Hard determinists, also known as incompatibilists believe that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the idea of free will. The reason you might be drinking now at the bar can be traced back to brain synapses, or behavior, that has been caused 10 years ago.
The argument goes this way: If causal determinism is true, then we can't act freely.
If this was true, we have to examine what happens with our idea of responsibility. For you see, can you hold someone responsible for an action that could be predicted from the beginning of time?
But even the idea of a cause is slippery. There is a school shooting and the editorialists debate whether it was caused by the shooter's parents, TV violence, stress on students, Hollywood or the accessibility of guns. Why not say that all may have necessarily contributed?
Then there is the issue of physiological predispositions. Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen, researchers in the emerging field of neuroethics, argue that our current notion of moral responsibility is founded on libertarian (and dualist) intuitions. They argue that cognitive neuroscience research is undermining these intuitions by showing that the brain is responsible for our actions, not only in cases of psychosis, but even in less obvious situations (i.e., damage to the frontal lobe reduces the ability to weigh uncertain risks and make prudent decisions).
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On the other hand, freedom requires que ability to choose. We can even present this sequence Reason ---> Freedom ----> Responsibility. It seems that they are necessarily connected. Who can accuse a teller of robbing a bank if we find out later that the reason he did it was that his family was handicapped by assailants and threatened unless he did it? So we have to add one more premise.
If we can't act freely, we can't be held responsible for our actions. That makes sense from the legal point of view. What cuts the difference between, say, murder and manslaughter is mens rea, that is to say, intent (the idea of malice or afterthought). Most courts accept a major mental illness, such as psychosis (though will not accept the diagnosis of a personality disorder for the purposes of an insanity defense).
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According to sociobiology there is a relationship between our genetic makeup and our upbringing (how we're nurtured) to that of a photographic negative and developing fluid. Just as the negative can be developed well or poorly, so can our innate propensities. Recent dramatic findings by researchers at North Carolina Chapell Hill lend creedence to this hypothesis. They discovered three genes that predispose teens to serious and violent delinquency:
The team studied information from 1,100 boys in grades 7–12. Variations in the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, the dopamine transporter 1 (DAT1) gene and the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) gene were linked to delinquency, but “Positive influences appeared to reduce the effect of the genes, while an absence of positive influences amplified the effects,” according to Canwest News Service. For example, having regular meals with parents served to moderate the effects of the “risky” DRD2 gene, whereas not having those meals amplified the aggression.Now, imagine Hard determinism was true. Would there be any justification for punishment? Why and why not?
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Then there is Compatibilism, (in the textbook appears as soft-determinism). That is to say, free will and determinism are compatible ideas. It is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. Now, keep in mind that compatibilists (or soft-determinists) define 'free will' in a way that allows it to co-exist with determinism. Here free will is a sort of liberty: i.e, "freedom to act (according to one's determined motives)".
This video on the limits of free will is helpful.
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