On Jun 6, 12:23 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > It's that idea of fairness or justice that seems to connect the idea of 'free > will' to > social policy. But is it really needed to make the connection? Why not look > at as just > rule utilitarianism, e.g. punishment will be a deterrent to others (would we > execute > murders to satisfy justice if it were known to increase the incidence of > murder?) and a > satisfaction to victims.
Fairness and justice, in this context supervenes on the idea that punishment can possibly have a containing effect which circumscribes behavior - which in turn supervenes upon free will to be able to control one's own behavior to some degree to avoid the experience of punishment. It's not possible to punish something that doesn't have free will. It has no choice but to do whatever it does, so no amount of pain or fear could cause the recipient to suddenly be able to change their own behavior if they couldn't change their own behavior voluntarily to begin with. You can't punish inanimate objects, and without free will, an organism is just an inanimate object that thinks it's in motion (for no reason). Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
