[ExI] free-will, determinism, crime and punishment.

[Samantha Atkins]

On Aug 17, 2007, at 10:38 AM, John K Clark wrote:

> "gts" <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>
>
>>  I define free-will, roughly, as the capacity to act
>> freely according to one's will
>
> So one has free will if one's will is free. I said it before I'll  
> say it
> again, free will is an idea so bad it's not even wrong.

Do you have the ability to choose among alternatives or not?  Does  
the accumulation of your choices lead to your developing a particular  
character and determine outcomes to some significant degree or not?   
If you do have this ability then why are we prattling on incessantly  
about whether or not we have "free will"?   To the extent that it  
matters and is reasonably delimited, we do.


>
>> the goal of a correctional facility should
>> be  simply to correct the nature of the criminal
>
> But we have no idea how to do that

Not entirely true.  We have very good ideas about how to give many  
criminals new skills and psychological tools that can make a large  
difference.

> and even if we did the resulting mind
> surgery would be so radical that the original individual would be  
> mostly
> dead anyway,

Who says we need to do surgery?  Perhaps I missed something.

> the new fellow is a very nice man but has little to do with the
> criminal. Seems to me a bullet to the brain would be more elegant.
>

There is a large spectrum between saying we can do nothing and  
relatively completely drastically rewriting the original.

>> Retribution ought not figure into the equation.
>
> It ought not to but it does, no use pretending that reptilian part  
> of our
> brain doesn't exist.
>

That it exist does not argue that we must follow its dictates.  That  
is the naturalistic fallacy.

- s