Free Will allows some pretty evil things...

[JefferyLopes18]

My whole life I have struggled with the fact of Free Will vs Determinism and the answer has troubled many a philosopher. I am one who was always believed that my free choices have made me who I am. If I feel like getting a good mark in school, I worked hard to get it, etc. However there are free will choices that can be made by others each day I am alive that can put me at risk. The balance of free will and evil is always going to be there...

Recently a young teen was attacked in my city for no reason at a house party and paralyzed due to beating he ensued. His neck was chopped with a hatchet that one of the villians had on him. This young man had dreams of joining our army and raising a family one day, and is only 18 years old.

Im sure there are harsher scenarios that can be thought of (movies such as Saw 1-3) are pretty horrible thoughts etc. My question for the group is how do you think about the above situation if you are:

1) atheist
2) non-atheist but the supreme being you believe in has no heaven or hell.
3) if you are Bentham?
4) if you are Kant?

[madnak]

How about if you're Hume, who basically destroyed the "problem" of free will?

[CityFan]

I am 1) atheist, and your story sickens and disturbs me. I hope the people who did that endure "hell" for the rest of their lives on earth.

However, I shall remain 1) atheist, no matter how much I might LIKE there to be some kind of divine retribution, because it seems to me that there isn't.

[FortunaMaximus]

5- Agnostic hedonist.

Just helping. Well, ok. I'm not a theist, so semantically that makes me an atheist. Whatever clouds the issue and gets me laid.

[vhawk01]

I dont really see why this is a problem for Kant at all.

[carlo]

Free Will does not include the vile actions of men. If this were the case a lion would certainly be acting in free will as he ate his prey.

I know this is speaking aphoristically but an act such as this is the result of a clouded consciousness which is not "free". Standing up in the middle of a movie theatre and yelling "fire" is not an act of free will. The state of the doer has to be considered and in this is an aberrancy and far from the the idea of "Free Will".

[David Steele]

My whole life I have struggled with the fact of Free Will vs Determinism

You might want to read Elbow Room by Dennett. Maybe then you won't have to worry about it the rest of your life.

[reb]

I don't think a person beating up someone else has "free will" in the sense I think of it, because he is acting on his aggressive impulses and emotions.