Alfred Mele - Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Is free will required for moral responsibility? If a person with a brain tumor breaks the law, should that person be judged by lower standards? It's a slippery slope, because if a legal defense is based on a 'my brain did it, not me' theory, and if it holds, law enforcement will suffer.

[TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

YouTube comment section: where every person is an expert on every subject, and with their expertise granting them the authority to make sweeping pronouncements on complicated issues in a single paragraph (or even a single sentence)!

P.S. No, there's no contradiction here since I am *not* commenting on a complicated subject; merely observing obvious trends. Yah yah... "maybe it's not obvious."

[amirhesamnoroozi]

I didn't understand the whole raising and lowering of the bar thing. Why because of the fact that in order to have free will, deteminism must not be true raises the bar for free will? Then why we don't need moral responsibility in that case anymore? If anyone could help me on that I will be grateful.

[mattsigl]

I think he’s wrong. Most people mean libertarian free will when they say free will and they imply this kind of free will (the high bar) is required for any notion of moral responsibility.

[myothersoul]

Free will is an excuse. Somebody or somebodies strapped you down, made you drink a pint of whiskey, , forced you in to a car and turned on the ignition and you ran over someone may explain what you did but you still did it. Separating you from you is a problem created by the concept of "free will". Free will requires you not being you and that is nonsensical. Whether it is you doing the most human and immoral act ever and disreputable act ever, it's not a question of body or spirit, it's a question of explanation. Are you a bad person or is the circumstances that required your action is the question. Free will is just an unsatisfactory excuse. You are what you do, your are that thing that you are doing (sorry pop music), what is important is how the rest of us deal with what you did and that should be determined by the most satisfactory explain an not by intractable appeals to free will.

[RickDelmonico]

Freewill has a fractal quality, degrees of freedom. Every choice has different degrees of freedom that follow a power scaling law.

[OdinOfficialEmcee]

Is it just me, or does the guy interviewing Mele sound like a Jeff Goldblum impression?

[rotorblade]

I think this guy just hates some persons and can’t accept they actually don’t deserve to be judged and can’t accept no free will means no true responsibility

[J]

Free will does not exist, but moral responsibility has to be accepted for the benefit and good of society. I think Einstein got it right, in that we imprison criminals ethically and morally - even though they had no opportunity to do otherwise.

[JustAnswers]

Animals and plants don't have freewill. It's degrading and disrespectful to the complexity of our human brains to say we don't either. We constantly make concious decisions and have personalities . Good video .