Teeqoz said:
Well, not really.
It's especially important in punishment for crimes. In many (modern at that) countries today, people are still punished for the sake of punishing the one who comitted the crime. If there is no free will, then there is no rational reason for punishment for punishment's sake, and the only reason to punish criminals is to avoid crimes being comitted in the future, by the person himself, or by others. |
If there is no free will, then we're going to do what we're going to do. If we punish people, it's because we had to punish them. If we don't punish them, it's because we weren't going to. If we have no free will, then spending time worrying about it is a dead end.
The only situation in which we can consciously influence our lives for the better is if we act as though there is free will and there is.
