From Mockingbird, a review of an upcoming book from free will skeptic Gregg Caruso. I will be returning here to struggle more with this concept at a later point. My younger induction into the cult of personal responsibility, despite the utter failure of those who preached it to practice same (not least of all me), still weighs on my conscience. Todd Brewer writes in Retributive Justice and Our Free Will Illusion:
Judgmentalism, in other words, correlates strongly with a belief in free will. Strange as it might sound, believing that people are basically good, perhaps with a few blemishes, can lead to more punitive responses. Where free will is espoused, legalism is sure to follow. If you think someone could have done otherwise, but didn’t, then they deserve punishment for their crimes. But if that very same action is explained by way of mitigating factors, then patience wins out.
A low anthropology causes one to search for the most charitable explanations — to look with the eyes of grace for causes and circumstances beyond appearances. This graceful gaze sees beyond the transgression itself, failing to linger on the hideousness of the offense, to a fellow sinner incapable of doing otherwise. It disentangles guilt from culpability — not to find some hidden quality that makes one worthy of love, but to reveal the universal defect from which misdeeds flow.
Far from an archaic doctrine with no relevance for modern times, the belief in the bound will is the birthplace of compassion. Understanding ourselves and others as equally powerless and out of control over our actions gives rise to sympathy. It is weakness that lies at the heart of another’s crimes, a feeble helplessness that mirrors our own.