Free will, morality and crime

[Dauphin]

Assume that free will is 'proven' to be an illusion. That is, every act that we perform is not of conscious decision but determined by natural unchangeable progression of events.

This would mean your actions are as predetermined as night following day or a dropped object falling to the ground. There may be some random chance (i.e non-predetermination), such as with rolled die, but that is no more free will than predetermination.

In this world is there any real sense of morality? Everything we do is out of our control. Are we responsible for our actions?

If a person commits a crime are they to be held accountable? - they had no control over it. Accusing them of a crime is like accusing an hurricane of deliberate mass murder and wanton destruction.

You would want to take actions to prevent that crime, but would criminal detention as punishment be unjustifiable? What about the death penalty?

[Boris Godunov]

If there's no free will, then perhaps our handing our punishment is just as inevitable as the crime itself?

[Rogan Josh]

Nice post SD (I am so happy that someone understands my posts!)

In my opinion, it would be like the hurricane - if I had no free-will, there would be no me to blame for my actions, so I would have no need for morality. Further, killing someone (or being nasty to someone) would ba as 'evil' as digging a hole in the ground since I would only be manipulating inanimate matter (even though it appears animated, it really is not).

[Tripledoc]

If there is free will, how does one explain the human need to invest selected people with authority to carry out actions or polices.
Authority is a finite resource. Give it to some and you would have to take it away from somebody else.
As such the issue of crime and punishment have less to do with free will or the lack thereof - and more to do with the authority-responsibility complex.
Free will depends on each individual having the authority to carry out their actions and accepting the responsibility for their consequences.
Once people have given authority to some one he is rid of responsibility, he cannot act according to free will, or he cannot be held accountable at least, because it was the people who choose him, or invested their trust in him. The person in charge is an institution, like being an executioner or president is an institution.
The person in charge hands over responsibility for his actions to the people - now they should theoretically be in possesion of free will. However the individual have no means of carrying out free will should he decide to do so - because that person lacks the authority to do so. Only the masses have the authority - but a mass must by definitian be incapable of acting according to free will, unless free will is simply instinct.

I think that is the fundamental fact of civilized society, namely that there is no free will.

[Jack the Bodiless]

As fear of punishment IS one of the factors that will determine whether or not a person will commit a crime: punishment is justifiable as a form of behavior modification.

SD, what you're talking about is the moral justification of punishment as revenge. This is arguably not the purpose of punishment in a civilized society anyhow, and has no bearing on the practical justification of punishment as prevention or deterrence.

[Proteus_MST]

Re: Free will, morality and crime

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Assume that free will is 'proven' to be an illusion. That is, every act that we perform is not of conscious decision but determined by natural unchangeable progression of events.

This would mean your actions are as predetermined as night following day or a dropped object falling to the ground. There may be some random chance (i.e non-predetermination), such as with rolled die, but that is no more free will than predetermination.

In this world is there any real sense of morality? Everything we do is out of our control. Are we responsible for our actions?

If a person commits a crime are they to be held accountable? - they had no control over it. Accusing them of a crime is like accusing an hurricane of deliberate mass murder and wanton destruction.

You would want to take actions to prevent that crime, but would criminal detention as punishment be unjustifiable? What about the death penalty?

It could develope into a Scenario like Aldous Huxley described in "Brave new world" where People, i.e. especially workers are programmed from childhood on to like and dislike certain things (for example worker-babies are trained to dislike flowers by showing them Pictures of flowers and admitting electroshocks if the baby tries to grasp the flower) and to show special behaviours.


I think, like programs will be introduced into the treatment of criminals.
They won´t be locked away, but would undergo behaviour therapies with the aid of medicaments and reward/punishment-scenarios to reprogram them into showing the right behaviour.

Death penalty could under such circumstances appear more justified for cases such like Mass murder, because you could argue that the old programming which lead to the crime could sometimes break through again and the only other possibility is to lock those people away forever.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Re: Free will, morality and crime

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Assume that free will is 'proven' to be an illusion. That is, every act that we perform is not of conscious decision but determined by natural unchangeable progression of events.

This would mean your actions are as predetermined as night following day or a dropped object falling to the ground. There may be some random chance (i.e non-predetermination), such as with rolled die, but that is no more free will than predetermination.

In this world is there any real sense of morality? Everything we do is out of our control. Are we responsible for our actions?

If a person commits a crime are they to be held accountable? - they had no control over it. Accusing them of a crime is like accusing an hurricane of deliberate mass murder and wanton destruction.

