewildering Choices

On the 5th of May, I shall be at the Lower Red Lion on Fishpool Street, gathering with others to consider the seventh question in our philosophical series: "What is Choice?" By accident, I came across an article with a relevant claim on the theme of choice: "Since living requires choosing, we will always feel regret about the paths not taken. But what matters is the future we forge." This sent me, as they say, down something of a rabbit hole.

The article in question weaves together existential philosophy, psychotherapy, and the author's lived experience of recovering from an eating disorder. While it possesses considerable strengths in its authenticity and philosophical grounding, several structural and stylistic weaknesses diminish its overall effectiveness. Before offering a critique, however, it is worth dwelling on the philosophical ideas that underpin the piece, for they are rich and deserving of more sustained attention than the author accords them.

The central claim—that authentic choices lead to less painful regret—draws upon a distinguished philosophical lineage. For Kierkegaard, the ethical choice was never merely about selecting between options, but about committing oneself fully to a way of living. To choose ethically was to take up a position in the world with complete commitment, accepting responsibility for that choice even in the absence of objective signs to guide one's way. This is what it means to "choose to choose," rather than drift through life unreflectively. It is, of course, reminiscent of Socrates' dictum that 'the unexamined life is not worth living'.

Heidegger developed these insights further, though his terminology can obscure as much as it reveals. In his account, authenticity (Eigentlichkeit) names a modification of our ordinary way of being-in-the-world, wherein we "own" or take responsibility for our intentional acts rather than simply being absorbed in the everyday. The authentic person rises above what Heidegger calls the "they" of the herd, confronting rather than fleeing from the realities of existence. This confrontation is made possible by our relationship with death, which serves as the ever-present "possibility of no longer being possible," opening up various possibilities for a meaningful existence. Heidegger was deeply focused on death, making it a cornerstone of his philosophy in Being and Time. He described human existence as "being-towards-death" (Sein-zum-Tode), arguing that authentically facing our mortality is necessary for a meaningful life. It might be argued that this was not a morbid obsession, but an urgent demand to stop living inauthentically. It is precisely through this authentic confrontation with finitude that we gain insight into the whole of our being and its temporal significance.

Sartre radicalised this position, famously declaring that "man is condemned to be free," meaning that we cannot escape the burden of choice. For Sartre, there is no determinate human nature that dictates how we should live; we are what we choose to make of ourselves. This dizzying freedom is the source of what Kierkegaard called "anxiety" and what Sartre called "anguish"—the vertiginous awareness that we are responsible for creating values in a world that offers no pre-ordained guidance.

The author draws upon John Lucas's distinction between existential anxiety and existential guilt, which proves genuinely illuminating. Lucas, a Fellow at Merton College, was an opponent of mechanistic views and a defender of free will. He defined existential regret as a profound desire to go back and change a past experience in which one has failed to choose consciously, or has made a choice that did not align with one's beliefs, values, or needs. The person experiences a combination of existential anxiety and existential guilt. The anxiety stems from confrontation with empirical existence, including the limitations of past choices, the inability to change the past, and the end of freedom itself. The guilt arises from the sense of having abandoned and betrayed the self, of having made a choice in a moment of bad faith or in the absence of authentic presence. This framework offers a genuinely helpful analytical tool for understanding different registers of regret.

The article also touches upon Nietzsche and his concept of amor fati—love of fate. This is a philosophy with Stoic roots, popularised by Nietzsche, advocating for the active acceptance and embrace of everything that occurs in life, whether good, bad, or painful, as necessary, useful, and ultimately "good." Nietzsche first employs "love of fate" in The Gay Science, where he writes: "I want to learn more, to see as beautiful what is necessary in things—so I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth!"

