What's the best response to someone who believes in hard determinism but also uses this to deny responsibility for any immoral actions they commit? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by PlogLod@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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That is, they think all of their decisions were preordained, and then use this to claim that they can't be held responsible for anything they do.

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[-] logicbomb@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

What's the best response? The best response is to laugh in their face and go find someone else to talk to.

The person you described is an idiot. Can you tell whether a person actually has free will by observing their actions? Like just by looking at them, can you predict exactly everything that they're going to do?

(This is actually almost identical a famous problem in philosophy called the "philosophical zombie.")

If the answer is "no", and it is, then it doesn't make sense to base your actions based on whether you have free will, because it doesn't actually have any effect in your daily life, other than to irritate other people with your pseudo intellectual babble.

this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023

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