The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best.
The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it.
If the grounds of an opinion are not conclusive to the person’s own reason, his reason cannot be strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by his adopting it: and if the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own feelings and character (where affection, or the rights of others are not concerned), it is so much done towards rendering his feelings and character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic.
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.
衡量生命质量的标准之一就是人的生活是如何被选择或抉择的。
约翰·斯图尔特·密尔认为集权主义国家或家长制的统治国家必然导致人的发育迟缓、思想狭隘和智力的萎缩。集权（包括封建家长制）环境里，人就很容易习惯于不抉择。没有自由，你哪来的抉择啊！？人的生命也就变成了循规蹈矩的重复，从精神的压迫到物质资源的被剥削，统治阶级将人变成了机器零件儿。
人只有在作抉择时，感知的功能才被使用，如判断、心理活动，甚至道德取向等。按照传统、风俗等做事的人做的不是抉择，而是不抉择！换言之，不抉择的人可能是天生感知萎缩，或者后天的感知功能被集权或家长制等不同形式的“权威”压抑或摧残了。
人的道德和心理的感知功能只有在被使用时才会发达，和四肢的使用是一个道理。随波逐流、人言亦言，别人怎么做、别人怎么活，你也怎么活，那就等于别人信什么你也跟着信什么。所以，感知功能没有被使用。
当一个人的见解、看法等是基于不仅仅是自己的利益时，如事不关己高高挂起的人，或者习惯于“让他人决定”的人，其感知功能会被削弱。这也是导致人的情感和性格、个性消极、倦怠的原因。
让他人或自己生活世界的一部分为之抉择的人不异于猩猩的模仿。只有为自己做抉择的人才是完全地支配和使用感知的能力、功用。简言之，没有自由的人首先失去了（自愿的或不自愿地）使用人类自身最本能的能力之一，即感知功能。
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