What is a premise of the argument given below: Suppose your friend, standing nex

Question

What is a premise of the argument given below:

Suppose your friend, standing next to you at a party, suddenly lifts her arm and slaps you in the face. You will be inclined to hold her responsible for this action: to blame her for your sore face, resent her for what she did, and think ill of her moral character. But, suppose you find out that her arm is tied to a fish-line, pulled by someone on a balcony above. Your face is still sore, but now you will hardly be inclined to blame her for what happened. Why? Because she wasn't in control of the movement of her arm; once the person in the balcony pulled the line, a sequence of events was put in motion that ended up with your face getting slapped. Given the tug, the rest of the situation, and the laws of nature, your face was going to get slapped. She had no choice. Her movement was the result of a prior, remote event. She was not free to do otherwise. So how can you blame her? But if she is not free, are any of us ever free? For the laws of nature do not just concern fish-lines, they concern all events inside and outside our bodies. If nature obeys universal laws, then our actions are just the most recent parts of a causal sequence of ever more remote events, the earliest parts of which occurred long before we were born. If the fact that the movement of your friends arm is explained by the earlier tug on the fish-line means that she is not free, doesn't the fact that all our actions can be explained by remote events and the working of general laws mean that none of us is ever free?

Explanation / Answer

The premises of the argument below is, "The laws of nature concern all events inside and outside our bodies".

That is, our actions are reflections of the causal sequence that nature obeys from the universal laws. It could be from recent parts or from parts that occured long before we were born.

Natural law psychology states that human nature holds traits which human beings possess inherently, such as inherent sociability, natural moral sentiments and inborn powers of moral discernment.

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