I've just recently started a topic of Freewill and Determinism and I've only really seen a very basic introduction to the philosophy of it, but so far the ideas of Freedom and Responsibility seem to be conflated together in my classes.
What I'm asking is does being free necessarily entail that you're responsible, and the reverse, does not being free mean you're not responsible, and does being responsibly necessarily entail that you're free and does not being responsible necessarily entail that you're not free?
I think not to at least the first of the four, because of a thought experiment I think I saw on here somewhere a while ago.
This isn't the same one, but I think it illustrates the point.
If someone holds a gun to someone else and gives them a choice between releasing 10 captives with switch 1 and killing 10 captives with switch 2, and says they will shoot them if they try to go for switch 1 and then kill the 10 captives, the person is free to choose either, but hardly has a good choice. They may still attempt to choose switch 1 even if they will be killed beforehand. If we then say the person with the gun threatens the person to make a choice or be killed along with 20 captives, the coerced person is likely to choose killing 10 captives to save their own life and minimise the deaths rather than just let themselves be shot trying to release 10 captives or let 21 people die from indecision, but I don't think we can say the coerced person is responsible for those deaths because they were so coerced, even though they were free to choose their switch or lack of.
Thoughts?
