Compatibilism

Compatibilism is the belief that free will

and determinism are mutually compatible
and that it is possible to believe in both
without being logically inconsistent.[1]

Compatibilists believe freedom can be

present or absent in situations for reasons
that have nothing to do with
metaphysics.[2] They say causal
determinism does not exclude the truth of
possible future outcomes.[3]
Similarly, political liberty is a non-
metaphysical concept.[4] Statements of
political liberty, such as the United States
Bill of Rights, assume moral liberty: the
ability to choose to do otherwise than one
does.[5]

History
Compatibilism was championed by the
ancient Stoics[6] and some medieval
scholastics (such as Thomas Aquinas).
More specifically, scholastics like Thomas
Aquinas and later Thomists (such as
Domingo Báñez) are often interpreted as
holding that a human action can be free
even though the agent in some strong
sense could not do otherwise than he did.
Whereas Aquinas is often interpreted to
maintain rational compatibilism (i.e., an
action can be determined by rational
cognition and yet free), later Thomists
such as Báñez develop a sophisticated
theory of theological determinism,
according to which actions of free agents,
despite being free, are, on a higher level,
determined by infallible divine decrees
manifested in the form of "physical
premotion" (praemotio physica), a
deterministic intervention of God into the
will of a free agent required to reduce the
will from potency to act. A strongly
incompatibilist view of freedom was, on
the other hand, developed in the
Franciscan tradition, especially by Duns
Scotus, and later upheld and further
developed by Jesuits, esp. Luis de Molina
and Francisco Suárez. In the early-modern
era, compatibilism was maintained by
Enlightenment philosophers (such as
David Hume and Thomas Hobbes).[7]

During the 20th century, compatibilists

presented novel arguments that differed
from the classical arguments of Hume,
Hobbes, and John Stuart Mill.[8]
Importantly, Harry Frankfurt popularized
what are now known as Frankfurt
counterexamples to argue against
incompatibilism,[9] and developed a
positive account of compatibilist free will
based on higher-order volitions.[10] Other
"new compatibilists" include Gary Watson,
Susan R. Wolf, P. F. Strawson, and R. Jay
Wallace.[11] Contemporary compatibilists
range from the philosopher and cognitive
scientist Daniel Dennett, particularly in his
works Elbow Room (1984) and Freedom
Evolves (2003), to the existentialist
philosopher Frithjof Bergmann. Perhaps
the most renowned contemporary
defender of compatibilism is John Martin
Fischer.

Defining free will

Defining free will

Arthur Schopenhauer

Compatibilists often define an instance of

"free will" as one in which the agent had
freedom to act according to their own
motivation. That is, the agent was not
coerced or restrained. Arthur
Schopenhauer famously said, "Man can do
what he wills but he cannot will what he
wills."[12] In other words, although an agent
may often be free to act according to a
motive, the nature of that motive is
determined. This definition of free will
does not rely on the truth or falsity of
causal determinism.[2] This view also
makes free will close to autonomy, the
ability to live according to one's own rules,
as opposed to being submitted to external
domination.

Alternatives as imaginary E…
Saying "there may be a person behind that door"
merely expresses ignorance about the one,
determined reality

Some compatibilists will hold both causal

determinism (all effects have causes) and
logical determinism (the future is already
determined) to be true. Thus statements
about the future (e.g., "it will rain
tomorrow") are either true or false when
spoken today. This compatibilist free will
should not be understood as some kind of
ability to have actually chosen differently
in an identical situation. A compatibilist
can believe that a person can choose
between many choices, but the choice is
always determined by external factors.[13]
If the compatibilist says "I may visit
tomorrow, or I may not", he is saying that
he does not know what he will choose—if
he will choose to follow the subconscious
urge to go or not.

Non-naturalism E…

Alternatives to strictly naturalist physics,

such as mind–body dualism positing a
mind or soul existing apart from one's
body while perceiving, thinking, choosing
freely, and as a result acting independently
on the body, include both traditional
religious metaphysics and less common
newer compatibilist concepts.[14] Also
consistent with both autonomy and
Darwinism,[15] they allow for free personal
agency based on practical reasons within
the laws of physics.[16] While less popular
among 21st century philosophers, non-
naturalist compatibilism is present in most
if not almost all religions.[17]

Criticism

Compatibilism has much in common with so-called

'Hard Determinism', including moral systems and a
belief in Determinism itself
A prominent criticism of compatibilism is
Peter van Inwagen's consequence
argument.

