Thank you for the opportunity to help you with your question!
“Free Will is the power of up-to-usness” (Saul Smilansky 2001; Joe Campbell 2010). Meaning, that the actions we perform are in fact up to us in a robust way. The details are important and can be cashed out differently but they boil down to a similar view.
As Robert Kane has said “nothing can be more important than freedom to the modern age” (2005).when thinking about the concept of moral responsibility it becomes more salient. Free Will is intimately connected to concepts like responsibility, blame, praise, ‘just’ punishment, and the like (some argue that free will is central to notions of moral obligation, see Haji 2012 for more on this). It might be best to consider an example: Billy had a device implanted in his head over night. This device produces thoughts and ideas that lead to action. Justin is in control of this device, not Billy. Billy can’t even have a thought without it being controlled by Justin. Now imagine Justin implanting Billy with the thoughts to kill someone, and, erasing the thoughts to do otherwise via the device. When Billy kills someone should we blame him for it? Is Billy at fault or is Justin? Hopefully this example is starting to get you to understand the importance of free will. We normally assume that one has it. It underlies most of the above mentioned concepts. This is why we would blame Justin and not Billy in this example. Billy couldn’t have done otherwise, if he could have then we still might be inclined to blame him or hold him morally responsible, further, assume Billy is actually a nice guy, a guy who helped others all the time prior to Justin inserting the device in his brain.
Hurley, S. L. (1992). Natural reasons: Personality and polity. New York: Oxford University Press.
In Kunze, D., In Bertolini, C., & In Brott, S. (2013). Architecture post mortem: The diastolic architecture of decline, dystopia, and death.
Content will be erased after question is completed.