Morality in Nature

[bennyboy]

Further, even in case of using morality to justify punishment, it is not possible to punish a process.

Unless there's a magical morality floating in the heavens, then morality, decisions, behaviors, world view, etc. are all processes.

The narrative as I believe you have it is that a person is born a product of his DNA and his environment (starting in the womb). Each experience he has results in brain activity, including learning. Then when a person decides to behave immorally (whatever that is taken to mean), it's because of a deterministic interaction between his internal environment (hormones, brain state, etc.) and his external environment (people calling him stupid or something).

In the deterministic view, it is inevitable that a killer should kill. Given his brain state (which follows a deterministic chain right back to the womb), and his particular environment, he could not have done anything but kill.

So the killer is punished not for something he could control (i.e. a moral failing). He is punished for the way his brain processes information and forms behaviors. In fact, he HIMSELF is nothing but a collection of processes.

And they're being punished.