Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society: Challenging Retributive Justice

Description

'Free will skepticism' refers to a family of views that all take seriously the possibility that human beings lack the control in action - i.e. the free will - required for an agent to be truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward. Critics fear that adopting this view would have harmful consequences for our interpersonal relationships, society, morality, meaning, and laws. Optimistic free will skeptics, on the other hand, respond by arguing that life without free will and so-called basic desert moral responsibility would not be harmful in these ways, and might even be beneficial. This collection addresses the practical implications of free will skepticism for law and society. It contains eleven original essays that provide alternatives to retributive punishment, explore what (if any) changes are needed for the criminal justice system, and ask whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the real-world implications of free will skepticism.

Elizabeth Shaw is a lecturer in criminal law and criminology at the University of Aberdeen, where she is also a co-director of the Justice Without Retribution Network. Derk Pereboom is Susan Linn Sage Professor in the Sage School of Philosophy and Senior Associate Dean of the Arts and Humanities at Cornell University. He is the author of Living Without Free Will (Cambridge, 2001), Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism (2011), and Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life (2014). Gregg D. Caruso is Professor of Philosophy at Corning Community College, State University of New York and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University. He is also a co-director of the Justice Without Retribution Network at the University of Aberdeen School of Law. His books include Free Will and Consciousness (2012) and Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (2013).