Your social worker friend is, in my opinion, right about no one being blameworthy about whatever they do. Blame is a human concept. We all have our own view of who should be blamed for anything. But placing blame and feeling guilt are just human concepts that are also driven by unconscious dtermining factors, like everything else. There are no standards of blame or guilt. We each have our determined stance. Nothing changes if we recognize this. We will continue to blame and feel guilt and wish to punish because we have no control over those feelings arising within us.Do you think that your view has normative implications for how we should run our criminal justice system? Here is the crux. If it is true that 'Nothing changes if we recognize this' as Lois writes, then it has no consequences. That would mean that neurologists who discover how the brain works and reveal how our feelings, beliefs and actions are determined have no reason to call for a reformation of our criminal justice system. I think exactly that is the case. The problem arises where two valid but different discourses are mixed: on one side the 'physical discourse', in which we have the role of external observers, and on the other side the discourse in which it is about the content and the meaning of our feelings, beliefs and actions (see my posting above). Then people make sweeping statements about non-existing voluntary actions or free will etc. It is a category error, an example of unclear thinking. And of course it is not true that 'there are no standards of blame or guilt'. But they are not discovered by science, but established in the ongoing moral discourse of societies and cultures. That has nothing to do with determinism. Declaring 'standards of blame or guilt' as nonsense is just the same category error as mentioned above.
If it is true that 'Nothing changes if we recognize this' as Lois writes, then it has no consequences. That would mean that neurologists who discover how the brain works and reveal how our feelings, beliefs and actions are determined have no reason to call for a reformation of our criminal justice system. I think exactly that is the case. The problem arises where two valid but different discourses are mixed: on one side the 'physical discourse', in which we have the role of external observers, and on the other side the discourse in which it is about the content and the meaning of our feelings, beliefs and actions (see my posting above). Then people make sweeping statements about non-existing voluntary actions or free will etc. It is a category error, an example of unclear thinking.I'm pretty open to Lois' view that no-one is ever blameworthy for anything, really. I can think of arguments in favour in that view which I find pretty compelling. But, I mean, obviously I can imagine a situation where I might say to someone "How could you have done that?" This suggests to me that there are substantial practical difficulties with really sincerely holding such a view.
I mean, I’m a meta-ethical anti-realist so I don’t think that there is any objective truth of the matter about whether anyone is ever blameworthy for anything. So I guess I should say “I can see considerations that count in favour of the stance that no-one is blameworthy for anything, but I have difficulty in actually adopting such a stance in a completely consistent way”.