In the case of free will, research suggests that people in a diverse range of cultures reject determinism, but people give conflicting responses on whether determinism would undermine moral responsibility.I wonder whether predictability is not a better concept than deterministic versus non-deterministic in terms of the psychology of free will. There are a lot of things that are effectively regarded as partially determined by causative factors. Thus we can predict the probabilities that different kinds of people will commit different kinds of crimes.
Does the fact that an inner city kid from a broken home with parents who have committed crimes is more likely to commit a crime than a suburban kid from a two parent home with law abiding parents suggest that the two kids don't have free will? I think it makes sense to treat both as having free will since the probabilities are not one and zero of committing crimes.
I think it is reasonable to assign more credit to the inner-city kid who leads a moral life and more blame to the kid "with all the advantages" who choses immorality.
We also consider the capacity of people to make decisions in assigning credit or blame. We don't subject children to the same criteria as adults seeing that children do not have fully formed moral judgment. So too, an insanity defense can be justified by the inability to tell right from wrong or irresistible compulsion.
I am increasingly convinced that Home sapiens having evolved as a social animal has evolved senses of how others must be treated. Lions would have quite a different sense of morality if they had a moral sense. Philosophers have to try to rationalize things that are deep in our genes and our culture. If their result doesn't make intuitive sense, what then?
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