Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Free-Will & Morality

Do you believe in free-will? The current prevalent philosophical view is that we don't have free-will...  that we are a deterministic aggregate of our life experiences and of our genetics.  That what we do or say or even our thoughts are predetermined.  This, of course has a tremendous impact on the question of "morality".  If we don't have free-will, then we also can't be held responsible for our actions.  On what do you base a moral framework in the absence of free-will?

Although I'm still not convinced that we don't have some kind of free will I think that Naturalists and Pantheists can build a moral framework using evolution. That IMO is the only way that science can purport to to have a moralistic framework.

Even though a person may be a product of random genetics and random environments or experiences and that person reasons a choice based on this then he/she must still be held accountable for their actions based on the fact that human society should have an evolution based morality where the good of society trumps the freedom of an individual who chooses an action that is detrimental to society, and therefore to the maximum propagation of the species and the fact that the perpetrator of such action does not deserve to propagate and should therefore be incarcerated for as long as it takes to rehabilitate him/her, if at all possible. Based on evolution, retribution is also a valid natural human emotion and should come into play as well. There is also, of course, the deterrent value of social justice.

Someone might say, well evolution is about survival of the fittest to which I respond it isn't, it is the survival of the species that is the most important factor. In that sense it is the perpetrator of an anti-social behavior that is the weakest link.

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