[MD] Free Will

[Steven Peterson]

Hi J-A,

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 5:27 AM, Jan-Anders Andersson
<jananderses at telia.com> wrote:
> Sorry Marsha and Steve but you are definitely on the wrong way here.

Steve:
I know you are, but what am I?


J-A:
> Free will is not an illusion. Free will is the ultimate basic condition for unpredictability and ever changing identities.

Steve:
Is it? How do you know? You say this as though saying so makes it true.


J-A:
> It may be scary to grasp the personal responsibility it takes but without free will there would be no future at all.

Steve:
No future?!!! Oh, my God! I need help. Please explain how the concept
of free will is necessary to understand the nuances of moral
culpability in the following examples...

"1.A four-year-old boy was playing with his father’s gun and killed a
young woman. The gun had been kept loaded and unsecured in a dresser
drawer.
2.A twelve-year-old boy, who had been the victim of continuous
physical and emotional abuse, took his father’s gun and intentionally
shot and killed a young woman because she was teasing him.
3.A twenty-five-year-old man, who had been the victim of continuous
abuse as a child, intentionally shot and killed his girlfriend because
she left him for another man.
4.A twenty-five-year-old man, who had been raised by wonderful parents
and never abused, intentionally shot and killed a young woman he had
never met “just for the fun of it.”
5.A twenty-five-year-old man, who had been raised by wonderful parents
and never abused, intentionally shot and killed a young woman he had
never met “just for the fun of it.” An MRI of the man’s brain revealed
a tumor the size of a golf ball in his medial prefrontal cortex (a
region responsible for the control of emotion and behavioral
impulses)."