Why reading defenses of hard determinism makes people morally worse.

"A study suggests that when people are encouraged to believe their behavior is predetermined — by genes or by environment — they may be more likely to cheat."

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Comments

[Ken Batts]

Mark asked how one earns approval in a world without FW. I don't see how approval intersects with free will. I earn approval from my friends by treating them well. Not sure where the difficulty is. If the question is how can I choose to earn this approval, the answer is that I am caused to, by my determinants. I think we are born to desire the approval of others, which makes it easy to teach children by giving and withholding approval.

[Saul Smilansky]

Tom,

I certainly understand your position much better now, I didn't see how you think that things are supposed to work, and (I think) that now I do. I don't share what seems to me to be your very optimistic view that things CAN work as you think they can, but that's criticism and not (as before) lack of understanding on my part. Broadly, as I said before my problem with your system is that it is schizophrenic: you count on our "beastly" desert-related and retributive emotions to underlie our social and personal lives, but the philosophy all goes in the opposite (utilitarian, forward-looking, anti-desert) direction. So, on the descriptive level, the two are pulling in opposite ways, and cannot be stable without a very large dose of illusion and deception. From a normative perspective you similarly seem to celebrate the natural way we function and at the same time take a paternalistic/manipulative view of it, for in reality you see it as totally mistaken (because the free will and desert distinctions, and the moral and indeed personal judgments that follow from them, are to you false - as well as morally terrible). And as I pointed out before (in my reply to Ken), once we would get down to describing real lives, the structure would collapse upon its contradictions.

You make two further points. The first is about people's rights as opposed to the pull of utilitarianism. Again, I don't see how you can help yourself to most of the desirable deontological goodies, within a utilitarian framework. The idea of desert functiones as a crucial constraint upon the constant urge to run things efficiently. But since to you no one really deserves anything, the distinction between those who do and those who don't cannot be real, and hence cannot serve as the great moral constraint. We must increase happiness, or limit suffering, or whatever, and there cannot be any intrinsic importance about the free will and desert distinctions. Now of course it might be that some consequentialist story can account in its own pragmatic terms for the good of maintaining certain limitations, but that cannot be because of the intrinsic moral importance of free will and desert (or their absence in a particular situation). Nor - without deception - can such a framework use what you think are mere superstitions in order to limit itself.

The second point you make is about the purported proof that things can work as you say, because after all those of us who are in the know do not seem to be running wild. But again, this assumes a great deal about the way people internalize the understanding of the free will doubts, and I have yet to see proof of such a high degree of internalization. My experience of myself and others is that, on the one hand, it is very difficult to really follow the relevant beliefs: one continues with the same sort of reactions of pride and resentment and feeling that one deserves more and others should feel remorse (and so on); all those things that one's beliefs show to be unsupported or at least very shallow. This is resistance, denial, wishful thinking, self-deception, or whatever (let's call it "illusion" for short), but it is not what you suppose it to be. And, on the other hand, to the extent that the beliefs do begin to have a big effect, it is mostly very negative, causing dissociation from one's past achievements, harming one's sense of self-respect, and affecting one's appreciation of the efforts and emotions of others and one's gratitude and love for them (which is why it is natural to avoid all this and sink back into comfortable illusion). If one is not emotionally shallow, I don't see how that could NOT happen, except for the role of self-illusion: after all, people (including oneself) are seen to have been operating as they were molded, without real control, and without really deserving any credit for all the strivings and sacrifices. I love my fully deterministic car and am in a sense grateful to it, and perhaps it "deserves" to have its oil regularly changed, but all this is not in the sense that I feel towards people close to me - and gettting those distinct paradigms closer together (as surely we must, if we are hard determinists) scares me. And of course we were all socialized to take seriously the ideas that we are responsible beings, whose value depends on what we come to deserve through our actions; we were not brought up as hard determinist utilitarians. Now, if you tell me about some rare saint who has done the trick then I want to hear more, but I don't have proof that he or she cannot exist (one hears tales about holy people in India who seem very different from most of us). But I certainly don't think that you can base your case on the way most of us function.

