" But whether such pragmatism can outweigh real truth—whether a self- fulfilling “belief” in free will can survive the ever-more-manifest dubiousness of free will as a metaphysical doctrine—is another question altogether.
And, anyway, even if this artifice succeeds, and the idea of “blame” remains conveniently robust, we are back to the challenge of confining it to useful proportions: blaming people only when blame serves the greater good, not letting self-righteousness get carried away (as it naturally tends to do). And, meanwhile, we will still face the deeper challenge of reconciling necessary moral sanction with the limitless compassion that is always, in fact, appropriate. "
― Robert Wright , The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology