Precrime -- What's So Important About Free Will?

A fairly common theme in media is the idea that precrime is something that ought not to be suppressed.

Precrime, the reader will recall, is the state of a criminal before they commit a crime: specifically murder. In Philip Dick's The Minority Report of 1956 the Precrime Analytical Wing used precognitives and special machinery to hear and analyze predictions of future crimes.

Criminals are arrested at the precrime stage and a murder is avoided.

This precrime detention is often seen as wicked. And in Dick's work there is some basis for this view -- the precogs are (a) not always correct and (b) used as tools rather than as beings (hence violating Kant's first categorical imperative). That said, the problems are technical rather than inherent -- if the precogs were replaced by perfect machines the only problem with precrime is that it "punishes" the "innocent".

Of course, some would say the whole point is that "punishment" is meaningless and free will does not exist.

If this is granted -- and crime is seen as a problem to be solved (or at least controlled) and not as a moral theatre -- then what is wrong with acting against precrime? Perhaps nothing.

The moral view of the world -- a view that suggests events are morally to be praised or damned -- is far from the real criminal system. Criminals are seldom 'morally depraved'. Far more commonly they are (marginally) insane or (grossly) dense. The view that they can be corrected by a system of just rewards and fair punishments is simply wrong headed. The average criminal is not able to think far enough ahead to be deterred by punishment, especially punishment as uncertain as that in the criminal system.

Rehabilitation is possible. Kindness and respect, if not justice, is called for in dealing with some criminals. For some criminals, separating them from society is the best for everyone. But in all cases the decision on what to do should be based on keeping society safe and stable.

Free will and justice have little to do with it.
James Morton
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Toronto, Ontario
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