[Tom Clark]

Saul,

I think we’ve long since gotten to the point of repeating ourselves, but here goes. First, I don’t think my position is, as you put it, schizophrenic, but simply takes into account both immediate and reflective responses. Reactive attitudes are not “beastly,” they are simply natural. Nor do I see them as “mistaken,” rather I see them as functional, but needing restraint. The judgments about right and wrong we reach on their basis are often correct. It’s the idea of libertarian desert that’s mistaken. Seeing this exerts a beneficial pull against the unfettered expression of the retributive impulse, which feeds on the myth of the self-caused self. There’s nothing schizoid here, just the ordinary top-down restraint cognition can sometimes exert on emotion, in service to achieving the kind of society we want.

My position isn’t, as you say, paternalistic, rather quite the opposite: unlike you, I want to tell people the naturalistic truth about themselves so that they have the opportunity to become full-fledged adults, with all the advantages of understanding their full causal story. It’s illusionism that’s paternalistic, protecting people from a truth that you are certain they can’t handle. Nor is there any self-contradiction in my position that, when considering real lives, would cause it to collapse, or that requires deception. We continue to make moral judgments and hold each other responsible – just without the libertarian overlay.

Re rights and utilitarianism: A utilitarian framework presupposes goods to be maximized, and these goods derive from human needs and desires, for instance to flourish as an end in oneself. So the deontological proposition that people should be treated as ends in themselves is a primary good that figures in a consequentialist calculus. For instance, as you suggest, it constrains the maximization of other goods such as efficiency.

As I’ve said before, I don’t jettison *all* conceptions of desert, just the libertarian, supernatural conception. Everyone, by virtue of their basic desire to be treated as an end in themselves, deserves to be treated that way. This is the basic moral proposition of equal autonomy rights fundamental to our society. But this doesn’t commit me to supposing that offenders deserve to be (should be) punished *whether or not any good outcome is achieved*. They consequentially “deserve” it – they should be punished – just to the extent that only the infliction of suffering can achieve ends that we deem beneficial, such as behavior change. Again, I don’t see why any deception is necessary in promulgating such a system, based as it is on uncontroversial values of minimizing suffering, achieving good outcomes, and respecting autonomy.

Regarding the internalization of not having LFW, there will of course always be some dissonance between our reactive attitudes and our reflectively endorsed responsibility practices in the light of not having LFW, and the amount will vary from person to person (you feel it a lot, I perhaps not as much). We will continue to have first blushes of pride and resentment, which sometimes point us in behaviorally useful directions (their important natural function), but those responses are kept in check, and thus the dissonance will be reduced, by seeing we’re not ultimately self-caused. This is how it’s worked for me and others I know who have given up belief in LFW.

Thus far, I haven’t seen *at all* the sort of very negative effects you predict free will skepticism will have on valuing one’s achievements, self-respect, appreciation of the efforts of others, or love of others, etc. These sorts of valuing don’t depend in the least on the rather high-level, abstract belief that people are ultimately self-caused, but are generated by our responses to people themselves, their character and their actions. So there’s nothing scary or demoralizing about learning that one’s true love was fully determined to be a delightful person, or that one is fully determined to make the effort to achieve great things. Love wants a delightful character, it doesn’t care about ultimate self-origination. Gratitude and respect want a great achievement, not ultimate self-origination. Our valuing is inspired by what we find valuable, not the fiction of the self-caused self. So living without belief in LFW isn’t all that difficult or precarious, and it’s certainly not a matter of being a saint – just ask my wife.

[Tom Clark]

Just want to add that Tamler (note the cap) weighs in on illusionism and the Vohs & Schooler study over at the Psychology Today blogs, one of which is the recently inaugurated Experiments in Philosophy. It's being run by "a band [fog] of philosophers" including Joshua Knobe.

[Saul Smilansky]

Tom,

I agree that we have begun to repeat ourselves (well, who ARE we supposed to repeat?); but I think we have made some progress in mutual understanding. Thanks for the discussion.

[Nick Hopkins]

A pity that Saul abandons the battle just after being given a wonderful present by Tom.

Tom's problem is that he can't see the contradiction between
'We will continue to have the first blush of pride and resentment'

and

'So far I haven't seen at all the sort of very negative effects you predict free will skepticism will have on valuing one's achievements, self respect, appreciation of the efforts of others'.

It seems to me that Tom can't make his mind up about whether free will skepticism will have major impacts on the world or not, or if he does he only acknowledges the 'positive'.

Tom states that people's sense of self respect etc doesn't depend on the abstract idea that we are ultimately self caused. Trivially there is truth in this as an acknowledgement of the extent to which non philosophers tend not to have fuly worked through positions on free will and moral responsibility. It says nothing about what will happen if free will skepticism takes hold and people only see themselves as entitled to the 'first blushes' of pride.

