Incompatibilism

In order to find a convincing position in the ‘free will’ debate, two sorts of determinism are distinguished. The merits of encompassing determinism, which is determinism as it is usually understood, and individual determinism, which focuses on the agent, are brought to the fore. The existence of encompassing determinism cannot conclusively be proven, but it may be demonstrated, on the basis of individual determinism, that actions come about in a determined way, leaving no room for ‘free will’. In order to facilitate the discussion, recent scientific developments in such diverse fields as, e.g., quantum mechanics and neuropsychology are incorporated. Balancing the arguments, I aspire to a consistent and nuanced viewpoint, not eschewing divergent conclusions.

There is a concern that causal determinism might render free-will impossible. I compare some different perspectives, namely Compatibilism, Incompatibilism, Libertarianism, and Hard Determinism, and conclude that Hard Determinism is correct—we lack free-will. To further bolster the case, I consider the work of Libet, who has found neuropsychological evidence that our brains non-consciously cause our actions, prior to our being aware of it. Thus we are also not choosing consciously. I then consider Dennett’s work on the role of the conscious self. I defend his model—of a fragmented self—which could not cause our actions. Finally I argue that many things that free-will purportedly provides, eg., justification for the penal system and reactive attitudes, can be reconstructed without free-will. I then end with some speculations about why people still want free-will.

Derk Pereboom has advanced a four-case manipulation argument that, he claims, undermines both libertarian accounts of free action not committed to agent-causation and compatibilist accounts of such action. The first two cases are meant to be ones in which the key agent is not responsible for his actions owing to his being manipulated. We first consider a “hard-line” response to this argument that denies that the agent is not morally responsible in these cases. We argue that this response invites a dialectically uncharitable reading of the argument. We then propose an alternative interpretation; it affirms that, at least prima facie, the manipulated agent in the first two cases is not responsible. Finally, we question Pereboom’s rationale for why the manipulation in these cases subverts responsibility.

V magistrskem delu obravnavam vprašanje (ne)možnosti metafizične svobode in moralne odgovornosti, in sicer s posebnim ozirom na zloglasni argument filozofa Galena Strawsona. Analizo pričnem z orisom povezave med svobodo, moralno odgovornostjo in dejavnikovo zmožnostjo, da nad samim seboj in svojim delovanjem izkazuje relevantno vrsto nadzora. Razmejim med tremi pomembnimi vprašanji, ki obkrožajo filozofsko razpravo o svobodi: »Vprašanjem možnosti«, »Vprašanjem obstoja« in »Vprašanjem združljivosti«. Sledi kratek očrt (sodobne) razprave, zlasti z vidika teh vprašanj. Nato ponudim nekaj dodatnih terminoloških pojasnil in natančneje opredelim nekatere osrednje pojme dela, kot so »kompatibilizem«, »inkompatibilizem«, »libertarizem«, »imposibilizem«, »determinizem« in »moralna odgovornost«. V središče razpravljanja postavim svobodo, ki je potrebna za moralno odgovornost v smislu »osnovne«, nepragmatično pojmovane zaslužnosti. Sledi predstavitev Strawsonovega »osnovnega argumenta« (OA), k...

Many philosophers tend to defend the view that there is a significant relation between the problem of determinism / indeterminism and the problem of free will. The belief that there exists such a significant relation is supported by our intuitions; however, in this thesis, I defend just the opposite view: free will has no significant dependence on the deterministic or indeterministic character of causal relations. In the same way, I propose that the question, whether or not determinism is true, cannot be answered based on observations about the problem of free will.
I believe that the genuine question whose answer would illuminate the darkness surrounding free will is whether or not will supervenes on anything other than itself. Therefore, in order to decide whether or not we are free, the question we should ask is “Does will supervene upon something other than itself?” Moreover, I defend the position that no matter whether the world is deterministic or indeterministic, if physicalism is true, i.e. if properties of free will supervene upon physical properties, then we cannot enjoy genuine freedom.
The position of the thesis has some important ethical implications: If we cannot be genuinely free, we cannot be genuinely responsible for our actions either. This implies that retributive and admirative desires towards other persons are rationally untenable. I defend the view that only practical attitudes like reinforcement and punishment or isolation and inclusion are rationally tenable.

Libertarian incompatibilists are known to argue for their conception of freedom of the will by appealing to introspective awareness of their own agency. However in attempting to articulate how such awareness provides evidence of the ability to do otherwise, these libertarians sometimes suggest that paradigmatically free decisions are "close-call" decisions made as a result of "torn" deliberation. In this paper I argue that libertarians have misidentified the appropriate paradigm cases of free decision, and I recommend refocusing the debate away from our experience of practical decision-making to our experience of choices made in the process of cognitive management—i.e., our introspective awareness of our rational agency. Having sketched this alternative account of the phenomenology of agency, I conclude by examining the compatibilist account of agentive experience offered by Terry Horgan, and suggest it is not the best explanation of all of the relevant evidence about how we experience and make judgments about our freedom.

