Of course, if determinism is true, then the only way that Allison could have willed or chosen to do otherwise would be if either the past or the laws were different than they actually are. In other words, saying that an agent could have done otherwise is to say that the agent would have done otherwise in a different counterfactual condition. But saying this is entirely consistent with one way of understanding the ability to do otherwise.
Thus, these compatibilists are saying that Allison has the ability to do something such that, had she done it, either the past or the laws of nature would have been different than they actually are. Some compatibilists favor saying that agents have this counterfactual power over the past, while others favor counterfactual power over the laws of nature [Compare Lewis and Fischer ].
Regardless, adopting either strategy provides the compatibilist with a way of avoiding the conclusion of the Consequence Argument by denying either premise 4 or premise 6 of that argument. A second compatibilist response to the Consequence Argument is to deny the validity of the inference rule Beta the argument uses.
While there are several approaches to this, perhaps the most decisive is the following, called the principle of Agglomeration [see McKay and Johnson ]. Using only the inference rules Alpha, Beta and the basic rule of logical replacement, one can show that.
To see why 3 does not follow from 1 and 2, consider the case of a coin-toss. If the coin-toss is truly random, then Allison has no choice regarding whether the coin if flipped lands heads. Similarly, she has no choice regarding whether the coin again, if flipped lands tails. For purposes of simplicity, let us stipulate that the coin cannot land on its side and, if flipped, must land either heads or tails. But Allison does have a choice about this—after all, she can ensure that the coin lands either heads or tails by simply flipping the coin.
So Allison does have a choice about the conjunction of p and q. Since Alpha and the relevant rules of logical replacement in the transformation from N p and N q to N p and q are beyond dispute, Beta must be invalid. Thus, the Consequent Argument for incompatibilism is invalid.
Two other arguments for compatibilism build on the freedom requirement for moral responsibility. If one can show that moral responsibility is compatible with the truth of determinism, and if free will is required for moral responsibility, one will have implicitly shown that free will is itself compatible with the truth of determinism. The first of these arguments for compatibilism rejects the understanding of having a choice as involving the ability to do otherwise mentioned above.
While most philosophers have tended to accept that an agent can be morally responsible for doing an action only if she could have done otherwise, Harry Frankfurt has attempted to show that this requirement is in fact false. Frankfurt gives an example in which an agent does an action in circumstances that lead us to believe that the agent acted freely [Frankfurt ; for recent discussion, see Widerker and McKenna ].
Yet, unbeknown to the agent, the circumstances include some mechanism that would bring about the action if the agent did not perform it on her own. As it happens, though, the agent does perform the action freely and the mechanism is not involved in bringing about the action. It thus looks like the agent is morally responsible despite not being able to do otherwise. Here is one such scenario:.
Allison is contemplating whether to walk her dog or not. Unbeknown to Allison, her father, Lloyd, wants to insure that that she does decide to walk the dog. He has therefore implanted a computer chip in her head such that if she is about to decide not to walk the dog, the chip will activate and coerce her into deciding to take the dog for a walk.
Given the presence of the chip, Allison is unable not to decide to walk her dog, and she lacks the ability to do otherwise. However, Allison does decide to walk the dog on her own. In such a case, Frankfurt thinks that Allison is morally responsible for her decision since the presence of Lloyd and his computer chip play no causal role in her decision.
Since she would have been morally responsible had Lloyd not been prepared to ensure that she decide to take her dog for a walk, why think that his mere presence renders her not morally responsible? Frankfurt concludes that Allison is morally responsible despite lacking the ability to do otherwise.
If Frankfurt is right that such cases are possible, then even if the truth of determinism is incompatible with a kind of freedom that requires the ability to do otherwise, it is compatible with the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility.
In an influential article, Peter Strawson argues that many of the traditional debates between compatibilists and incompatibilists such as how to understand the ability to do otherwise are misguided [P.
Strawson thinks that we should instead focus on what he calls the reactive attitudes—those attitudes we have toward other people based on their attitudes toward and treatment of us. Strawson thinks that these attitudes are crucial to the interpersonal interactions and that they provide the basis for holding individuals morally responsible.
Strawson then argues for two claims. The human commitment to participation in ordinary interpersonal relationships is, I think, too thoroughgoing and deeply rooted for us to take seriously the thought that a general theoretical conviction might so change our world that, in it, there were no longer such things as inter-personal relationships as we normally understand them.