Two more points. If free will skepticism doesn't have the effects that Saul implies in terms of reducing the depth of positive emotions, why we are we to assume that it will have the effects that Tom wishes to see in terms of reducing shame and guilt? Can you really have praise without blame?
Is human culture really capable of such double think in the long term?

I also find myself disturbed by the evangelism of some of our free will skeptics. The nub of my philosphical disagreement with Tom and others is that he leaps from partially caused/ influenced to wholly caused. Wherever you stand on that slippery libertarain- compatabilist- free will skeptic slope, that leap is the source of the belief that free will skepticism will be our ethical salavation. But that ain't necessarily so, it seems to me that libertarans are perfectly capable of compassion based on a commitment to forgiveness, an acknowledgement of their own frailty, and an awareness that human freedom is exercised within genetic, social and psychological limits.

[Ken Batts]

Would Tom's position be more believable if he were to claim knowledge of the scale of the impact free will skepticism will have on the world? Seems to me his reluctance to do so makes his position more plausible. Beyond speculating that the positive changes will outweigh negative ones, and giving one's reasons, I'm not sure how prudent it would be to describe the future in detail. No one knew (or knows, for that matter) the degree to which atheism or belief in racial equality will change the world. It seems very reasonable to speculate that they will make us better off, but to what degree, who could know.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Ken,

Isn't that position a bit odd for a consequentialist? An ethical egoist maybe could get away with that rationale, but a consequentialist??

[Ken Batts]

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean that as a consequentialist I should claim to know for certain what consequences certain beliefs or actions have?

I guess I am an ethical egoist of a sort, if by that one means that all human behavior is "selfish". My definition of selfish is drastically different than Rand's,though; I see my interests, especially my highest self-actualizing needs as coinciding with many of the needs of other people, so I come to far different political conclusions than she did. I wouldn't necessarily jump in the icy waters to save a stranger, but I'd do a lot to try to save them, and I support safety education, universal health care and other measures aimed at minimizing the number of drowning deaths.

[Tom Clark]

Nick,

As Ken says, the actual effects of free will skepticism are impossible to know in advance, but whether the overall balance is positive or negative depends on what you think is worth encouraging or discouraging. I’d like to discourage the incitement of retributive emotions and behavior by (false) beliefs in LFW, since these easily get out of control. I’d also like to see decreases in unnecessary guilt, shame, pride, and contempt, which again can reach toxic levels and durations when amplified by belief in LFW. All this is with an eye to reducing unnecessary suffering. I of course want to encourage such things as love, appreciation, respect, gratitude, etc. My bet, like Ken’s and Tamler’s (and Derk Pereboom’s and Bruce Waller’s) is that robust naturalistic versions of such positive emotions and attitudes can and will handily survive disillusionment about free will. That’s been my experience and the experience of many others. So I don’t think it’s doublethink to suppose that the net return from free will disillusionment might overall be positive. Tamler’s paper on The Objective Attitude makes a good case for this, so I hope you’ll check it out.

Btw, I’ve never argued that libertarians are incapable of compassion and forgiveness, that free will skeptics have a lock on any human virtue, or that disbelief in free will alone is our ethical salvation. I’m only concerned to show that free will skeptics, and more broadly naturalists, are capable of being moral, upright citizens who love their children, are fully engaged in life, and even pay their taxes, even though they don’t go to church or believe that we’re ultimately self-caused. That, and the distinct possibility that there might be practical, moral and existential advantages of taking a fully naturalistic view of ourselves.

[Nick Hopkins]

Tom,

Thanks for your comments.

Tamler's paper, as I would expect, is well expressed and tightly argued, and I lack the time to mount a full critique of the ideas expressed within it. Suffice to say that through its impressive honesty I believe it inevitably makes a number of Saul's points for him.

I will pick up on one issue. Tamler rightly suggests the fire fighters of September 11th did not seek praise when they entered the twin towers. That's not really the issue. Some of those entering the building were no doubt sustained in their decision by a feeling that they could not live with themselves if they did not, that their self respect could not allow them to not perform their duty. Nothing in what either Tamler or you have argued gives any real answer to the charge that free will skepticism makes self respect take on a shallower aspect, in fact both of you offer hostages to fortune which would naturally lead one ot that conclusion.

