So regardless of weather we have free will or not, we are happy or unhappy. I prefer to be happy, I don't know about whether the possession or lack of free will changes your position on the desirability of experiencing pleasure of pain, but I maintain that I prefer happiness to pain. If a criminal is a criminal because of his genetic make up and the things he goes through experientialy, and our current system of justice seeks to punish said criminal for something that the criminal could not avoid (the punishment in no way seeks to in anyway reform the individual, just case him pain in repayment for the pain he has caused to society), it would seem that society realizing that the criminal acts through no fault of his own could have profound implications on the pleasure/pain distribution that the individual and society experiences. Knowledge of the lack of free will would promote a harm reduction rehabilitation frame work for criminal justice, increasing the chance that individuals would become less harmful and perhaps better, happier citizens. I'm sure if I were more cleaver I would be able to see many ways that this realization if grasped (by no merit or fault of individuals own, but purely on a predetermined basis) by a great number of people would be trasformative to individuals experienced of pleasure and pain. Actually I can see ways that this realization effects my interaction with my world, in many ways it's an extension of how I already view the world, but I'm sure that I am not applying it as widely as it could be, and while not fully embracing it, it's at least an interesting frame work to look at the world. I deny your assertion that it has no implications, understanding it even as a conceptual framework creates a more compassionate society, even if that understanding is predetermined. Even if we don't have free will, pain is undesirable. A few of people might off themselves if they believe that they can't really effect their destiny, but I suspect many more people will just tumble along feeling pleasure.
- I am certainly grateful that you have rehashed high school philosophy for me.
I'm actually pretty well read on the subject, and I happen to have a much more simplistic view than many people. Its not a complicated idea, and its been written about since the dawn of thought. It may be boring, but its logically unassailable. Will and choice are inseparable. Lack of will implies a necessarily nihilistic world view, and I reject that on principle. Apologies if this doesn't meet your obvious standard of excellence in philosophic thought.
- If there is no free will, then its absence has no implications, by necessity.