Event-causal libertarians maintain that an agent’s settling of whether certain states-of-affairs obtain on a particular occasion can be reduced to the causing of events (e.g., bodily motions, coming to a resolution) by certain mental events or states, such as certain desires, beliefs and/or intentions.  Agent-causal libertarians disagree.  A common critique against event-causal libertarian accounts is that the agent’s role of settling matters is left unfilled and the agent “disappears” from such accounts—a problem known as the disappearing agent problem.  Recently, Christopher Franklin (2014) has argued that an “enriched” event-causal account can overcome this problem.  Franklin, however, doesn’t consider whether, as Derk Pereboom (2015) argues, the agent as decider of “torn decisions” disappears from even enriched accounts.  As I show here, Franklin’s enriched account takes some modifying if it is to overcome Pereboom’s torn decision problem—a special case of the disappearing agent problem.  However, as I also show, there is a more fundamental problem facing event-causal libertarian accounts.  It is implausible that an agent qua event or state simultaneously settles whether and how she intervenes.  The upshot is that events and/or states lack an ability essential to completely fulfilling an agent’s role qua settler.  This isn’t a problem for agent-causal accounts like the one offered by Helen Steward (2012) because in as much as an agent qua substance settles whether her body moves in certain ways on certain occasions she simultaneously settles whether and how she intervenes.  As a consequence, event-causal libertarians face a dilemma, or rather several, that agent-causal libertarians do not.  This may ultimately be explained by the irreducibility of causation by agents to causation by events.

There are certain 'hard cases' of weakness of will that seem to occur, indeed to be common, but are very difficult to give a non-paradoxical account of.  It is just not clear how they are possible.  This paper is largely an attempt to get them in focus.  What conditions must such weak-willed actions satisfy?  In what sense must they be intentional, for example?  And must the weak-willed agent thinks his action objectively worse than some alternative action open to him?  And must that alternative action actually be open to him?  The paper concludes by considering the condition that a clear case of weakness of will must be in certain sense non-procrastinatory and this turns out to be particularly difficult to satisfy.  Other explanations, ones that do not postulate weakness of will (though they may involve paradoxes of their own), always seem to be available.

El Argumento Básico de Strawson es de los más fuertes contra la responsabilidad moral en filosofía de la acción. Uno debería ser responsable de su personalidad para ser responsable moralmente de sus acciones, pero entonces nadie sería jamás responsable. En este artículo critico los intentos ortodoxos de solución al reto escéptico de Strawson y muestro cómo comparten con el Argumento una misma noción teológica heredada de agente-mónada. Una propuesta de solución pasa por una nueva concepción de sujeto. The Strawson’s Basic Argument is the stronger against moral responsibility in Philosophy of action. One should be responsible of his identity to be moral responsible of his actions, but then nobody could be never responsible. In this article I criticize orthodox solutions to Strawson’s sceptical challenge and show how they share with the Argument the same theological notion of monadical agent. A new solution needs a new conception of agent..

It is taken to be self-evident that freedom requires being able to do otherwise, by most incompatibilists, and some compatibilists; however, there are more than one way to interpret the meaning of “being able to do otherwise.” In this paper, two different versions of principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) are discussed: One of these PAPs is related to determinacy, and the other is related to supervenience. I defend that PAP which is about determinacy and, which is
widely being used by incompatibilist has nothing to do with freedom, and the other PAP cannot be satisfied in a physicalistic world.

There is stock argument against libertarianism: that the indeterminism it postulates makes human choice a matter of chance and this is no better as a basis for practical rationality and moral responsibility than the most rigid determinism.  I suggest that a similar problem arises on deterministic assumptions: although human choice is no longer a matter of mere chance, it remains arbitrary since whatever explains a person’s choice to act on the reasons for an action rather than those against, it is not a matter of reasons that were reasons FOR THAT PERSON.  The explanatory gap is closed in the wrong way for the impression of sheer arbitrariness to be cancelled.  I discuss (via a digression on F. H. Bradley) whether Davidson’s ‘anomalous monism’ would, if correct, necessitate any modification to this conclusion.  I also ask how the problem addressed in this paper relates to Galen Strawson’s rejection of the possibility of complete autonomy or self-determination.

This is the entry "Free Will" in Enciclopedia Philosophica on line (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross). The entry develops the theme of free will in four main directions: historical overview; analysis of decisions (reasons, ends, kind and levels of decision); the compatibilism/incompatibilism debate; the neural basis. The core of the article is that freedom and love are  intrinsically linked, that decision are functionally related to what we love, and that our free will is not infallible. It is real, but it is weak and imperfect.