I believe that a society with a shallower sense of self respect will function less well (and be more dangerous a reduced sense of self respect must surely have an impact on the way we view others.) A society in which people are less motivated to make effort or sacrifices to achieve desirable goals for themselves and others will progress more slowly (I don't suggest people will be unmotivated- I view the 'shallowing' of the concept of self respect under free will scepticism as the loss of a critical ingredient in the cocktail of human motivating factors, not the loss of the whole drink). Even if in individual cases requiring us to make the effort to impose our ego on a situation the difference is only small, it will be cumulative for society over time.

You and Tamler may offer either of you as counter examples. Whilst interesting, that won't really do the work for you. There are grounds for viewing you both as still 'illusioned', Tamler's candid admission of as much in his interview with Strawson, your denial of the 'dark side' of the free will problem, and your not seeing the contradiction I pointed out in my earlier post. You were also both brought up in an environment, and using a language, supersaturated with libertarian assumptions, that must still impact on your thinking. The really interesting question is what a world denying free will would look like several generations after this view had become widely accepted, not how your generation of free will sceptics conducts itself.

If I have mischaracterised your views on libertarians or those who believe in RMR, apologies, although I don't think the construction I put on them was entirely unreasonable given the content of your web site. I would not claim for a second that you are less than a morally upright citizen, though I am sure that like all of us you have your moments.

You didn't really answer my point though, perhaps due to my inelegant phrasing, which was to ask what free will skepticism could offer in terms of social benefit that a human face libertarianism (or a RMR compatabilism- though they can defend themselves) could not? Would going for a free will skeptic point of view carry no social risks as far as you are concerned?

[Tamler Sommers]

Nick,
Thanks for reading my essay and for your kind if critical) words about it. Just a fairly quick response for now. In the 9/11 firefighter example you cite, I write:

“Can anyone really think that what motivated them to do this was the idea that they would be deserving of praise and labeled as heroes for doing so? Surely, their primary motivation was to save the people trapped inside the building from being burned alive.”

You object:

“Tamler rightly suggests the fire fighters of September 11th did not seek praise when they entered the twin towers. That's not really the issue. Some of those entering the building were no doubt sustained in their decision by a feeling that they could not live with themselves if they did not, that their self respect could not allow them to not perform their duty.”

It seems to me that your objection only works if (a) self-respect is undermined by denying free will and MR, and (b) a significant motivating factor for the fire-fighters was that couldn’t live with themselves later if their self respect did not allow them to perform their duty.

For reasons I discuss in the paper, I think (a) is implausible, in the long term anyway. But I think that (b) is false as well. Don’t you think it’s possible that the 9/11 fire-fighters simply wanted to help the people trapped inside the building? Couldn’t that have been enough? Did they really have to consult their feelings about whether they could live with themselves if they failed to do so?

An analogy: I have a daughter and if she were in harm’s way I’d risk my life to save her in heartbeat. Now it’s true that I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t, but that wouldn’t be a motivating factor in getting me to do so. My motivation is much simpler: save my daughter. That’s all I need.

Smilansky in an earlier article called “The Ethical Advantages of Hard Determinism” talks about the purity of moral acts done when there is no expectation of praise. This can presumably be applied to acts done with no concern about self-respect as well. Risking your life simply for the sake of saving people seems more ethically pure than risking your life in order to preserve your self-respect, so that you can “live with yourself.” Of course, the key question would still be whether “saving people” is enough of a motivation.

To respond to your last question (although you didn’t really ask me), I’d concede that there are some social risks to free will/ MR skepticism. But my guess is that these risks occur more in the “close-call” cases, where temptation and doing what you think is morally right are neck in neck in the race for dominant motivating factor. In some of those cases, it seems like Saul’s “retrospective dissociation” danger could plausibly tip the scales for temptation. On the other hand, I do think that the benefits likely outweigh this danger. You’re right libertarian beliefs do not entail an excess of bitterness, resentment, indignation, retribution. But I’ll bet there’s a pretty strong contingent connection between robust attributions of freedom and responsibility and many of those negative attitudes.

[Nick Hopkins]

Tamler,

Thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure that it would ever be possible to close the ground between us on the issue of the impact on self respect of RMR denial. I just can't conceive of any way in which a reduction in our sense of ourselves as agents to being 'things' and our actions to being 'events' would not impact on our self respect.

At bottom lies the difference between our emotional responses to the Nagel paragraph you quote in your article, you found it quite exhilarating, it gripped me in the guts with existential terror when I read it for the first time, I simply can't get my head round your response at all.