Furthermore, Strawson also argues for a normative claim: the truth of determinism should not undermine our reactive attitudes. He thinks that there are two kinds of cases where it is appropriate to suspend our reactive attitudes. One involves agents, such as young children or the mentally disabled, who are not moral agents. Strawson thinks that we should not have reactive attitudes toward non-moral agents.
The second kind of case where it is appropriate to suspend our reactive attitudes are those in which while the agent is a moral agent, her action toward us is not connected to her agency in the correct way. For instance, while I might have the reactive attitude of resentment towards someone who bumps into me and makes me spill my drink, if I were to find out that the person was pushed into me, I would not be justified in resenting that individual.
Thus, Strawson thinks, the truth of determinism should not undermine our reactive attitudes. Since moral responsibility is based on the reactive attitudes, Strawson thinks that moral responsibility is compatible with the truth of determinism. The above discussion should help explain the perennial attraction philosophers have to the issues surrounding free will, particularly as it relates to causal determinism. However, free will is also intimately related to a number of other recurrent issues in the history of philosophy.
In this final section, I will briefly articulate two other kinds of determinism and show how they are connected to free will. Some religious traditions hold that God is ultimately responsible for everything that happens. But if He is ultimately responsible for everything in virtue of what He wills, then He is ultimately responsible for all the actions and volitions performed by agents.
But if this is true, it is hard to see how Allison could have free will. The problem becomes especially astute when considering tradition doctrines of eternal punishment.
The traditional Christian doctrine of Hell, for example, is that Hell is a place of eternal punishment for non-repentant sinners. But if theological determinism is true, then whether or not agents repent is ultimately up to God, not to the agents themselves. This worry over free will thus gives rise to a particular version of the problem of evil: why does God not will that all come to faith, when His having such a will is sufficient for their salvation?
In addition to the causal and theological forms of determinism, there is also logical determinism. Logical determinism builds off the law of excluded middle and holds that propositions about what agents will do in the future already have a truth value.
Assume that it is true. Since token propositions cannot change in truth value over time, it was true a million years ago that Allison would walk her dog next Thursday.
But the truth of the relevant proposition is sufficient for her actually taking the dog for a walk after all, if it is true that she will walk the dog, then she will walk the dog. But then it looks like no matter what happens, Allison will in fact take her dog for a walk next Thursday and that this has always been the case.
In response to this problem, some philosophers have attempted to show that free will is compatible with the existence of true propositions about what we will do in the future, and others have denied that propositions about future free actions have a truth value, that is, that the law of excluded middle fails for some propositions.
From this brief survey, we see that free will touches on central issues in metaphysics, philosophy of human nature, action theory, ethics and the philosophy of religion.
Perhaps this partially explains the perennial philosophical interest in the topic. Kevin Timpe Email: ktimpe nnu. Free Will Most of us are certain that we have free will, though what exactly this amounts to is much less certain. Accounts of the Will Nearly every major figure in the history of philosophy has had something or other to say about free will. Faculties Model of the Will The faculties model of the will has its origin in the writings of ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle , and it was the dominant view of the will for much of medieval and modern philosophy [see Descartes and the discussion of Aquinas in Stump ].
Reasons-Responsive View of the Will A third treatment of free will takes as its starting point the claim that agency involves a sensitivity to certain reasons. Free Will and Determinism a. The Thesis of Causal Determinism Most contemporary scholarship on free will focuses on whether or not it is compatible with causal determinism. Compatibilism, Incompatibilism, and Pessimism The question at the end of the preceding section Could we have free will even if determinism is true?
Arguments for Incompatibilism or Arguments against Compatibilism Incompatibilists say that free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism. If Allison travels to the past, she could prevent Lincoln from being assassinated in temporarily assumed for reductio purposes. A proposition cannot both be true and false. Therefore, 2 is false. No one has, or ever had, a choice about what the laws of nature are try as I might, I cannot make the law of universal gravitation not be a law of nature : 6 N L And from 5 and 6, again using Beta, we can infer that no one has, or ever had, a choice about F : 7 N F Given that F was any true proposition about the future, the Consequence Argument concludes that if determinism is true, then no one has or ever had a choice about any aspect of the future, including what we normally take to be our free actions.
The Origination Argument The second general set of arguments for the incompatibility of free will and determinism builds on the importance of the source of a volition for free will. If determinism is true, then everything any agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside her control. If everything an agent does is ultimately caused by events and circumstances beyond her control, then the agent is not the originator or ultimate source of her actions.
Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent is the originator or ultimate source of her actions. Therefore, if determinism is true, no agent has free will. The Relation between the Arguments The above way of delineating the Consequence and Origination Arguments may unfortunately suggest that the two kinds of arguments are more independent from each other than they really are. Rejecting the Incompatibilist Arguments As noted above, the Origination Argument for incompatibilism is valid, and two of its premises are above dispute.
Using only the inference rules Alpha, Beta and the basic rule of logical replacement, one can show that 1 N p and 2 N q would entail 3 N p and q if Beta were valid. Here is one such scenario: Allison is contemplating whether to walk her dog or not.
Related Issues The above discussion should help explain the perennial attraction philosophers have to the issues surrounding free will, particularly as it relates to causal determinism. With causal closure, no physical event has a cause outside the physical domain, and with physical determinism, the future is determined entirely by preceding events cause and effect.
The puzzle of reconciling 'free will' with a deterministic universe is known as the problem of free will or sometimes referred to as the dilemma of determinism. This dilemma leads to a moral dilemma as well: How are we to assign responsibility for our actions if they are caused entirely by past events? Compatibilists maintain that mental reality is not of itself causally effective.
Classical compatibilists have addressed the dilemma of free will by arguing that free will holds as long as we are not externally constrained or coerced. Modern compatibilists make a distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action , that is, separating freedom of choice from the freedom to enact it.
Given that humans all experience a sense of free will, some modern compatibilists think it is necessary to accommodate this intuition. Compatibilists often associate freedom of will with the ability to make rational decisions. A different approach to the dilemma is that of incompatibilists, namely, that if the world is deterministic then, our feeling that we are free to choose an action is simply an illusion. Metaphysical libertarianism is the form of incompatibilism which posits that determinism is false and free will is possible at least some people have free will.
This view is associated with non-materialist constructions, including both traditional dualism, as well as models supporting more minimal criteria; such as the ability to consciously veto an action or competing desire. Yet even with physical indeterminism, arguments have been made against libertarianism in that it is difficult to assign Origination responsibility for "free" indeterministic choices.
Free will here is predominately treated with respect to physical determinism in the strict sense of nomological determinism, although other forms of determinism are also relevant to free will. We believe that we have free will and this belief is so firmly entrenched in our daily lives that it is almost impossible to take seriously the thought that it might be mistaken. We deliberate and make choices, for instance, and in so doing we assume that there is more than one choice we can make, more than one action we are able to perform.
When we look back and regret a foolish choice, or blame ourselves for not doing something we should have done, we assume that we could have chosen and done otherwise. When we look forward and make plans for the future, we assume that we have at least some control over our actions and the course of our lives; we think it is at least sometimes up to us what we choose and try to do.
Determinism is a highly general claim about the universe: very roughly, that everything that happens, including everything you choose and do, is determined by facts about the past together with the laws.
The incompatibilist believes that if determinism turned out to be true, our belief that we have free will would be false. The compatibilist denies that the truth of determinism would have this drastic consequence.
According to the compatibilist, the truth of determinism is compatible with the truth of our belief that we have free will. The philosophical problem of free will and determinism is the problem of deciding who is right: the compatibilist or the incompatibilist. So if determinism precludes free will, it also precludes moral responsibility. Someone might believe that we have free will and that free will is compatible with determinism while also believing, for other reasons, that no one is ever morally responsible.
What one believes about determinism and moral responsibility will depend, in large part, on what one believes about various matters within the scope of ethics rather than metaphysics. Among other things, it will depend on what one takes moral responsibility to be P. Strawson ; G. Strawson , ; Watson For these reasons it is important not to conflate the question of the compatibility of free will and determinism with the question of whether moral responsibility is compatible with determinism.
See Vihvelin for discussion. This entry will not follow that usage. But the focus, in this entry, will be on the question of whether free will or acting with free will is compatible with determinism. For instance, logical determinism is the thesis that the principle of bivalence holds for all propositions, including propositions about the future, and the problem of free will and logical determinism is the problem of deciding whether our belief that we have free will is compatible with the existence of truths about all our future actions.
For more on logical determinism, see the entry on fatalism ; Taylor , []; D. Theological determinism is the thesis that God exists and has infallible knowledge of all true propositions including propositions about our future actions; the problem of free will and theological determinism is the problem of understanding how, if at all, we can have free will if God who cannot be mistaken knows what we are going to do.
In this entry, we will be restricting our attention to arguments for the incompatibility of free will and nomological determinism, but it is important to understand one preliminary point. Nomological and logical determinism are very different kinds of claims. Logical determinism is a claim about truth ; nomological determinism is a claim about the natural laws. But nomological determinism says roughly that facts about the past together with facts about the laws determine all the facts about the future.
