This has nothing to do with it.Volenta wrote:If you're not free, it doesn't matter how complex your cognitive abilities are, it doesn't make you free.
The fact that you know you will be punished fur murder reduces slightly the chances of engaging it- and that's useless if society doesn't follow through on that punishment (because then people learn they will not be punished for it).
It's as simple as the consequences. This whole "free will" argument is meaningless.
That's all that matters, and that's already taken into consideration. Severely retarded individuals, insane, etc. are usually exempted, because that knowledge didn't factor in.Volenta wrote:The fact that humans understand the legal consequences means that is taken into consideration before acting.
Does murder being illegal for them reduce the frequency of their murdering people?Volenta wrote:It's no accident that younger people with a prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed are higher represented in the crime rates.
If so, then they should be punished for murder to maintain that pressure to reduce its frequency.
No, it doesn't matter. It only matters that people know that if they murder somebody, they'll be punished, and on average that reduces the likelihood of people murdering, generally.Volenta wrote:It doesn't matter whether someone 1) has a brain tumor, 2) is born a psychopath, 3) has continually been abused as a child, or anything else, the fact is that it all led to the same action—murder in this instance—without having anything to say about it.
For some people, that knowledge will affect them less than others, but that's irrelevant unless the vast majority of people can understand very clearly why that is, and exempt them from the punishment without expecting exemption themselves.
Look: The average person on the street who might at some point contemplate murder doesn't care about or understand neuroscience.
All that matters is that the letter and execution of the law reduce crime rates on average.
We're all punished for things we "couldn't help", but those actions are a part of who we are, they are faults, and they are our faults to be punished for.
It's irrelevant. What's relevant is effect of those laws on crime rates.
Lawyers do whatever they need to in order to get their clients off. That kind of sophistry isn't going to fly here.Volenta wrote:That's the reason why free will is sometimes defined as the ability to make a decision without internal or external restrictions that lead to the decision.
That's fine for neuroscience, but it's irrelevant to the 'should' of law, which deals only with the consequences of laws and their consistent application.Volenta wrote:The more we know in the fields of neuroscience, the vaguer the line between healthy brains with bad connections and brains with tumors becomes in the context of explaining behavior.
If you want to exempt certain people from punishment for murder, you need to make sure that category of people as far as you can define it and differentiate it really isn't deterred by laws, and moreover that people outside of that category can understand the category well enough not to lead themselves to believe they are IN that category, or that they could unfalsifiably claim to be, thus giving themselves permission to murder.
None of that has anything to do with philosophical or metaphysical concepts of free will.
Of course you should. See the latter points above.Volenta wrote:All I'm saying is that punishment doesn't make sense in certain area's. You shouldn't punish someone for performing a crime in a deep sleep, because in that instance the factor of punishment couldn't be taken in consideration.
Judges look at the consequences of laws, and their rulings, as they well should. So does the prosecution do a pretty good job of explaining that to juries.
Rare conditions and extraordinary cases are more likely to be fabricated than to be true.
Oh, are you going to develop a psychopath test, and administer it to people and then lock them up?Volenta wrote:It makes more sense to hold on to psychopaths longer (or even take them off the street beforehand) than people that are no danger to society anymore.
Are you going to keep a person in prison his or her entire life for not paying a parking ticket because they failed the test?
Who makes the test? Who says who is a psychopath and who isn't? And who says high functioning psychopaths can't live as law abiding citizens? How probable does it have to be for you to commit a crime before you're locked up without due process of law?
This has nothing to do with free will. This has to do with the efficacy of our current laws on the subject.Volenta wrote:It makes more sense to help pedophiles to prevent them from abusing a child instead of punishing them blindly, because we know that a small percentage of them is going to abuse a child.
And the shaming and lack of public outreach to help people who suffer from sexual urges towards children.
Not unless doing so would reduce crime.Volenta wrote:It makes more sense to extend our criminal law concerning minors to 25 years instead of 18 (because of the unripe prefrontal cortex).
No, there are just some things that can change, period. Free will has nothing to do with it.Volenta wrote:There are definitely things that can change in our current system if we grant free will as an illusion.