Puzzle to Determinists: A follow Up

U.S. v. Dotterweich: "The prosecution to which Dotterweich was subjected is based on a now familiar type of legislation whereby penalties serve as effective means of regulation. Such legislation dispenses with the conventional requirement for criminal conduct--awareness of some wrongdoing. In the interest of the larger good it puts the burden of acting at hazard upon a person otherwise innocent but standing in responsible relation to a public danger."


Here, even though the purpose of punishing Dotterweich was to deter crimes, it still held that Dotterweich was responsible because the corporation could have informed itself that it was misbranding products. Courts tend to be extremely reluctant to base a decision purely on utilitarian considerations that do away with individual claims to justice, and have typically curtailed such deterrence cases to cases that involve public welfare and the protection of children. For the vast majority of crimes, larceny, armed robbery, homicide, and the like, the courts have required that the person who committed it was responsible for it, and responsible in the sense that I give the word in the past two videos.

UPDATE: I made a couple concessions to AntiAbusiveAtheist on his response to me about weaknesses in the arguments that I make here. Watch his video for an alternative take on this stuff.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• determinism
• libertarian free will
• responsibility

[dookiecheez]

Where exactly does determinism come into play here? Or am I misunderstanding what determinism in this context means.

[legodesi]

@dookiecheez

the idea is that you are only responsible for doing those things that you could have chosen to refrain from doing. if determinism is true, you couldn't have chosen to refrain from doing what you did in fact do, so determinism precludes responsibility.

[ProfMTH]

I missed this follow up until now. (Life really gets in the way of my YouTube time, which is buggin' me big time.) I just want to be clear on this, you're not offering any of this as an argument for or against the truth of determinism, correct? Everything you're saying is correct, but as you no doubt realize it doesn't establish whether determinism is true or false. In any case, an interesting discussion.

[legodesi]

@ProfMTH

right, i'm certainly not arguing against determinism. the only conclusion i'm trying to establish is that libertarian free will makes sense of responsibility, which in turn makes sense of punishment. all the while, for some who believe that we are responsible for at least some of our actions, this video may be a premise to conclude that libertarian free will is real. others who reject free will may at least concede that it's a necessary fiction, or something like that.

[StopFear]

Look man, I was excited to listening to this subject at the start of the video, but you're rambling and it is hard to understand what you're talking about

[legodesi]

@StopFear

hahahaha

[theman77777777232]

why did u stop making vids. dont stop!

we love ur vids!

[dookiecheez]

@legodesi

I disagree.  Determinism does not rule out violition.

[LessthanJake14]

This argument implies that punishment will be used as a form of retribution, rather than a form of rehabilitation.

Still, a decent, albeit unoriginal, argument.