Are We Still Guilty if There's No Free Will?

Ruminations on the Reason Article (by Ronald Bailey: If There Is No Free Will, Is Everything Permitted?

Ronald Bailey discusses an article in the New York Times, by Eric Nagourney, which brings to light a study published in Psychological Science which posits a potential link between determinism (simply: no free will) and the propensity for study subjects to cheat.

I think this study quite plainly shows that determinism or free-will people cheat more when they think they can get away with it. I would argue also that there is the potential that a statement like, "Smart people say that free will is an illusion, " and, "It's not okay to cheat, but people cheat every day regardless," could have arguably the same result. Both seem to be a tacit approval of cheating behavior, this will be accentuated even more when people believe they can really get away with it (which was a definite part of the experiment). If it is through fate or if it is free-will that causes people cheat less when there are negative consequences and policing of cheating behavior, then it all works to the same end doesn't it? No, we're not let off the hook if we're just piles of predictable chemical reactions.

But let's talk about determinism some more, it's intriguing.

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) is well known for espousing the idea that we're just moist robots. He believes that quantum matter/interactions could end up being quite orderly (we just don't understand how yet). If quantum interactions are predictable and solely based on physical laws and causal relationships it could be inferred that all chemical and electrical interactions should be predictable as well. If you follow that line of thinking, our brains are just giant globs of chemical reactions and electrical impulses, whose end result is no more alterable than gravity itself. Given this extreme, we have no free will, as the end is already predetermined (so to speak).

The idea blows my mind. Everything in the world is indescribably complex and interconnected, yet when you get down to brass tacks, most everything behaves reasonably. There's no reason to believe that suddenly in 2008 we've hit the brick wall and nothing else will be figured out in the world of quantum mechanics. This general optimism leads me to believe that we'll uncover heretofore unimaginable complexities of matter that, in my opinion, will eventually be determined as orderly.

What's really cool about this idea is that, since the big bang, I have been destined to write this post. You have been destined to read this post. And I am destined to bang your mom tonight...