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Sure, free will may not exist, but we don’t have much of a civilization if we don’t pretend that it does.

fighterpilot 6y ago
The criminal justice system can still function without the false premise of free will and agency, and without the false premise that someone with a brain tumor magically has less agency than someone without a brain tumor but who has some more complicated and less understood problem with their brain. It can be premised on concepts such as rehabilitation (which I believe mostly can't happen with murderers), deterrence, creating a sense of fairness in society (which builds trust), protecting people from the murderer, and so on.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
It might not go that bad. But I suspect that as medical imaging hardware becomes better, we'll eventually face a crisis point: we'll be forced to re-evaluate most of what we call "character traits" and reclassify them as neurochemistry quirks. This is an important distinction, because as a society, we tend to hold people responsible for their character, but not for bugs in their brain. We can already see some of this today. Many people that would've been shunned by society in the past as "unstable" and "crazy", can be fixed by giving them lithium. We know not to fault a person for what's just a bug in their hardware. Similarly, many people that today are called "lazy" or "annoying", and blamed for their obviously flawed character, can be instantly fixed by low doses of stimulant medication. This is something most people didn't get a memo on yet. I find it highly likely that most homicides are also driven by fixable neurochemistry quirks, and that we'll learn to identify and fix them at some point, and we'll be appalled at the ease with which we jumped to killing people for having them.
svieira 6y ago
How do we choose to pretend free will exists?
- spoonjim 6y ago
  By rewarding people who help others and punishing people who hurt others.

The criminal justice system can still function without the false premise of free will and agency, and without the false premise that someone with a brain tumor magically has less agency than someone without a brain tumor but who has some more complicated and less understood problem with their brain. It can be premised on concepts such as rehabilitation (which I believe mostly can't happen with murderers), deterrence, creating a sense of fairness in society (which builds trust), protecting people from the murderer, and so on.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

It might not go that bad. But I suspect that as medical imaging hardware becomes better, we'll eventually face a crisis point: we'll be forced to re-evaluate most of what we call "character traits" and reclassify them as neurochemistry quirks. This is an important distinction, because as a society, we tend to hold people responsible for their character, but not for bugs in their brain. We can already see some of this today. Many people that would've been shunned by society in the past as "unstable" and "crazy", can be fixed by giving them lithium. We know not to fault a person for what's just a bug in their hardware. Similarly, many people that today are called "lazy" or "annoying", and blamed for their obviously flawed character, can be instantly fixed by low doses of stimulant medication. This is something most people didn't get a memo on yet. I find it highly likely that most homicides are also driven by fixable neurochemistry quirks, and that we'll learn to identify and fix them at some point, and we'll be appalled at the ease with which we jumped to killing people for having them.

svieira 6y ago

How do we choose to pretend free will exists?

spoonjim 6y ago
By rewarding people who help others and punishing people who hurt others.