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If you think there's no free will, then how is it barbaric to execute people? No free will means the supporters of the death penalty didn't have a say in the ci
by hn8788 6y ago
If you think there's no free will, then how is it barbaric to execute people? No free will means the supporters of the death penalty didn't have a say in the circumstance that led to them supporting it, so there is no moral culpability to thinking some people should be executed. It's no more "barbaric" than thinking it's okay to kill rats and other pests for the good of society.
- nefitty 6y agoThe realization that free will is an illusion ideally allows compassion to develop in an individual. If a society shed its belief in free will, then it would act more compassionately, eg the opposite of barbaric.
- kazinator 6y agoThat's an interesting hypothesis you have there, but it seems rather self-evident to me that there are many philosophical pathways toward compassion, not necessarily involving specific theories of free will. Not all pathways are heavily intellectual.