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What's the best response to someone who believes in hard determinism but also uses this to deny responsibility for any immoral actions they commit? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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That is, they think all of their decisions were preordained, and then use this to claim that they can't be held responsible for anything they do.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Right, but lacking any physical evidence in either direction, is it not reasonable to then turn to purely rational explanations if we want to arrive at some sort of belief?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why would we want to do that? Why believe things for which there is no rational basis?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can have a rational basis for a belief without empirical evidence (Russell's teapot, for example). The reason you'd want to do that is to simplify the model of reality you're working with in order to reduce the number of contingencies you need to account for.