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by nemo 2373 days ago
The fact that we use intuition in choice and not some formal rational system seems orthogonal to whether we're making choices or only experience an illusion of choice.

Legally determinism is rejected out of hand, interpersonally we assume that individuals bear responsibility for their choices, it's only in some abstruse metaphysical sense that determinism means anything, and there it's largely meaningless.

1 comments

determinism is frequently weighed in consideration of criminal cases; eg mental illness and insanity affecting sentences
While there are qualifiers for things like mental illness, the system assumes free will by default making rare exceptions for responsibility for people in some states of mind. Whatever that is, it's not determinism.
if a person is not held responsible for the actions they carry out, what can the underlying logic be but a rejection of free will? things will get truly interesting this century as we get better at projecting probabilities based on genetics and personal data; if a man is less culpable because of predispositions, why should we even let him out? this is a fundamental tension in our justice system.