Blame is a Prejudice (Free-Will & Determinism)

Free will is necessary to maintain personal responsibility, for it is impossible to justly hold persons accountable for their actions if they have no choice - in these circumstance, how can we punish them for their crimes? By extension, how can we praise them for doing good if such actions were not freely chosen? If Pro maintains that there is no free-will, I want him to either admit that (A) "he" cannot rightly comdemn any action (or person for wrong actions), that he connot rightly support legal punishments for crime since the criminals had no choice but to be as they are; otherwise, (B) tell us on what basis he can condemn anyone for wrong actions or support the penalty system. If people have no free will than determinists should not even seek justice against those who do them wrong. Those who do seek justice against lawbreakers are not walking in harmony with their talk; they claim there is no free-will but do not act as though they really believe this is the case. I would hope that Pro is not among them. But just think of what it would do to our legal systems if someone could provide scientific evidence showing that human beings have no free-will? Rapists would argue and rightly so, that they were forced to commit their crimes by outside forces and get away with it. Murderers would hide behind this theory as well. So before I get into presenting my evidence I just want to say that I do hope with all my heart that Pro is wrong on this issue. But I will be looking to hear from Pro if he blieves that criminals should be punished. If there is no personal responsibility in Pro's philosophy, then he must hold that punishment for crime is also unfair, and should not occur. How can society blame or praise a person for an action which he himself had no control over? It is inconsistent to say that a person is not responsible for his bad deed and then punish him for that deed. It seems that even those who deny the existence of free will still live their lives as if it does exist. Now if I have no free will, then I don't believe in free will by my own choice, so what's the point of Pro trying to convince me otherwise? What's the point of trying to persuade anyone at all if everything is already predetermined? But here is another issue, do determinists ever feel shame, regret, or remorse, when they does something wrong? If there is no free will, then they aren't responsible for their actions and shouldn't feel this way. If they do feel this way, then it shows that their position is a very hypocritical one. They claim to be innocent because of having no choice, yet they feel bad over what they did. Unless, Pro will argue that he can commit heinous crimes and feel no remorse whatever, in which case simply makes his philosophy a very heartless one. Pro argues that eternal forces are responsible for our decisions, but this is only partially true. For example. There is external evidence which convinces Pro there is no God; but I too can digest this same evidence and still not e forced into atheism by it. I choose not to believe the evidence for atheism, he chooses to believe it. Conversely, I choose to accept the evidence for God, he chooses not to. If it were all a matter of us dancing to external forces, then we should all react the same way to the same set of external forces, but we don't. We are not pawns in a game of cause and effect, for we can reason and calculate outcomes, making a choice based on the use of logic as opposed to following some predetermined path. Pro will use his reasoning ability to pick apart my argument, and conjure up reasons why he doesn't find it convincing; this reasoning power is not an outside influence, but an internal factor which aids in making free choices. Cause and effect is the observation of repetitive conjunction of particular events which induces us to postulate their linkage. Pro tries to prove cause and effect in our choice of food; he says: "The simplest choice; deciding what to eat. Is that free? Do you choose to enjoy one food over another (and thus have preference towards it? )? No. " But really, many people actually avoid eating their favorite food because they use their reasoning ability (an internal, not external force) to overrule their own preferences. That food might be high in fat, cholestorol, etc, and the people in question want to maintain a healthy diet, so they choose not to eat it; so Pro is simply wrong when he suggests that people have no choice but to let their taste buds guide them. There are others, who knowing full well the health risks of eating cetain foods, simply don't care and eat them. So if determinism were true, why do they not all react the same to the same external influences? Obviously, people can choose, and they regularly do make different choices. He reasons that we can't blame the person who steals if we know the events that led up to him stealing, but let's be honest, can all the burgulars that appear before the judges give good reasons why they steal? Do they? No. Some steal just for the fun of it. Interestingly, some people may be hungry, homeless, and going through hell, and yet choose resist the temptation to steal and simply beg at the street corners. If determinism is true, why don't all hungry homeless people steal? Why is that for ever person who steals for reason X, we can find someone else who has been through X and has not stolen? This shows the external forces alone are not responsible for the actual "response. " Many people steal who have no reason whatever to steal. They are already rich, they are not in debt, they don't need the money, they can leagally make more easily, and yet they steal. They didn't need some external reason like extreme poverty in order to make them steal.