In relation to the effects on motivation, your daughter's story won't do the work for you. I would risk my life for my partner or my niece, but there significant disanalogies between such a situation, and those in which we are being asked to save the lives of people with whom we have no immediate emotional connection.

In relation to Saul's article, I've never been much concerned with ideas about ethical purity or debates about the possibility of altruism. We have mixed motivations for everything we do, altruistic emotions may be partly underpinned by ethical egoist concerns (the sort of idea on complex and hidden motivation that no fan of G Strawson should have any difficulty with).

I think those close call cases are far more common than we might think, every day I face the temptation at various points to go on GFP rather than actually do some work, and it's often too tempting to do the former. Baumeister (though frankly proving the obvious) showed the energy costs involved in imposing ourselves on the world. It seems obvious to me, that reduce the reward for expending such energy, and we reduce the likelihood of it being spent (back to the self respect issue I am afraid). I would also say that reducing our sense of agency means reducing the likelihood of us imposing ourselves on the world.

One quick example of the importance of those borderline decisions. India is currently seeking to completely eradicate polio. That work depends on painstaking effort by thousands of workers across the country. Those workers will be driven by a whole variety of motives bound up with altruism, self respect etc. Sometimes, they won't feel like going to the last few houses in a village, or taking the time to explain to a reluctant mother why her child should take the vaccine. Not doing so could have serious consequences, not doing so I belive is more likely in a context in which the push for action is reduced. (I don't think that altruism, or other emotions expand to fill the motivational gap created by RMR).

One last comment on your paper. To continue my earlier drink analogy, I've come into your bar looking for a Bloody Mary. You know you have no vodka in the house, but you tell me that a Virgin Mary is just as good. Now, I like the taste of tomato juice, tabasco and worcester sauce, (RMR denial does not equal nihilism- as your paper demonstrates), but it isn't going to give me the kick that I was looking for, and that I need to get over the lousy day I have just had.

[Tamler Sommers]

Nick,

I'm the last person on Earth who would tell you that a Virgin Mary is just as good as a Bloody Mary.

[Saul Smilansky]

Tamler,

“The Ethical Advantages of Hard Determinism” is a paradox: a non-hard-determinist cannot gain the height of moral worth that a HD can, because only if you believe that whatever you do you will not become worthy or unworthy on that account, can your decision to do the right thing be fully disinterested and morally pure. But then hard determinists don't believe in (free will dependent) moral worth. So the height of moral worth is attained when it is impossible. (In section 10.1 of Free Will and Illusion I develop this further, in perverse ways, e.g. it's even better if you only BELIEVE in hard determinism while actually there can be moral worth.)

But such paradoxes (or worse), while they have their philosophical charm (if I may say so), do not really help us when we come to evaluate the effect on motivation of a belief in hard determinism, at least for normal people. For it is the difficulty in open-eyed sacrifice (and not for close family), when one believes that one's worth is not on the line, that both builds the paradox, and would make such sacrifice less common.

The save-my-daugther example is too easy, and presumably firemen on their way to the fire with all their initial commitment and adrenalin going would not have time to think about free will either. But it is easy to think about situations where one DOES have time for reflection, e.g. deciding whether to volunteer for being parachuted tomorrow into enemy territory, or whether to infiltrate the Mafia; or less heroically just being made an offer you should refuse. Here we can see the great potential loss of a sense of value (which I call "The Danger of Retrospective Dissociation") when one looks back on one's past heroic actions in a hard determinist way; or the harmful effect of the idea that one can never do anything that will really matter to one's value anyway (the "Danger of Worthlessness") before one acts; and even - most sordid of all - the "Present Danger of the Future Retrospective Excuse", the thought that one knows now that whatever one does, in the future one will have a ready made HD retrospective excuse. Such dangers do seem to me to capture important parts of our lives, where HD beliefs would be pernicious.

[Tamler Sommers]

Saul,

I think both you and Nick are too quick to dismiss the daughter analogy. Although it's a clear case, it's a paradigm for how the HD would think about closer calls. You do the moral thing because you want that thing to be done, period. You give money to the humane society because you want animals to suffer less. Moreover, when you choose the immoral act, the act becomes part of your history. As one of my students, Kevin Deger puts it, you don't want the immoral act to be on your "moral track record" even if you won't deserve blame for it. So you might refrain from cheating on your taxes because you don't want to be the kind of person who cheats the government.

