O’Connor, Timothy - Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will

A moment before I began typing these words, I paused to consider how I should spend this afternoon. Shall I join my children on the floor, and await instructions about my role in their pretend play? Shall I return to my work instead? I am anxious to get started on this chapter, and I have planned an ambitious agenda of writing for the next few months. Or shall I go to the campus to retrieve my mail, thereby delaying a decision on how I shall spend the remainder of the day? I am dimly aware of some other possibilities, but these three are the options I'm taking seriously. After just a brief moment, I settle down to type at my computer. I would describe how making this decision seemed to me as follows: each of the options I considered (and perhaps some others) was open to me, such that I could have chosen it, just then.