Yes, you would have a choice. You could choose to call his bluff by refusing to go downstairs and risk being shot, or you could obey (and still risk being shot). It's a choice, however, that's made under duress; and it's a choice that's coerced (i.e., where a threat of force or pain or deprivation is brought to bear on the choice by some responsible human agency). Duress makes it difficult if not impossible to deliberate in a clear, rational, and considered way. Coercion raises the stakes to such a point that normal and otherwise relevant alternatives become unreasonable. Because the choice is both coerced and made under duress, one's moral culpability for the choice is generally mitigated and generally no legal contracts made through the choice are considered binding. True, people often say under such circumstances that one "has no choice." This is often an imprecise way of saying something like: "one could not reasonably have chosen otherwise," or "one could not have made an...

Why can't environment produce original events? Let's say that every human being possesses a unique (original?) DNA sequence. One might say that a DNA sequence is a product of environment. Why not consider "original" ideas in the same manner--that is, as new combinations of precedent ideas? Would new species count as "original"? What do you mean by original? Perhaps you mean an utterly new, different, and original idea, art, or imagination. I have my doubts that such things are possible. I also have my doubts that ideas, art, and imaginations are "products" or environment. What do you mean by "product"? It seems to carry a rather industrial or commercial connotation. Might it be a tendentious term?