The “Why punish criminals?” question has a long history. The idea is that if your actions are determined by prior causes then you’re no longer blameworthy. I think for most people deterrence would be morally unacceptable if they did not also consider criminals blameworthy. Why not punish their friends and families if that would also act as an effective deterrent? Actually this question—how can we delimit external and internal causes—is more interesting to me than general concepts of free will (short answer: we can’t). If you want a nice example of bullet-biting in this area check out Pereboom’s Living without Free Will. He argues that we should reject blameworthiness and praiseworthiness and considers it a good thing.
The “Why punish criminals?” question has a long history. The idea is that if your actions are determined by prior causes then you’re no longer blameworthy. I think for most people deterrence would be morally unacceptable if they did not also consider criminals blameworthy. Why not punish their friends and families if that would also act as an effective deterrent? Actually this question—how can we delimit external and internal causes—is more interesting to me than general concepts of free will (short answer: we can’t). If you want a nice example of bullet-biting in this area check out Pereboom’s Living without Free Will. He argues that we should reject blameworthiness and praiseworthiness and considers it a good thing.