DontRunMeOver

Going by the wikipedia explanation of free will, I'd say that I agree we have free will in a

1. Religious and
2. Ethical sense

in that

1. If there are any supernatural entitities I don't think that they direct people's actions most of the time. However, I'm extremely atheist so my opinion probably is of no consequence on this matter.
2. People should be held accountable for their actions. In my opinion, this should include anybody in any mental state which wasn't intentionally generated in that person by somebody else for the purpose of getting the first person to perform the action.

However, I don't agree that we have free will in a scientific sense. I think that our thoughts on and responses to external stimulae are entirely dependent upon all previous stimulae which we have been exposed to combined with our own genetic makeup.

The lack of free will in the scientific sense doesn't contradict the idea of free will in the ethical sense. The most obvious application of the ethical idea of free will is how responsible people should be held for the crimes which they commit. And in that respect I believe that even if it is somehow inevitable that a particular person will commit a crime due to their nature and circumstances, they should still be held responsible as it was they who committed the crime*. Further to that I have a lot of thoughts but so many I can't actually figure out which order to write them in!


*There would be a few exceptions to this, although I personally would still count anybody who commits murder, rape or serious violent crime while suffering a mental illness inherent to themselves as being just as accountable as a completely sane person.

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