ABSTRACT

Let us clarify the difference between preferring and choosing. Giving preference is the more general concept; making a choice is giving preference, but not all preferring is choosing. Two factors must be present for a preference to be a choice:

(a) It must be a decision. (b) It must be directed upon something that it is our business to accomplish and that

can be accomplished in virtue of our desiring it. ad (a) Every emotion is principally distinguished by being one of love or of hatred, but

emotions have many nuances, which constitute the specific distinctions within the two general divisions. They include, for instance, the distinction between simple loving and preferring and between the exclusive and the non-exclusive, by which I mean the following. It is possible for me to love two things that are incompatible, e.g. doing sums and writing. The love of one does not exclude the love of the other. But in any particular case I can opt for only one of the two. A decision in favour of one is not compatible with a decision in favour of the other.