When someone acts under duress, they are not acting of their own free will. "It's not like they want to do what they do so how can what they do be immoral?" people ask me. If I call the action taken under duress immoral, they claim my "morality" is "broken". To people, the lack of free will excuses an action. This is why people who steal, rape, etc out of necessity for survival, especially at gun point, are not imprisoned, and if imprisoned, their sentences are shortened ...
My question is: how can an action be immoral under duress? The duress doesn't have to involve someone else holding a gun to someone's head. It can be societal pressure and threat of isolation. For example: someone is threatened to commit an immoral act in a society that encourages the immoral act. Whoever does not partake in the action is put at a psychological and financial disadvantage. At best bullied and at worst imprisoned. And so this someone commits the immoral act, which people believe loses its immorality due to the coercion
But contrary to popular belief, can the action still be immoral?
Can anything be immoral without free will?