Yeah, right. That's fine, I am fully aware of these meanings. But is it not interestingly, that the example for 2 is that of a philosophical discussion, and not of how the concept is used in daily life?
2 is a concept used in daily life. When people blame they generally blame as if a person could have done otherwise in the actual situation. Not could have if they'd been lucky enough to have been in a different situation.
That's the problem with belief in LFW. When we reflect that someone would have had to have been in different circumstances to have done what they should have done, our feelings change, or at least a number of us report that happening and that's because we intuitively believe in LFW. Also when we reflect that if we had been in different circumstances we would have done what they did, our feelings change too.
I'll try submitting just one point instead of two.
GdB, I submit that someone can not only want to want something other than what they currently want, but can even, take steps toward, and sometimes, successfully, come to want what they wanted to want. (I won't get into examples, unless someone asks.)
However, since the 1st want is a product of factors that go well beyond the individual, having achieved wanting the 2nd want, would still not be a support of LFW, would it?
That's correct. The whole point of the idea of wanting the want in LFW is to try and stop it just being a matter of luck what want we get. What you're suggesting doesn't work because it just shifts the problem back the the first want as you realise.
Galen Strawson goes into this: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=interview_strawson
Actually, though, there’s a way in which it’s not quite true. If you want to acquire some want or preference you haven’t got, you can sometimes do so. You can cultivate it. Perhaps you’re lazy and unfit and you want to acquire a love of exercise. Well, you can force yourself to do it every day and hope you come to like it. And you just might; you might even get addicted. Maybe you can do the same if you dislike olives.
BLVR: But then where did that desire come from—the desire to acquire the love of exercise…or olives?
GS: Right—now the deeper point cuts in. For suppose you do want to acquire a want you haven’t got. The question is, where did the first want—the want for a want—come from? It seems it was just there, just a given, not something you chose or engineered. It was just there, like most of your preferences in food, music, footwear, sex, interior lighting and so on.
Also not a fan of Dennett, I'm guessing?
And your signature line confuses me...
Yeah, it probably needs some work. Basically, it is a call to routinely examine our personal beliefs, as these are (unlike other more overtly observable physical phenomenon) primarily products of our own subjective perceptions, experiential history, and thought processes, and thus more susceptible to being erroneous.