So if nomological determinism is true, there are true propositions about all our future actions. Why does this matter? For the following reason. If there are truths about what I will do in the future, then I must do whatever I will do, and so I have no free will.
While this response has a powerful intuitive grip as can be seen from much of the popular and even scientific discussion of time travel , it is generally agreed, by philosophers, that the fatalist is making a mistake. The existence of a detailed set of truths about my future actions is consistent with my ability to do things other than the things I actually do. It is of course possible to agree that the existence of truths about all our future actions is compatible with free will while denying that the existence of nomologically determined truths about all our future actions is compatible with free will.
For comparisons between arguments for incompatibilism and arguments for fatalism, see van Inwagen , Mackie , Perry , and Vihvelin and At a second approximation, laws are deterministic if they entail exceptionless regularities e.
The laws of nature are all-encompassing if deterministic or probabilistic laws apply to everything in the universe, without any exceptions. If, on the other hand, some individuals or some parts of some individuals e. For a more precise articulation of determinism, the contemporary literature offers us two main choices. Following van Inwagen , we might understand determinism as the thesis that the world is governed by a set of natural laws which is such that any possible world that has the same laws as our world and that is exactly like our world at any time is exactly like our world at all other times.
Alternatively, following D. Lewis , we might understand determinism as the thesis that our world is governed by a set of natural laws which is such that any two possible worlds with our laws which are exactly alike at any time are also exactly alike at every other time see also Earman There are two very different ways in which a world might be non-deterministic.
A world might be non-deterministic because at least some of its fundamental laws are probabilistic, or a world might be non-deterministic because it has no laws or because its laws are not all-encompassing. Determinism is a thesis about the statements or propositions that are the laws of our world; it says nothing about whether these statements or propositions are knowable by finite beings, let alone whether they could, even in principle, be used to predict all future events.
For more on the relation between determinism and predictability, see the Encyclopedia entry on Causal Determinism. Lewis ; Earman ; Loewer a; Beebee ; Schaffer to various kinds of necessitarian accounts S. Shoemaker ; Armstrong ; Carroll For critique, see Mackie a and Franklin Determinism understood according to either of the two definitions above is not a thesis about causation; it is not the thesis that causation is always a relation between events, and it is not the thesis that every event has a cause.
It is now generally accepted that it might be true that every event has a cause even though determinism is false and thus some events lack sufficient or deterministic causes. More controversially, it might be true that every event has a cause even if our world is neither deterministic nor probabilistic. If there can be causes without laws if a particular event, object, or person can be a cause, for instance, without instantiating a law , then it might be true, even at a lawless or partly lawless world, that every event has a cause Anscombe ; van Inwagen Whether it does depends on what the correct theory of causation is; in particular, it depends on what the correct theory says about the relation between causation and law.
What is clear, however, is that we should not make the assumption, almost universally made in the older literature, that the thesis that every event has a cause is equivalent to the thesis of determinism. This is an important point, because some of the older arguments in the literature against incompatibilism assume that the two claims are equivalent Hobart In the older literature, it was assumed that determinism is the working hypothesis of science, and that to reject determinism is to be against science.
This no longer seems plausible. Some people think that quantum physics has shown determinism to be false. This remains controversial Albert ; Loewer b; P. Lewis , but it is now generally agreed that we can reject determinism without accepting the view that the behavior of human beings falls outside the scope of natural laws.
If naturalism is the thesis that human behavior can be explained in the same kind of way—in terms of events, natural processes, and laws of nature—as everything else in the universe, then we can reject determinism without rejecting naturalism.
Note, finally, that determinism neither entails physicalism nor is entailed by it. There are possible worlds where determinism is true and physicalism false; e. And there are possible worlds perhaps our own where physicalism is true and determinism is false. So much for determinism. What about free will? How should we understand the disagreement between the compatibilist and the incompatibilist? Are we born with free will? If not, when do we acquire it, and in virtue of what abilities or powers do we have it?
What is the difference between acting intentionally and acting with free will? The free will thesis is a minimal claim about free will; it would be true if one person in the universe acted with free will acted freely, acted while possessing free will on one occasion. Since non-determinism is the negation of determinism, and since determinism is a contingent thesis, we can divide the set of possible worlds into two non-overlapping subsets: deterministic worlds and non-deterministic worlds.
