"If some form of determinism is true, then "punishment" doesn't make sense." That doesn't really follow. If you know you are going to receive punishment for so

"If some form of determinism is true, then "punishment" doesn't make sense." That doesn't really follow. If you know you are going to receive punishment for some action, or that you have been punished for some action in the past, you can completely deterministically "decide" not to do something you would otherwise have done. I mean, we build AIs that nobody would claim have "free will" and are entirely deterministic based on their algorithms and input based on the same principle. Some sort of ineffable moral element of somehow making your free-willed self a "better" free-willed self may be removed, but the sheer brutal pragmatics of "other entities want your behavior to be thus, and by applying punishment can increase compliance" works just fine in a deterministic regime. And to my eye, our ruling elites are in practice very, very concerned about the latter and do not give the slightest rip about the former, whatever their beliefs about "free will" may be.