This is not a passive resignation to whatever happens, but an active affirmation that seeks to transform one's relationship to necessity itself. Nietzsche distinguishes this from merely bearing what is necessary or concealing it: "all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary." Rather, one must learn to love it. The love in question, recent scholarship suggests, is neither the free bestowal of agape nor the pursuit of the beautiful characteristic of eros, but rather involves embracing something and coming to be at home with it.

The personal voice in the article creates genuine emotional resonance, and the author's willingness to share their eating disorder recovery journey demonstrates the very concepts they discuss. The philosophical foundations are solid, with the use of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Nietzsche, and, interestingly, Irvin Yalom, the American existential psychiatrist and emeritus professor at Stanford University, now in his ninety-fourth year. The central thesis—that authentic choices lead to less painful regret—is coherent and consistently developed, and the final paragraphs successfully thread together the philosophical, therapeutic, and personal strands established earlier.

However, my view is that significant structural issues undermine the piece. The opening section meanders through multiple philosophical concepts before reaching Lucas's framework, which should arrive earlier to provide readers with a clearer conceptual anchor. The shift from general discussion of regret to the author's eating disorder experience feels jarring, lacking sufficient connective tissue to prepare readers for such an intimate turn. Concepts of authenticity and existential anxiety are reintroduced multiple times without significant development, creating a sense of repetition that slows the article's momentum.

It is, of course, difficult to combine the abstract with the personal in any piece of writing. As a result, philosophical references accumulate without always earning their place; some citations feel decorative rather than integral to the argument. The prose shifts between academic formality and casual intimacy without clear purpose. I am sure I have been guilty of this myself in attempts to communicate complex ideas more simply within a personal context.

Despite its centrality to the thesis, the concept of authenticity remains, to my mind, under -theorised. This problem is central to the philosophies of both Sartre and Foucault. As one commentator puts it: "My making choices and acting on those choices in a way that might count as my being free would seem to require that those choices are truly my choices. Furthermore, for my choices to be truly mine, it would seem that these choices must reflect my true self. So it seems that choosing and acting freely depends in a robust sense on such choosing and acting being authentic. Yet the concept of authenticity seems problematic. What or where is that true self which would be the basis for authentic choosing, acting and living? Perhaps there is no such true self."

The author acknowledges that "our selves are complex, multifaceted and often contradictory," but never adequately addresses how we navigate these contradictions when making choices. If our selves are multiple and conflicting, what does it mean to make an authentic choice? Which self do we choose to honour? This question is raised but never answered. The self-help formula often runs: being authentically yourself means understanding and embracing who you are at your core. But this is rarely straightforward. Finding your true self is said to involve introspection, courage, and letting go of long-held beliefs about who you are supposed to be. But what if there is no "true self" to find?

There is also an unresolved tension around agency and responsibility. The author presents recovery from anorexia as both "not fundamentally my fault" and "a colossal exercise of will," without reconciling these positions or exploring their philosophical implications. This is a genuinely interesting tension that could be productively explored through existential lenses, yet it remains undeveloped.

To be honest (I know, a weaselly phrase), those seeking concrete strategies for navigating their own paralysing indecision will find little practical help in this piece. The claim that "authenticity may offer a compass for moments of indecision" is not demonstrated through examples or exercises that readers could apply to their own lives. The article also assumes a degree of agency that not all readers possess, without acknowledging how material circumstances such as poverty, oppression, or illness constrain authentic choice. This is a significant oversight in a piece about decision-making.

What I need is a more rigorous definition of authenticity, engaging directly with philosophical debates about what the term means, particularly in contexts where agency is compromised. We also need to acknowledge the privilege inherent in assuming we all can simply choose authentically without material constraint, addressing the very real limitations that shape many people's decision-making. How free, after all, are we as agents?

The core insight for me was that how we make choices matters as much as what we choose, which I think is valuable and important. Yet the authentic voice remains, for me, something of a puzzle. I look forward to discussing these questions further at the Lower Red Lion in May, where I hope we can explore together what it means to choose, and to live with our choices, in a world of bewildering possibilities.