If We Can't Choose, Should We Still Punish?

Let’s say free will is an illusion. Your brain makes decisions before “you” know about them. Every choice follows from prior causes stretching back to the Big Bang.

Should we still lock people up?

The obvious answer is no. How can you blame someone for something they couldn’t help doing? That’s like punishing a rock for falling.

But then I think about deterrence.

Even if my decision to steal your bike isn’t “free,” the possibility of getting caught still influences that decision. My unfree brain weighs outcomes. The threat of punishment gets factored in.

So punishment might work even without free will. Not because people deserve it, but because it changes behavior.

This feels cold. We’d be treating criminals like malfunctioning machines. Lock them up not because they’re evil, but because they’re broken and might break other things.

Maybe that’s more honest than what we do now.

Right now we pretend punishment is about justice. People “deserve” consequences. But if free will is fake, desert is fake too. Nobody deserves anything.

We’d still need to protect society. We’d still need to change dangerous behavior. We just couldn’t feel righteous about it.

I’m not sure this is worse than our current system. At least we’d stop pretending that cages make people morally even.