We would no longer be justified in getting upset at a friend who betrayed us or in praising a baby for sharing his toys with his brother. Reward and punishment would be both equally irrelevant in both of these cases due to the fact the actors could not have acted in any other way than they actually did. Similarly, we could no longer castigate or believe well of ourselves on a basis of our individual misdeeds or achievement, so we would must completely revise the methods wherever we construct our identities and self-concepts. However, a difficulty arises at this point. If hard determinism is correct, and has been all along, it's possible that we are not free to believe in it. It can be that we are determined (in the philosophical sense) to think in soft determinism and moral responsibility.
If this had been not the case, why would we so intuitively gravitate to the soft determinism? Why is it so psychologically comfortable for us, and, around all, why do we struggle so mightily to try to logically substantiate this kind of a flawed and poorly defined doctrine? Some soft determinists themselves have admitted that the main reason for holding their position is a strong want to hold individuals responsible for their actions. They further admit how the only genuine justification they've for treating human beings differently (i.e. by blaming and praising them for their actions) from robots is that we "feel" differently about them: even "uncompe lled" actions are the effects of needs which are, in turn, caused by natural laws, genetics, and the principles of operant and classical conditioning, all of which we have tiny awareness of and/or control over. III. It is said that the judge inside Loeb-Leopold murder situation was persuaded by Darrow to give them life imprisonment rather than the death penalty on the basis on the difficult determinist argument that due to their heredity and upbringing they had no selection but to commit murder.
If Darrow had argued instead that the judge was determined by his heredity and upbringing to sentence the accuseds to death and he did so, that would, in my opinion, not make any more sense than what he definitely did. If tough determinism is the position accepted, than the judge could, in fact, not have sentenced Loeb and Leopold to death; he could only have sentenced them to life, for your amount of reasons. First, even though I realize it's a circular argument and therefore not a proof, I consider I must factor out that the judge definitely did sentence them to life imprisonment, not execution, so it is clear which is what he was conditioned to complete and he could not have done something else, under tough determinism.
He was not free to sentence Loeb and Leopold to death simply because he did not, regardless of whether would were logical to accomplish so or not. II. To speak of strong-willed vs. weak-willed people is clearly a soft determinist concept, along with a somewhat irrelevant a single as well. I call it irrelevant simply because even if you had been to plead which you were weak-willed and could not resist an action, it would do you no great because, under a soft determinist doctrine of morality, you need to have had a stronger will so you would still be punished to your allegedly irresistible action. Second, if hard determinism is accepted, the Loeb and Leopold have been not quite morally responsible for their crime.
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