Question

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were two wealthy, privileged young men in Chicago who murdered someone. Clarence Darrow was their defense attorney. He claimed that they should not be given the death penalty, because there must be some cause and effect, some relationship between their childhood and environment, and the horrible thing they did.

How does this relate to the concept of free will and determinism?

Were their lives determined for them, by their circumstances, before they did the crime?

Answer 1

Determinism refers to the fact that all the behaviors are caused by preceding factors, so all the behaviors are predictable and free will explains the concept that people are self-determined and they have the choice of acting in a particular way. It’s about choosing one’s behavior freely. Thus, this case relate to something that happened to the two young man in the childhood and they tried to retaliate because they had the choice of either let go or go back and punish those who wronged them.

Although all the human beings are prisoners of their own situations, everyone has the free will to think and act beyond the limits of the environment. Thus behaviors are shaped by the environment and not decided by the environment. This explains that both the young man acted emotionally and intentionally by killing someone. They had the option of keeping themselves away from the crime which they didn’t consider.