Free will/evil/punishment

[Mudhammam]

You know what...correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't seem to be establishing the existence of free will as an attribute or ability so much as opining upon the utility of free will as a concept.  On this point (assuming the point) you and I are in complete agreement.  The concept has obvious utility.  I would, however, suggest that the sort of utility which we both appreciate in the concept is not unique to that concept, and that we could accomplish whatever it is that you think free will -as a concept- provides, while simultaneously leveraging a more robust justification for our actions.  It may even be that a -more- useful and agreeable system can be designed -without- this idea of free will.  

I probably could point to the problems that we run into, in grasping for this utility by leveraging the concept of free will.....but it's not like we don't (or couldn't) make specific considerations if and when those issues cropped up.  After all, we already do.

I think we may have reached agreement! It seems like it's been awhile! 

But after further consideration of the arguments I was making in the previous post, I retract some of the statements I made as pig-headed. For one, even if we experience something we call freedom (which is something worth expanded discussion), out of ignorance of the determinants and the necessity involved, free will even as I would like to defend it (perhaps overreaching a bit myself) wouldn't alter the implications that determinism (hard or soft) has with regards to morality or personal responsibility. On the one hand, I find the concepts of "self" and "free will" difficult (or really impossible) to defend as (meta-)physical realities that coincide with the nature and physics of the world per empirical scrutiny, yet on the other hand the human experience, at least from a subjective point of view, seems to only make sense in light of them. So, I concede that you are probably right in this debate, and I'm probably incorrect in how I'm going about it (arguing for moral agency/responsibility and choice on the one hand, all the while conceding the "self" (as I've argued elsewhere) to be a useful imaginary construct, and determination of the will to be largely outside any choice of the individual). Perhaps "will" is too broad of a term as it encapsulates a variety of competing reasons, desires, and instincts.... and "wills" would be more proper... and only through a sort of internal dialogue in which the thought designated as "I" seems to reach a satisfactory conclusion, the concept of freedom emerges. Still, I'm a bit troubled by the idea of treating behaviors we deem destructive as akin to diseases induced by one's genetics or environment... but perhaps that's a bias I'd be better off to overcome?