Given this apparatus, we could define incompatibilism and compatibilism in the following way: incompatibilism is the thesis that no deterministic world is a free will world. Equivalently, incompatibilism is the claim that necessarily, if determinism is true, then the free will thesis is false.
And we could define compatibilism as the denial of incompatibilism; that is, as the claim that some deterministic worlds are free will worlds. Equivalently, compatibilism is the claim that possibly, determinism and the free will thesis are both true. This way of defining compatibilism is unproblematic. There are compatibilists who are agnostic about the truth or falsity of determinism, so a compatibilist need not be a soft determinist someone who believes that it is in fact the case that determinism is true and we have free will.
But all compatibilists believe that it is at least possible that determinism is true and we have free will. So all compatibilists are committed to the claim that there are deterministic worlds that are free will worlds. But this definition of incompatibilism has a surprising consequence. Suppose, as some philosophers have argued, that we lack free will because free will is conceptually or metaphysically impossible, at least for nongodlike creatures like us Taylor , []; G.
Strawson , If these philosophers are right, there are no free will worlds. And if there are no free will worlds, it follows that there are no deterministic free will worlds.
So if free will is conceptually or metaphysically impossible, at least for creatures like us, it follows that incompatibilism as we have just defined it is true. If it is conceptually or metaphysically impossible for us to have free will, then we lack free will regardless of whether determinism is true or false.
And if that is so, then the incompatibilist cannot say the kind of things she has traditionally wanted to say: that the truth or falsity of determinism is relevant to the question of whether or not we have free will, that if determinism were true, then we would lack free will because determinism is true, and so on.
If we want to avoid this counter-intuitive result, there is a remedy. Instead of understanding compatibilism and incompatibilism as propositions that are contradictories, we can understand them as propositions that are contraries. Compatibilism and incompatibilism are both false if a third claim, impossibilism, is true. Impossibilism is the thesis that free will is conceptually or metaphysically impossible for non-godlike creatures like us. If we accept this three-fold classification, we can define our terms as follows: Impossibilism is the thesis that there are no free will worlds.
Incompatibilism is the thesis that there are free will worlds but no deterministic world is a free will world. Compatibilism is the thesis that there are free will worlds and free will worlds include deterministic worlds. For some objections to this three-fold classification see McKenna and Mickelson a. For defense, see Vihvelin and Theorists who defend impossibilism include Double , G. Strawson and , and Smilansky Another kind of impossibilist is the fatalist Taylor , [].
In the older literature, there were just two kinds of incompatibilists—hard determinists and libertarians. A hard determinist is an incompatibilist who believes that determinism is in fact true or, perhaps, that it is close enough to being true so far as we are concerned, in the ways relevant to free will and because of this we lack free will Holbach ; Wegner A libertarian is an incompatibilist who believes that we in fact have free will and this entails that determinism is false, in the right kind of way van Inwagen But in the contemporary literature there are incompatibilists who avoid such risky metaphysical claims by arguing that free will is possible at worlds where some of our actions have indeterministic event causes Kane , , , , a; Ekstrom ; Balaguer or that free will is possible at worlds where some of our actions are uncaused Ginet Note that none of these three kinds of incompatibilists agent-causation theorists, indeterministic event-causation theorists, non-causal theorists need be libertarians.
They may reserve judgment about the truth or falsity of determinism and therefore reserve judgment about whether or not we in fact have free will. They might also be hard determinists because they believe that determinism is in fact true. But what they do believe—what makes them incompatibilists—is that it is possible for us to have free will and that our having free will depends on a contingent fact about the laws that govern the universe: that they are indeterministic in the right kind of way see the entry on incompatibilist theories of free will.
Given these definitions and distinctions, we can now take the first step towards clarifying the disagreement between compatibilists and incompatibilists. Both sides agree that it is conceptually and metaphysically possible for us to have free will; their disagreement is about whether any of the possible worlds where we have free will are deterministic worlds.
Arguments for incompatibilism must, then, be arguments for the claim that necessarily, if determinism is true, we lack the free will we might otherwise have.
It is easy to think that determinism implies that we have a destiny or fate that we cannot avoid, no matter what we choose or decide and no matter how hard we try.
Man, when running over, frequently without his own knowledge, frequently in spite of himself, the route which nature has marked out for him, resembles a swimmer who is obliged to follow the current that carries him along; he believes himself a free agent because he sometimes consents, sometimes does not consent, to glide with the stream, which, notwithstanding, always hurries him forward.
