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freedom, absence, comparison, identity, flourishing, human/non-human

It's possible that an animal might a least momentarily hesitate when confronted with two desirable things that are present or between two ways to the same desirable thing without deliberating in the proper sense of the word.  Searching for what one craves sometimes involves hesitation while trying to get an adequate perception of the more likely path to that which will satisfy.

What is much more interesting, however, is the fact that humans pull up two different goals, at least one of which is not presently actionable.  For example, one might compare going to medical school with studying to become an accountant (we'll assume that the one comparing these two would find both options highly satisfying and not just as means toward an end).  Those two alternatives are quite different than two paths that might lead a predator to its prey.

The very act of recalling two such alternatives would require a sense of self as being one and the same in both situations (accountant vs. doctor).  Not just of the self as a quasi-object.  Not in the third person, but in the first person.  And not disinterestedly but qua fulfilled.  In other words, in the situation described, the recognition one's own identity is one and the same the grasp of one's fulfillment.  We grasp our own being as a being toward fulfillment.

Humans think of "my life (as a whole)" whereas brutes think of "X-ing [now]."

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