(May 12, 2010 at 11:17 am)Eilonnwy Wrote: I've heard the determinism argument, and while it has some interesting points, but ultimately I still think people have free will, and even if determinism was proven, we still need to act as a society with free will.
Freedom isn't everything it's cooked up to be...
Why not instead act as a society that understands that had they been subjected to the same circumstances and attributes: that they would have done the same thing?
That seems a much humbler and forgiving society to me than one where we assume that a person can spontaneously be 'right' or 'wrong'...
A bit like the idea that there are no 'civilized' or 'savage' peoples: only different cultures... but on a more individual basis. 
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
