Utilitarian Bioethics

[Edwardo Piet]

Thanks for telling me tacky, I didn't know you didn't believe in free will either!

These two arguments against it put more simply what I've been trying to say on these forums for a long while regarding the matter (I feel it's relevant because I accept utilitarianism because I don't believe in free will - and more importantly, I reject retributivism):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_ar..._free_will

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In the free will debate, Strawson holds that there is a fundamental sense in which free will is impossible, whether determinism is true or not. He argues for this position with what he calls his "basic argument", which aims to show that no-one is ever ultimately morally responsible for their actions, and hence that no one has free will in the sense that usually concerns us. In its simplest form, the Basic Argument runs thus:

1. You do what you do, in any given situation, because of the way you are.
2. So in order to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are — at least in certain crucial mental respects.
3. But you cannot be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all.
4. So you cannot be ultimately responsible for what you do.

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EvF