Free Will and Pre-Detention: Pereboom claims that, even if there is no free will, we should sometimes imprison criminals who are a threat to the safety of others. He draws an analogy with forcibly quarantining someone with a highly contagious and dangerous disease. Parts 1-2: One way to argue against a philosophical position is note an unintended consequence of that position, and then argue that this consequence shows that the position is flawed. For instance, we might try objecting to Pereboom by claiming: 1. One unintended consequence of Pereboom’s view of imprisonment would be that there are cases in which we should imprison someone before they have committed a crime or harmed anyone (or even attempted to commit a crime or harm anyone). 2. That consequence shows that Pereboom’s view of imprisonment is flawed. That’s because we obviously should NOT imprison someone before they have committed a crime or harmed anyone. Complete the objection by giving the best argument you can for each of the two claims above (i.e. give some reasons why we should accept each of the two claims). – Pereboom himself doesn’t talk about pre-detention. You are supposed to argue that, given other things that Pereboom does say, this consequence follows. – Hint: You might consider the analogy with quarantining: When we quarantine someone, does our justification arise from past harm or future harm? Must the person actually be contagious or just likely to be contagious? Can we quarantine someone in order to prevent them from catching a contagious disease and spreading it? – Explain the circumstances under which pre-detection is supposed to be legitimate under Pereboom’s position. (Does it follow that we can always pre-detain someone or only in certain cases?) Part 3: Briefly say whether you think the objection to Pereboom from Parts 1-2 succeeds – If you do not think the argument succeeds, explain the problem with the argument you gave in part 1.
