Posted: Aug 04, 2019 11:23 am
zoon wrote:LucidFlight wrote:
I’ve been arguing that free will is still a useful concept, because we don’t want to blame or punish someone for an action they were coerced into doing. To blame somebody when they were coerced would not encourage them to change their behaviour, and would sent the wrong message to everyone else?
.
OTOH you can think of penalties and rewards as other forms of coercion. You could also think of antisocial behaviour as coercion of the wider society (can't go out at night, no go areas, having to secure property, having to pay taxes to combat crime and insurance to cover losses etc).
Then the justice system is part of a pragmatic feedback system to rebalance coercive influences.