If you think this is implausible, consider the alternative line though, someone who succumbs to the Danger of the Future Retrospective Excuse. This is how it would go, I imagine, correct me if I'm wrong. Bill, a hard determinist and a married man, is on a business trip with Amanda, a colleague. They've been flirting for a while, they go out to dinner, they have some drinks, and Amanda makes some extremely suggestive remarks. Bill is very tempted to cheat on his wife for the first time. He's almost certain he can get away with it. On the other hand, he loves his wife and son and values their trust and is proud to be a loyal and faithful husband. But then he thinks: 'wait, I'm a hard determinist--that means that if I do cheat on my wife, I won't deserve blame for it! In that case, what the hell? Another round of margaritas and then up to my room!

I don't see it. Bill may cheat on his wife, but if he does, I see his hard determinism would be way way way way way way down on the list of important reasons for why it happened. Do you disagree?

[Nick Hopkins]

Tamler,

I don't think that the daughter case is a paradigm case, in that it seems to lack the necessary conflict between duty and other desires.

I guess that I am worried about a) what happens in cases where virtue is not sufficiently its own reward, and b) that a critical part of the reward of virtue is bound up with being praiseworthy in a deep sense.

Your cheating hard determinist is described as being proud to be a loyal and faithful husband, given Tom's comments earlier about the first blush of pride, is his attitude not to some extent one of the surviving aspects of an RMR believing upbringing?

We are of course in danger of repeating ourselves in this thread, but the other concern I have is that we will just care less about our moral track record if none of us feel that we have any degree of deep control over it. This is particularly the case if we flow from scepticism about free will to scepticism about the self- which many do.

[Ken Batts]

Nick: I'm a free will skeptic with no inclination to become skeptical about the self, though I have encountered the phenomenon you mention.

The words "deep" and "robust" seem to have been appropriated by the free will side, I don't want to concede them as exclusively applying to libertarian or compatibilist views of responsibility. I think totally determined people can be deeply and robustly praiseworthy, just not ultimately praiseworthy. If "ultimate" doesn't work for some reason I'd be interested in hearing why and hearing alternate suggestions. I agree with those who've questioned whether we really need or even desire some ultimate justification for praise. We desire each other's approval, and our own self-approval. This desire is either inborn or cultivated early, before children would even understand the relevant philsophical debate.

I suspect most people don't really care whether they may have been able to not act heroically. Many accounts of heroism include expressions of humility and almost an aversion to overdone praise. Many heroes seem to want to think (accurately or not) that others in their position would have done the same thing. They're still heroes.

As you state, there is a conflict between duty and desire. It's very possible that those who believe in free will will be more likely to risk their life to save a stranger, or to benefit the group through some severe self-sacrifice. I'm not convinced that's necessarily a good thing. Life magazine used to publish a yearly article about people who'd lost their lives in heroic attempts to save a stranger, often leaving someone without a father, mother, wife, husband, friend, etc. Of course we need people willing to run into burning buildings. Some reasons people do it are money, excitement, praise (the deep, robust, proximal kind).

[Nick Hopkins]

Ken,

You read more and more to me like a compatibilist, as I don't see the depth and robustness goodies you want without a belief in free will, there are good reasons for the appropriation of those terms by various stripes of free willists.

On the herosim point, I'm more interested in what we do everyday in working hard for living, in striving to do the right thing than in people running into burning buildings, because it's at the former level that good societies are built.

Do you agree that if people can be deeply and robustly praiseworthy, they can also be deeply and robustly blameworthy, or do you not see praise and blame as the flip sides of the same coin?

[Ken Batts]

Proximally blameworthy, yes. Maybe better to say approval-with-rewards-worthy and disapproval-with-sanctions-worthy. Extreme hard determinist disapproval is deep and robust enough. For example life in prison (or locked criminal ward in mental hospital) fits within my range of disapproval/need for security/deterrence, no need to concoct ultimate blameworthiness. It's a myth that hard determinists implies leniency in sentencing or in general in reaction, though hopefully there'll be less over-reacting based on believing people could do other than they do.

Our everyday motives seem much more clearly independent of deep philosophical questions regarding free will, agency, etc.than the heroics. We seek each other's approval, culture/genes program us to do so, which is a good thing, if what we're approving of is healthy, ethical behavior. We can see that getting our needs met depends on cooperation, initiative, etc., none of which go anywhere without the free will illusion. We still want what we want.