Jiani Zhong (Trinity College Dublin — School of Law) has posted Taking the Folk Conception Seriously in Thinking about Free Will in the Criminal Justice System on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The problem of free will, it can be said, is a cloud that has long hung over the edifice of criminal law. Our well-rehearsed criminal justice system takes it for granted that humans possess the freedom to choose between good and evil, yet it remains contested whether we truly have such free will. This paper argues that free will is an essentially contested concept and that the folk conception should be taken as a coherent and meaningful version of the concept. Through this argument, the paper offers a novel contribution to the legitimacy of the criminal justice system in light of the problem of free will.
Interesting idea. I find Daniel Dennett particularly helpful in thinking about these issues. See Daniel C. Dennett, Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (MIT Press, new ed. 2015) and Freedom Evolves (Penguin, 2004).
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