libertarians should be arguing against free will
Posted by halfspinner@reddit | Libertarian | View on Reddit | 3 comments
if people truly had total free will like, their choices weren’t influenced by anything at all, then what’s the point of laws, rules, or accountability?
rules only make sense if they influence people’s actions. we punish or reward because we believe it changes behavior. but if choices were totally free and unaffected by outside causes, then nothing could ever influence them - not consequences, not incentives, not reason.
so weirdly, a bit of determinism is actually what makes responsibility meaningful. we need people to be influenceable for moral systems to even work.
that’s why i think libertarians are should be the ones saying free will is an illusion.
curious what others think, does that logic hold up, or am i missing something?
Wildwildleft@reddit
I think this argument kind of mixes up what free will actually means.
Free will doesn’t mean your choices aren’t influenced by anything, that would make you a robot acting randomly, not a free person. It means you can weigh influences, think them over, and still choose between real alternatives. Laws, incentives, and moral rules still make sense because they appeal to your reasoning. They influence, but don’t control you. If everything was fully determined, then nobody could ever deserve blame or praise. A murderer would be no more morally responsible than a tornado. Sure, consequences might modify behavior, but they’d lose their moral weight, because there’s no genuine choice behind them.
Being influenceable isn’t the opposite of freedom it’s what makes freedom meaningful. A totally uninfluenced person wouldn’t be ‘more free’ they would just be detached from reality. And politically, libertarian ideas only make sense if free will is real. Individual rights, responsibility, voluntary exchange, all of that depends on people having genuine agency. If free will is an illusion, then ‘personal responsibility’ is too, and the moral cornerstone for liberty collapses.
DeimosEvoIX@reddit
It’s very simple. My version of libertarianism is going back to the system that was in place when this country was first put together. A system which was under the common law. Under that system, in order for a court to have jurisdiction either a) they needed to be a victim or b) there had to be a contract that was entered into knowingly, willingly and intentionally by someone on which they weren’t properly performing. The issue with the system today is that it’s an administrative system enforcing private policy, not natural law. That’s why the criminal injustice system is what it is today. That’s why it appears that the court system does what they want. Most of the cases today would never stand up to the constitutional scrutiny of years ago, and even more wouldn’t have even been cases years ago. Nobody saying there shouldn’t be consequences for wrongdoing, but what constitutes wrongdoing nowadays isn’t what was intended to be wrong doing when this country was first formed. In the common law system of years ago, incidents like the Ukrainian girl that was killed on the train and the other girl who was killed by the career criminal, and similar instances wouldn’t occur because the criminal history of the perpetrators in those cases would’ve either a) netted them a life sentence, or b) they would’ve been executed. Those incidents happened because of the system that’s in place today. The system that’s in place today is a business and like every business it’s primary function is to generate revenue, and I ask you what’s better for business? One time customers, or repeat customers?
LibertyorDeath2076@reddit
Based on what you're saying, people don't have free will because their decisions can be influenced by external factors. Under this logic, if someone had total free will and were completely unaffected by all external factors, their decisions would be completely random, nonsensical, and chaotic.
People have free will, most will choose to operate withing the framework of what is legal, what is socially acceptable, what is polite, etc. But not everyone does, people choose to violate the social contract, people choose to rape, steal, and murder.
Laws aren't meant to stop these actions from happening, they are meant to deter people from committing these acts, and they serve as a measure to protect society from people who choose to infringe upon the freedom of others.