You would want to take actions to prevent that crime, but would criminal detention as punishment be unjustifiable? What about the death penalty?

You and RJ are right, there really is no such thing as morality, but rather a code of acceptable bahavior for whichever society you live in. But most of those are derived from some kind of religious belief, so unless you're religious and believe there will be eternal consequences for your actions, there's really no reason to do or not do anything.

But morality as humans have come to know it (which is pretty much universal across the globe) is the fabric that holds civilization together, and without it, life like we're living now would go right down the crapper pretty fast. So... what can we do?

Its one of those things that we need to suspend our disbelief about indefinately for civilization's sake.

[loinburger]

Worrying about the existence of Free Will has always struck me as being about as useful as worrying about the existence of the Self -- I can't prove that I have free will any more than I can prove that I exist (and really, the two non-proofs are inextricably linked IMO), so in both cases I make certain Necessary Assumptions when conducting my life, e.g. assuming a lack of free will is every bit as non-functional of a worldview as assuming that I don't exist, thus I reject both non-functional worldviews as being useless and irrelevant.

My reaction to a proof demonstrating that I do not have free will would therefore be quite similar (perhaps identical) to my reaction to a proof demonstrating that I do not exist -- in both cases I might seek to further examine the proof in order to see where it may be flawed, but more likely I'd simply ignore the proof as being irrelevant.

[Dauphin]

I don't deny the existence of self, but I have a hard time accepting the existence of free will. I don't see the two as linked.

"I think therefore I am" is enough for me to accept I exist and experience the world. There is no analagous explanation for free will.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Re: Re: Free will, morality and crime

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


It could develope into a Scenario like Aldous Huxley described in "Brave new world" where People, i.e. especially workers are programmed from childhood on to like and dislike certain things (for example worker-babies are trained to dislike flowers by showing them Pictures of flowers and admitting electroshocks if the baby tries to grasp the flower) and to show special behaviours.


I think, like programs will be introduced into the treatment of criminals.
They won´t be locked away, but would undergo behaviour therapies with the aid of medicaments and reward/punishment-scenarios to reprogram them into showing the right behaviour.

Death penalty could under such circumstances appear more justified for cases such like Mass murder, because you could argue that the old programming which lead to the crime could sometimes break through again and the only other possibility is to lock those people away forever.

I don't think we need to go that far.

This is how I see it real simply.

What is law? Its the codification of an accepted set of learned behaviors for a society.

How are laws learned? They're taught to us by our parents... this is undeniable since we're born knowing only how to breath, cry and suckle our mothers teats, so everything else is enculturation (as in the process of learning behavior for our society). Parents are the foremost means of transfering culture to new humans, and by very very far.

On this note, you will find that the most well rounded humans will be the ones that have ingrained their society's customs at an early age... and these people are usually the ones that don't break those customs (laws).

So, assuming all this is true... what can we do? It would seem logical to me to conclude that parents and upbringing are the primary factors that determine lawfullness.

But now I've gone pretty offtopic...

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
"I think therefore I am" is enough for me to accept I exist and experience the world.

But without free will you're not "thinking" as a conscious action on your part, you're merely under the illusion that you're thinking. Without free will your "I think therefore I am" is no more a proof of self than it would be a proof of self for a computer programmed to output the same phrase -- your own "programming" would certainly be a lot more complicated than [cout << "I think therefore I am";] or whatever, but nevertheless it would still just a programmed response devoid of reason (and thus of consciousness), no different than jerking your hand away from a hot stove or flinching when surprised.

[Dauphin]

But without free will you're not "thinking" as a conscious action on your part

Thinking is perhaps the wrong word. Self-existence is known by the act of interacting with the world. A computer designed to say "I know I exist", is probably lying, but if it did not exist it would not be able to say it. Perhaps "I am speaking this sentence therefore I exist" is the more accurate and better proof.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
Perhaps "I am speaking this sentence therefore I exist" is the more accurate and better proof.

That offers proof that SD the mindless automaton exists, but not that SD the rational agent exists. You'd still be no different than my pocket calculator, or my "speak and spell." (And who's to say that they don't share a similar illusion that their Selves exists?)

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by loinburger
(And who's to say that they don't share a similar illusion that their Selves exists?)

If they did have a concept of self, would they be wrong? No.

If they also thought they had free will, would they be wrong? Yes.

Of cause if they were self aware I would want to find out how they became so endowed.

[orange]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
If there's no free will, then perhaps our handing our punishment is just as inevitable as the crime itself?

You beat me to it!