Defending Soft Determism/Compatabilsm

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some pretty substantial criticisms of soft determinism, however. The strongest of these criticisms is the case of the pedophilic tumor. A man who had no history of any pedophilic urges suddenly began to develop a strong interest in pornography, including child and adolescent pornography. These urges developed more and more, and he ended up molesting his 8 year old daughter. Before he was sentenced to jail, he started to complain of headaches and an MRI brain scan revealed a tumor in the right lobe of his orbitofrontal cortex which is a part of the brain that is essential in decision making. When this tumor was removed, he suddenly returned to his former self with no urges, or so he thought. The tumor then regrew and so did his sexual urges. It was removed again, this time for good and the man was free from the sexual urges that had once taken him over.
While this may seem counterintuitive, the only way to diffuse this criticism is to bite the bullet and accept that this is who that man was at that point in time. While he may not have chosen to have a tumor develop in his brain, he did have the choice to act on the urges that the tumor brought which was circumstantial freedom. However, that does not define the man as a pedophile just because he did act on his urges. When you look at the man’s past and see that he had no history of this type of behavior, it makes you question how free this action really was.
The logical form of the argument for soft determinism is as follows:
All events are the inevitable result of prior events.
Human choices and actions are events.
Hence, human choices and actions are determined.
Hence, metaphysical freedom does not exist.
“Free will” is circumstantial freedom.
Circumstantial freedom requires/ is consistent with determinism.
Hence, human choices are both determined and free.
Since human choices are free, moral responsibility exists.
Thus, humans can be morally responsible for their choices and actions.