Local miracle compatibilists claim that we are sometimes able to do otherwise than we actually do, even if causal determinism obtains. When we can do otherwise, it will often be true that if we were to do otherwise, then an actual law of nature would not have been a law of nature. Nevertheless, it is a compatibilist principle that we cannot do anything that would be or cause an event that violates the laws of nature. Carl Ginet challenges this nomological principle, arguing that it is not always capable of explaining our inability to do otherwise. In response to this challenge, I point out that this principle is part of a defense against the charge that local miracle compatibilists are committed to outlandish claims. Thus it is not surprising that the principle, by itself, will often fail to explain our inability to do otherwise. I then suggest that in many situations in which we are unable to do otherwise, this can be explained by the compatibilist’s analysis of ability, or his criteria for the truth of ability claims. Thus, the failure of his nomological principle to explain the falsity of certain ability claims is no strike against local miracle compatibilism.

The chance objection to incompatibilist accounts of free action maintains that undetermined actions are not under the agent’s control. Some attempts to circumvent this objection locate chance in events posterior to the action. Indeterministic-causation theories locate chance in events prior to the action. However, neither type of response gives an account of free action which avoids the chance objection. Chance must be located at the act of will if actions are to be both undetermined and under the agent’s control. This dissolves the apparent paradox of Frankfurt-type cases as well as the chance objection to incompatibilist free will.

This volume collects a set of papers that were presented at a conference on “Big Questions in Free Will,” held at the University of Saint Thomas in October of 2014. It is dedicated to its editor, who passed away shortly after completing the manuscript. In this review, I briefly summarize each of the 11 chapters and then offer a few critical comments.

It is taken to be self-evident that freedom requires being able to do otherwise, by most incompatibilists, and some compatibilists; however, there are more than one way to interpret the meaning of “being able to do otherwise.” In this paper, two different versions of principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) are discussed: One of these PAPs is related to determinacy, and the other is related to supervenience. I defend that PAP which is about determinacy and, which is widely being used by incompatibilist has nothing to do with freedom, and the other PAP cannot be satisfied in a physicalistic world.

The author mounts a case against the libertarian and hard determinist's thesis that free will is impossible in a deterministic world. He charges incompatibilists with misconstruing ordinary 'free will' talk by overlaying common language with their own metaphysical presuppositions. Through a review of ordinary discourse and recent developments in jurisprudence and the sciences, he draws together the four key factors required for an act to be free. He then puts his 4C theory to work in giving a credible account of how caused human agents 'could have done otherwise'. The author concludes by showing how the deterministic compatibilist view actually underpins our notion of moral responsibility.

This work discusses different formulations of the notion of “determinist world”. It is contended that several of those formulations made the notion trivial. In fact, various forms of presenting the notion made any world whatever determinist. A better construal of a determinist world should appeal to ontologically robust conceptions of natural laws and a non-combinatorial theory of metaphysical modality. Finally, the work suggests some consequences of the distinctions introduced for the problem of the compatibility of free will and determinism.

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From the beginning of the scientific revolution to the modern era, deterministic philosophies have grown in popularity as a result of a fundamental paradigmatic shift toward naturalistic explanatory theories arising out of the physical and biological sciences. Identifying, comparing, and contrasting the various degrees and forms of determinism (eg. hard determinism, compatibilism, etc.) serves as a daunting yet extraordinarily vital task required to understand the logical coherence of such philosophical theories and their subsequent worldview counterparts. Not only is unpacking the foundational groundwork and worldview structure of determinism necessary in assessing its logical coherence, it is also necessary in assessing the justification for belief in determinism, and subsequently, the justification for belief in alternative theories regarding the nature of the human will. Overall, the intent of this paper is to identify and analyze the epistemological and ontological assumptions and commitments of determinismistic thought in order to evaluate it's metaethical ramifications on moral accountability and responsibility in relation to several universally held natural assumptions we have regarding ethical actions and social expectations. While I conclude with the notion that neither determinism, free will, or any compatibilist view can be formally proven or disproven, I argue that the adoption of a deterministic worldview is self-incoherent and inconsistent with universally accepted social norms, irreconcilable with the idea of mutual ethical expectation, and incompatible with the concepts of moral responsibility and accountability.

A traditional concern for determinists is that the epistemic conditions an agent must satisfy to deliberate about which of a number of distinct actions to perform threaten to conflict with a belief in determinism and its evident consequences. I develop an account of the sort that specifies two epistemic requirements, an epistemic openness condition and a belief in the efficacy of deliberation, whose upshot is that someone who believes in determinism and its evident consequences can deliberate without inconsistent beliefs. I argue that conditions of both types are indispensable, and that they can be formulated so as to withstand the relevant objections.

The view that human beings do not exercise free will appears for many to be a consequence of a modern, scientific view of the universe and humankind's place in it. It is a view that is popular among humanists, atheists and other freethinkers. In this address, Leslie Allan endeavours to show how this myth is based on some fundamental errors of reasoning and an insufficient attention to how 'free will' language is used by ordinary folk. He garners ordinary usage and modern medical and legal practice to develop his '4C theory' of the requirements for acting freely in a world exclusively governed by physical, chemical and biological forces.