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> What matters is if you want criminals to have more agency, and if you don’t, you punish them. In a deterministic universe, “want” doesn’t mean much. That you
by criddell 2y ago
> What matters is if you want criminals to have more agency, and if you don’t, you punish them.
In a deterministic universe, “want” doesn’t mean much. That you would decide to punish a criminal is the only thing that could happen.
- Barrin92 2y agoNo, again this is the same fallacy. Wants, needs, desires and preferences mean exactly what they meant before you figured out that the universe is deterministic. The misconception is simply not understanding that these are conceptual properties of material agents, not metaphysical claims about causality. You wanted an ice cream five minutes ago, reading a book about determinism didn't change that want. We actually do want to punish criminals and therefore we should do it. Whether we all run on cellular automata at the bottom levels of physics is just completely irrelevant to discussing human interaction.
- criddell 2y agoOkay, I see what you are saying. If I was a ball, I’d want to roll downhill. If I chose to roll uphill it might be like me choosing to not have the ice cream and then do anyway because I love ice cream.