Critics of compatibilism often focus on the

definition(s) of free will: incompatibilists
may agree that the compatibilists are
showing something to be compatible with
determinism, but they think that this
something ought not to be called "free
will". Incompatibilists might accept the
"freedom to act" as a necessary criterion
for free will, but doubt that it is sufficient.
Basically, they demand more of "free will".
The incompatibilists believe free will refers
to genuine (e.g., absolute, ultimate)
alternate possibilities for beliefs, desires,
or actions, rather than merely
counterfactual ones.

Compatibilism is sometimes called soft

determinism (William James's term)
pejoratively .[18] James accused them of
creating a "quagmire of evasion" by
stealing the name of freedom to mask
their underlying determinism.[18] Immanuel
Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge" and
"word jugglery".[19] Kant's argument turns
on the view that, while all empirical
phenomena must result from determining
causes, human thought introduces
something seemingly not found elsewhere
in nature—the ability to conceive of the
world in terms of how it ought to be, or
how it might otherwise be. For Kant,
subjective reasoning is necessarily distinct
from how the world is empirically. Because
of its capacity to distinguish is from ought,
reasoning can 'spontaneously' originate
new events without being itself
determined by what already exists.[20] It is
on this basis that Kant argues against a
version of compatibilism in which, for
instance, the actions of the criminal are
comprehended as a blend of determining
forces and free choice, which Kant regards
as misusing the word "free". Kant
proposes that taking the compatibilist
view involves denying the distinctly
subjective capacity to re-think an intended
course of action in terms of what ought to
happen.[19] Ted Honderich explains his
view that the mistake of compatibilism is
to assert that nothing changes as a
consequence of determinism, when clearly
we have lost the life-hope of origination.[21]

See also
Libertarianism (metaphysics)
Semicompatibilism

References
1. Coates, D. Justin; McKenna, Michael
(February 25, 2015). "Compatibilism" .
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Retrieved May 10, 2016.
2. Podgorski, Daniel (October 16, 2015).
"Free Will Twice Defined: On the
Linguistic Conflict of Compatibilism
and Incompatibilism" . The Gemsbok.
Retrieved March 7, 2016.
3. McKenna, Michael and Coates, D.
Justin, "Compatibilism", The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter
2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
forthcoming URL =
 <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/w
in2019/entries/compatibilism/>.
4. Locke, John (1690). The Second
Treatise of Civil Government.
5. The Monist, Vol. 70, No. 4, Thomas
Reid and His Contemporaries
(OCTOBER 1987), pp. 442-452
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2790304
9 Accessed: 06-12-2019 22:28 UTC
6. Ricardo Salles, "Compatibilism: Stoic
and modern." Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie 83.1 (2001): 1-23.
 7. Michael McKenna: Compatibilism. The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Edward N. Zalta (ed.). 2009.
8. Kane, Robert (2005). A Contemporary
Introduction to Free Will. Oxford
University Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-19-
514970-8.
9. Kane 2005, p. 83
10. Kane 2005, p. 94
11. Kane 2005, pp. 98, 101, 107, 109.
12. Schopenhauer, Arthur (1945). "On the
Freedom of the Will". The Philosophy
of American History : The Historical
Field Theory. Translated by Morris
Zucker. p. 531.
13. Harry G. Frankfurt (1969). "Alternate
Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,"
Journal of Philosophy 66 (3):829-39.
14. Ridge, Michael (3 February 2014).
"Moral Non-Naturalism" . The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford
University. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
15. Lemos, John (2002). "Evolution and
Free Will: A Defense of Darwinian
Non–naturalism". Metaphilosophy. 33
(4): 468–482. doi:10.1111/1467-
9973.00240 . ISSN 1467-9973 .
16. Nida-Rümelin, Julian (1 January 2019).
"The Reasons Account of Free Will A
 Libertarian-Compatibilist Hybrid".
Archiv fuer Rechts- und
Sozialphilosphie. 105 (1): 3–10.
doi:10.25162/arsp-2019-0001 .
17. Stump, Eleonore (1996). "Libertarian
Freedom and the Principle of
Alternative Possibilities". In Howard-
Snyder, Daniel; Jordan, Jeff (eds.).
Faith, Freedom, and Rationality.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
pp. 73–88.
18. James, William. 1884 "The Dilemma of
Determinism", Unitarian Review,
September, 1884. Reprinted in The Will
to Believe, Dover, 1956, p.149
 19. Kant, Immanuel 1788 (1952).The
Critique of Practical Reason, in Great
Books of the Western World, vol. 42,
Kant, Univ. of Chicago, p. 332
20. Kant, Immanuel 1781 (1949).The
Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Max
Mueller, p. 448
21. Honderich, Ted 1988 The
Consequences of Determinism, p.169

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