This is an interesting article on how the existence of free will (or lack thereof) affects our moral actions. I'm wondering, if free will doesn't exist, should we hold individuals and ourselves responsible for their actions?
"Many philosophers and scientists reject free will and, while there has been no systematic study of the matter, there’s currently little reason to think that the philosophers and scientists who reject free will are generally less morally upright than those who believe in it. But this raises yet another puzzling question about the belief in free will. People who explicitly deny free will often continue to hold themselves responsible for their actions and feel guilty for doing wrong. Have such people managed to accommodate the rest of their attitudes to their rejection of free will? Have they adjusted their notion of guilt and responsibility so that it really doesn’t depend on the existence of free will? Or is it that when they are in the thick of things, trying to decide what to do, trying to do the right thing, they just fall back into the belief that they do have free will after all?"
I think the end of the article roots for the "holding individuals accountable" argument. From my perspective, as someone interested in utilitarianism, there's a through experiment that challenges it that is similar in nature to this argument. Utilitarianism, at its most basic, is a moral philosophy that says any decision made should cause the greatest happiness possible. I would highly suggest reading up on it- I could not do the full argument justice.
One challenge to utilitarianism is this one: Well, if we are trying to create the most happiness, think about organ doners. If one person can save seven lives with their bodies, shouldn't we be harvesting that one person to save seven people? Their happiness (and those of their loved ones) will exceed that of the one!
The response is that, well, if we're going around harvesting people, it will create mass panic, and will actually create widespread fear and terror.
This article references the experiment that people would cheat more when faced with the idea of determinism. Although you cannot try to expand this to the entire population...you kind of have to haha. Without repercussions there was cheating. What would this mean for all of society? In the thought experiment harvesting organs first seems like the "greater good," but it causes terror. This may not seem similar to some people, and I'm happy to hear better (much better) analogies than I can come up with, but it seems similar to me. We need some kind of repercussions to avoid chaos, at least for the short term. I'm not sure what the long term affects of not holding people accountable would be...but I know I would not want to be around for the short term.