Persons, punishment, and free will skepticism

Vilhauer, Benjamin

doi:10.1007/s11098-011-9752-z

Cited by 38 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Ben Vilhauer in particular has done much to address the consequences of our not knowing that we have free will. As well the citation above, see also his , and .…”

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confidence: 60%

Free Will Agnosticism

Kearns

2013

Nous

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“…Ben Vilhauer in particular has done much to address the consequences of our not knowing that we have free will. As well the citation above, see also his , and .…”

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confidence: 60%

Free Will Agnosticism

Kearns

2013

Nous

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“…However, even if this were the case, it would be absurd to claim that Harsh Retributivism is an inescapable part of society, since criminal justice systems differ between nations and over time. 3 The purpose of this paper is not to develop and defend an alternative to Harsh Retributivism; many other philosophers have done so already [10][11][12][13]. It is nevertheless important to note that we do not have to choose between on the one hand Harsh Retributivism, and on the other hand, a crude utilitarian system where we do whatever it takes to deter criminals.…”

Section: Harsh Retributivism Credence and Justificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retributivism, Justification and Credence: The Epistemic Argument Revisited

Jeppsson

2020

Neuroethics

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Harming other people is prima facie wrong. Unless we can be very certain that doing so is justified under the circumstances, we ought not to do it. In this paper, I argue that we ought to dismantle harsh retributivist criminal justice systems for this reason; we cannot be sufficiently certain that the harm is justified. Gregg Caruso, Ben Vilhauer and others have previously argued for the same conclusion; however, my own version sidesteps certain controversial premises of theirs. Harsh retributivist criminal justice can only be morally right if the following three propositions are true: Moral responsibility exists, retributivism is right, and we can find out how much punishment offenders deserve for their crimes. Suppose that we initially assign a high credence to each of the three propositions; I assume for the sake of argument that there are good arguments in support of each. Nevertheless, these arguments ultimately depend on intuitions. Since we have philosophical peers whose intuitions differ from ours, we ought to downgrade our credence in each. However, even slightly less credence in each proposition means far less credence in a conjunction of all three. Since the stakes are high and there are morally safer options for a criminal justice system, we ought to dismantle harsh retributivist ones.

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“…The other is a 1 Although this paper focuses on Pereboom's project, I will also consider the way Caruso (2016) further develops it. Other free will skeptic proposals include the ones by Corrado (2013), Greene and Cohen (2004) and Vilhauer (2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How should free will skeptics pursue legal change?

Fischborn¹

2017

Preprint

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Free will skepticism is the view that people never truly deserve to be praised, blamed, or punished for what they do. One challenge free will skeptics face is to explain how criminality could be dealt with given their skepticism. This paper critically examines the prospects of implementing legal changes concerning crime and punishment derived from the free will skeptical views developed by Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso. One central aspect of the changes their views require is a concern for reducing the severity of current forms of punishment. The paper considers two strategies for pursuing such a reduction. By taking into account evidence from the psychology of belief in free will and desire to punish, it is argued that a strategy aiming at a reduction of people’s natural desire to punish criminals can be successful if capable of providing alternatives to current forms of punishment satisfying three properties: they must be less harmful than current forms of punishment, more effective in preventing crime, and incompatible with current forms of punishment.

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Persons, punishment, and free will skepticism

Cited by 38 publications

References 23 publications

Free Will Agnosticism

Free Will Agnosticism

Retributivism, Justification and Credence: The Epistemic Argument Revisited

How should free will skeptics pursue legal change?

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