[apatil]

Penalizing a crime might make sense for the purpose of deterrence even if there is no conscious free will. The size of the deterrent effect is a scientific question, and how to weigh the benefits of deterrence to society vs. the harm the punishment inflicts on the criminal is a moral question (where by moral I mean "should we do this").

However, penalizing a crime for the purpose of retribution makes no sense if there is no conscious free will. The criminal's consciousness experiences the harm of the punishment, but didn't cause the actions that constituted the crime. This is patently unfair.

I don't think conscious free will exists. One of the reasons I care is that, if most people shared that belief, we would talk and think about crime so differently that our approach to crime would change in the direction of becoming more humane.

For example, given the news of SBF's conviction for fraud, no one would be happy about the fact that he will likely experience many years in prison. We might be happy that the harm his actions caused has been stopped, and we may feel a kind of dutiful satisfaction in the knowledge that the system is working to deter and prevent this kind of harm. However, these emotions would be tempered by regret that a young man is going to lose part of his life, and we would be questioning whether there's any way to achieve the same level of harm prevention without inflicting such serious harm on one person.