(July 17, 2016 at 11:49 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: He just wants to label moral responsibility as free will because he's a silly compatabilist.
Although I don't believe in free will I still feel guilt, pride, I still have my empathy and I avoid doing stuff that's bad and I try to be nice to people. If I hurt someone I will really feel guilty and will be and will feel responsible for doing so, because it was still me even if it ultimately wasn't my choice. Someone hurt someone and that someone was me therefore I take responsibility and I'd say it's quite beneficial to take blame and pride. At the same time when someone does somthing dumb I get angry at them while aware that it ultimately wasn't their choice but it was still them doing it and again, I think it's beneficial to do so otherwise we wouldn't have evolved this way.
To sum it up I think pride, guilt, responsibility and blame have evolutionary benefits and I can't help myself but to act upon those feelings, they're ingrained into my brain, they're like kneejerk reactions. After all I'm still human.
However, I still think it's important to account the lack of free will in situations like court rooms, sentences etc. But if someone had a really shitty childhood, had no choice but to do something awful to someone else I wouldn't be able to help myself but be really damn angry.
