The Debate Over Free Will in the Rachels text
Libertarianism argues that determinism is not true. This implies that human behaviours cannot be predicted. According to Rachels, Libertarianism tends to go against science. This is against science because of the internal determinism where the biological forces are involved in making decisions. There is a lot of science which is involved in both external and internal determinism. An example, several behaviours are triggered by hormones or the Nervous system. Thus, since the libertarianism does not support determinism, they are against science.
There is the issue of free will and ethics. If there was no free will, Rachels supports the fact that people could still be considered to be good or bad. When looking at this statement, it means that free will is not a determiner of virtues and vices. There are those people who could still end up doing the wrong things while others could do the right things. Individuals could not choose to be good or bad, but it will depend on their luck. Some can be unlucky and be bad people, while the lucky ones become good people.
It is concluded that people should be treated like animals. Looking at the animals, they are not morally criticized because they lack common sense. Hence, human beings need to be treated like animals. They should have free will but not be morally criticized. The existence of common sense is what differentiate people from animals, but in this case, they should be treated like animals. They should not be judged because of their decisions. Both right and wrong choices should be considered as luck. This implies that there cannot be any moral critics.