Submitted by greghickey5 t3_113ecst in philosophy
InTheEndEntropyWins t1_j8t4336 wrote
Reply to comment by CruxCapacitors in Free Will Is Only an Illusion if You Are, Too by greghickey5
>I dislike your focus on the legal use of "free will" because the legal system
If you read the legal judgements around free will you'll see that they have an amazing grasp and understanding of the subject. They are as good if not better than most stuff philosophers write on the subject.
I like looking at the legal approach since is a nice realistic approach and understanding of the world that makes sense rather than an incoherent idea that isn't applicable to the reality we live in.
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>I can't help but feel that if more people realized that compatibilism is flawed, we might be able to better rehabilitate people.
Having a more rehabilitative justice system has absolutely nothing to do with the fact the justice system is based on compatibilist free will. So that's just a non argument.
Any functioning justice system which focuses on rehabilitation needs to also use compatibilist free will to work.
In fact studies suggest the justice system would likely be even worse without compatibilist free will.
>These three studies suggest that endorsement of the belief in free will can lead to decreased ethnic/racial prejudice compared to denial of the belief in free will. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0091572#s1>
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>For example, weakening free will belief led participants to behave less morally and responsibly (Baumeister et al., 2009; Protzko et al., 2016; Vohs & Schooler, 2008) From https://www.ethicalpsychology.com/search?q=free+will
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>these results provide a potential explanation for the strength and prevalence of belief in free will: It is functional for holding others morally responsible and facilitates justifiably punishing harmful members of society. https://www.academia.edu/15691341/Free_to_punish_A_motivated_account_of_free_will_belief?utm_content=buffercd36e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer From https://www.ethicalpsychology.com/search?q=free+will
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>A study suggests that when people are encouraged to believe their behavior is predetermined by genes or by environment they may be more likely to cheat. The report, in the January issue of Psychological Science, describes two studies by Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota and Jonathan W. Schooler of the University of British Columbia.
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