By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
ultima on 22 October 2009
Edit Thread
CrazyHorse said:
ultima said:

In case of dogs, it's an animal (albeit an extremely intelligent one), and you can't possible expect it to be as smart as a human; if it does something bad, it's because it doesn't know any better. Kind of like a mentally ill person. And that brings me to my next point. If a mentally ill person kills someone, they won't be sent to jail; they'll end up in a mental hospital, where they won't be forced to do hard labor and they'll always be well fed and taken care of. That's because they weren't responsible for their actions. Going by this explanation (that there is no free will), however, mentally stable murderers aren't responsible for their actions either. Why should they have to work their asses off and be in such a worse environment?

And I disagree with you and CrazyHorse when you say that free will doesn't exist. If you think about it, if there is no free will, then our whole lives are pre-determined. We may have illusions of choices and options, but which one we'll pick is already chosen for us. Your explanation makes sense to me, but I don't think the outcome would always be the same for the twins scenario.

On the issue of crime, people should still be held responsible for their actions simply for the fact that they are a danger to the rest of society and perhaps more importantly because the threat of punishment acts as a deterrent and so will affect their decision to commit a crime. Just to be completely clear on that point, in a set of circumstances 'A' in which no punishment exists a person will always make a given decision (to commit a crime or not). In another set of circumstances 'B' in which everything is identical except a punishment does exist that same person will always make another given decision on whether to commit the crime. So the person has no free will in what in decision may arrive out of either set of circumstances but the fact that the circumstances are different means that the decision may also be (in respect of set B to set A).

The last point depends on too many factors that I don't really know much about. It makes sense that if free will doesn't exist everything must therefore be pre-determined but I think physics may come into play here. Our decisions are pre-determined in as much as a particular choice is inevitable in a given set of conditions (hence lack of free will in my opinion), however, whether these conditions are pre-determined is still widely open to debate. For example, there are a number of theories in physics which suggest the universe has an element of 'randomness' or chaos to it. If that were true then our decisions are only pre-determined at any one exact moment in time but are not completely pre-determined in respect to the future.

 

I still don't get your point about criminals. Mentally ill people go to a mental hospital when they murder, because they weren't responsible for their action. A normal person will go to jail, because he is responsible. But if there is no free will, that person didn't choose to murder, it was chosen for him; therefore he isn't responsible. Should he be sent to a mental hospital as well?

If we don't have free will, then the conditions are pre-determined for us as well. The conditions are a direct result of the choices you must've made (or were made for you) earlier. Cause and effect. And this would mean that our future decisions are pre-determined as well. I hope that makes sense.