Free Will Absolution?

audio/visual version
This book review has spurred me to offer a brief follow up to a previous post on free will.

 I agree with the review author Holly Anderson,  who dismisses the idea that "emergence," or the consideration that brain functioning as a whole is more than the sum of its parts, by pointing out that any process governed by the brain is deterministic. However, focus of this post is on the issue of whether this means people shouldn't be held responsible for their actions.

The answer, in my opinion, is that in a pure abstract moral sense they can't be, but we have to assign responsibility to those who engage in externally damaging behavior anyway, for practical reasons.  We have to protect society. 

By the way, it is interesting to me that the question of whether a lack free will cancels moral responsibility is only considered with respect to negative behavior, at least in my experience.

No Free Lunch, or Will for that Matter

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I was in a conversation the other night and was asked whether I believe in free will.  I don't, and haven't for sometime.  I have many reasons, including the fact that I see no reason why we can't explain all of human action and cognitiion without it.  But last night, I thought of a new reason that should be obvious. 

As long as we have needs and resources are scarce, there can't be anything like free will, at least in the either/or sense.  We will always ultimately be controlled by such needs, toward the goal of passing on our genes.  But, what of people who claim free will exists in a limited sense, like my interlocutor?

I've never bought this concept.  At best, they can say that we sometimes have free will to a degree.  But, assuming that "free will" refers to a conscious decision process, the processes by which conscious and unconscious decisions are made are mostly the same.  The same needs exist, along with the same laws of learning.  The latter just in a metacognitive sense with respect to consciousness.