Holbach []: ; see also Wegner It is widely agreed, by incompatibilists as well as compatibilists, that this is a mistake. But these threats to free will have nothing to do with determinism. Determinism is consistent with the fact that our deliberation, choices and efforts are part of the causal process whereby our bodies move and cause further effects in the world.
The key to freedom, then, is alternative possibilities and we will call this the alternative possibilities view of free action. Finally, some people envision freedom as requiring, not alternative possibilities but the right kind of relationship between the antecedent sources of our actions and the actions that we actually perform. Sometimes this view is explained by saying that the free agent is the source, perhaps even the ultimate source of her action.
We will call this kind of view a source view of freedom. Now, the key question we want to focus on is whether or not any of these three models of freedom are compatible with determinism. It could turn out that all three kinds of freedom are ruled out by determinism, so that the only way freedom is possible is if determinism is false.
If you believe that determinism rules out free action, you endorse a view called incompatibilism. But it could turn out that one or all three of these models of freedom are compatible with determinism.
If you believe that free action is compatible with determinism, you are a compatibilist. Let us consider compatibilist views of freedom and two of the most formidable challenges that compatibilists face: the consequence argument and the ultimacy argument. Begin with easy freedom.
Is easy freedom compatible with determinism? A group of philosophers called classic compatibilists certainly thought so. Suppose, right now, you want to put your textbook down and grab a cup of coffee. Even if determinism is true, you probably, right now, can do exactly that. You can put your textbook down, walk to the nearest Starbucks, and buy an overpriced cup of coffee.
Nothing is stopping you from doing what you want to do. Determinism does not seem to be posing any threat to your ability to do what you want to do right now. If you want to stop reading and grab a coffee, you can. But, by contrast, if someone had chained you to the chair you are sitting in, things would be a bit different.
Even if you wanted to grab a cup of coffee, you would not be able to. You would lack the ability to do so. You would not be free to do what you want to do. This has nothing to do with determinism, of course. It is not the fact that you might be living in a deterministic world that is threatening your free will. It is that an external hindrance the chains holding you to your chair is stopping from you doing what you want to do.
So, if what we mean by freedom is easy freedom, it looks like freedom really is compatible with determinism. Easy freedom has run into some rather compelling opposition, and most philosophers today agree that a plausible account of easy freedom is not likely.
But, by far, the most compelling challenge the view faces can be seen in the consequence argument. This is a powerful argument. It is very difficult to see where this argument goes wrong, if it goes wrong. The first premise is merely a restatement of determinism.
The second premise ties the ability to do otherwise to the ability to change the past or the laws of nature, and the third premise points out the very reasonable assumption that humans are unable to modify the laws of nature or the past. This argument effectively devastates easy freedom by proposing that we never act without external hindrances precisely because our actions are caused by past events and the laws of nature in such a way that we not able to contribute anything to the causal production of our actions.
This argument also seems to pose a deeper problem for freedom in deterministic worlds. If this argument works, it establishes that, given determinism, we are powerless to do otherwise, and to the extent that freedom requires the ability to do otherwise, this argument seems to rule out free action.
Note that if this argument works, it poses a challenge for both the easy and alternative possibilities view of free will. How might someone respond to this argument? First, suppose you adopt an alternative possibilities view of freedom and believe that the ability to do otherwise is what is needed for genuine free will. What you would need to show is that alternative possibilities, properly understood, are not incompatible with determinism.
Perhaps you might argue that if we understand the ability to do otherwise properly we will see that we actually do have the ability to change the laws of nature or the past. That might sound counterintuitive. How could it possibly be the case that a mere mortal could change the laws of nature or the past?
That was dumb! I could have stayed home and studied. She had the general ability to stay home and study. It is just that if she had stayed home and studied the past would be slightly different or the laws of nature would be slightly different.
What this points to is that there might be a way of cashing out the ability to do otherwise that is compatible with determinism and does allow for an agent to kind of change the past or even the laws of nature.
But suppose we grant that the consequence argument demonstrates that determinism really does rule out alternative possibilities. Does that mean we must abandon the alternative possibilities view of freedom? Well, not necessarily.
You could instead argue that free will is possible, provided determinism is false. What if determinism turns out to be true? Should we give up, then, and concede that there is no free will? Well, that might be too quick. A second response to the consequence argument is available. All you need to do is deny that freedom requires the ability to do otherwise.
In , Harry Frankfurt proposed an influential thought experiment that demonstrated that free will might not require alternative possibilities at all Frankfurt [] It merely requires that agents be the source of their actions in the right kind of way. Black wants Jones to perform a certain action.
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