
The Limits of the Coded World - donohoe
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/the-end-of-knowing/?src=twr
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Jach
tl;dr: Science can never predict with absolute certainty, therefore you can
never take away my freedom!

There's also a weak thrust in a "What about moral responsibility?!" argument
thrown in. My answer: punishment should be handed out only to stop repeated
bad behavior from an individual and discourage others from repeating it, not
for some "justice must be served" idea. This can take the argument to what
constitutes bad behavior, why we should care, but that at least simplifies
matters.

~~~
Ardit20
What is wrong with Justice must be served idea?

Although your suggestion might work in criminal law, in contract law it is not
so much as a question of punishment as it is a question of putting a right
wrong, so too in much civil law. So, the notion of justice is very much
fundamental to law. Even in criminal law, what is just is the basis upon which
any authority can legitimately imposed. It is for example not just to punish
someone who was provoked to kill at the same rate as someone who intended,
with full and clear mind, to kill.

Also, even assuming that individuals do not have any free will at all, a
murderer still should be punished, regardless of any notion of moral
responsibility. This for example we do with the insane who it can not be said
are morally responsible, yet are locked away so as to not harm others.

Thus, in a fundamental way, it is not so much as to what is evil that the law
is guided by primarley, but practical matters, what is desirable, fair and
very much just.

~~~
Jach
You don't need to invoke this sacred "justice" to accomplish any of this,
though. Your latter example of putting the insane away so as not to harm
others, falls under my first category of "preventing repeated offenses" and
keeps them from causing further harm. (On a side-note, I think more attempts
should be made at rehabilitation, but the stigmas around mental health aren't
that much better today than decades ago.)

Again, with contracts, we have already decided that contracts are good and
breaking them is bad. (But not in all cases!) By punishing, or putting a wrong
right, is done to encourage this assumption of contracts being good and
useful.

If we standardize on usefulness and in fuzzier cases "goodness", I think
that's a step forward from this notion of Justice.

I suspect we may have a simple disagreement over the meaning of the word, and
less so on the actual details, but that's all the more reason to go away from
it. My usage of justice can be invoked to justify sentencing a murderer 50
years after the fact to death, and I don't see how that's useful or good at
all given he's just a normal guy by then.

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Ardit20
The article focuses on a very narrow point, but it does offer an insight on
the debate of free will.

However, it does not quite tackle the crux of the matter. If the choice we
make is determine by influences beyond my control, as much as the cup of
coffee has no choice but to follow my will, so to we as humans would have no
choice but to choose the choice we made. Thus, perhaps it can not be said that
we have free will.

We do not know the entire complexities which create any given behaviour at any
moment, thus in any practical way we do have free will, but in a theoretical
level, if like the cup of coffee I am bound to act in a certain way, how can
it possibly said that I am free?

