Argue Against Determinism?

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Historially challenged

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School Killer Verdict
You are on a jury deciding the fate of a man who shot and killed a dozen school children. But, the man had a horrible childhood and his lawyers argued he was conditioned and could not help himself. Because of his childhood did he have the freedom to choose to not commit the murders or were his actions determined?
 
Do you remember at the end of the movie "Braveheart" when William Wallace was having his testicles dismembered in an act of torture? He still had the freedom to scream "FREEDOM!"

People have horrible things happen to them and never do anything wrong. Some people set out to right the world of the kind of things that happened to them. Your school shooter may have been "conditioned" to have those thoughts; but no one is conditioned to act on them.
 
"I am a determinist, but not by choice."

The problem of moral responsibility is the main problem for determinism. I would reason in the following way: There are many illness for which there are no cures and some of these are fatal. Even if it could be shown that the man could not help but act as he did, I would admit that this is an unfortunately fatal illness. By law we ask if the person "knew it was wrong" not if they thought they might have acted in a different way. One might turn this on its head and argue that it is only the facts that determined his actions that make him responsible for them. If it was a totally spontaneous event which seems to be what some people mean by "free will", he would be as surprised that it happened as his judges. The reasons (stated as cause and effect) he acted as he did must be taken into account and his desires are one of those reasons. Therefore, I may hold him responsible, while still maintaining that he, being who he was, could have done no other. Remember that life only makes sense looking backward, it must be lived facing front.
 
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