ABSTRACT
The idea of scales of choice allowed us to see choices fitting together within a broad framework, forming an order, without the need to fall back on distinctions such as higher and lower, greater and lesser, important and trivial, etc. (see p. 102). Life choice then turned out to be the most encompassing element of this order for the individual, the largest scale. The account so far of life choice, and the other scales of choice it embraces, has allowed very considerable freedom to the individual-to the point of admitting the possibility that individuals can at least to some degree create themselves. I have concentrated on individual determinants of life choice, and in putting aside other issues I have been assuming something like conditions of calm and normalcy. I want now to consider what happens when abnormal or emergency conditions take overthose of war, or political or economic crisis, for example. Such events may invade the ordinary situations of life choice, and trump its deliberations, so that the individual may be forced to move beyond the normal sense of the largest scale.
