The terms ‘compatibilism’ and ‘incompatibilism’ were introduced in the mid-20th century to name conflicting views about the logical relationship between the thesis of determinism and the thesis that someone has free will. These technical terms were originally introduced within a specific research paradigm, the classical analytic paradigm. This paradigm is now in its final stages of degeneration and few free-will theorists still work within it (i.e. using its methods, granting its substantive background assumptions, etc.). This chapter discusses how the ambiguity (...) of the terms ‘incompatibilism’ and ‘compatibilism’ took root and why it matters to the contempory debate. I explain why the ambiguity of these anachronistic terms, though relatively innocuous when they were first introduced, is now encouraging theorists to tolerate and perpetuate serious philosophical errors (e.g. to conflate relations as different in kind and importance as correlation and causation, to knowingly promote invalid arguments, and to equivoate on jargon in ways that keep the free-will debate mired in psuedo-stalemates). I also suggest a new paradigm for anyone looking for relief from the confusion and deadlock created by the use of inadequate classical narratives and jargon. -/- A selection from the publication is available to download here. For full version, please gmail me, username: kristin.mickelson.42 -/- . (shrink)

Philosophers often consider problems of free will and moral luck in isolation from one another, but both are about control and moral responsibility. One problem of free will concerns the difficult task of specifying the kind of control over our actions that is necessary and sufficient to act freely. One problem of moral luck refers to the puzzling task of explaining whether and how people can be morally responsible for actions permeated by factors beyond their control. This chapter explicates and (...) assesses skeptical, compatibilist, and libertarian approaches to moral luck. First, I argue that what makes the above problems of free will and moral luck distinct is largely their emphasis on different kinds of luck. Second, I describe and evaluate skeptical arguments from constitutive and circumstantial luck that it is impossible to act freely. Third, I explicate and assess various support and implication relationships between various kinds of compatibilism and libertarianism, on the one hand, and causal, constitutive, circumstantial, and resultant moral luck, on the other. (shrink)

Because an agent’s constitutive luck may seem to preclude free will, it may seem to preclude moral responsibility. An agent is basically morally responsible for performing actionAat timetonly if there is another possible world with the same past up totand the same laws of nature in which the agent does not performAatt. A compatibilist can solve the constitutive luck problem for moral responsibility without worrying about basic moral responsibility. According to compatibilism, if determinism is true, then agents can be morally (...) responsible for performing actions without being basically morally responsible for performing them. But a libertarian who thinks agents can be basically morally responsible for what they do must explain how basic moral responsibility is possible. ACT-endorsing libertarianism can both solve the constitutive luck problem for moral responsibility and explain how agents can be basically morally responsible for what they do. (shrink)

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that agents cause actions to occur or not occur: Maddy’s decision to get a beer causes her to get up off her comfortable couch to get a beer, though she almost chose not to get up. Libertarian free will notoriously faces the luck objection, according to which agential states do not determine whether an action occurs or not, so it is beyond the control of the agent, hence lucky, whether an action occurs or (...) not: Maddy’s reasons for getting beer in equipoise with her reasons to remain in her comfortable seat do not determine that she will get up or stay seated, so it seems beyond her control, hence lucky, that she gets up. In this paper I consider a sub-set of the luck objection called the Physical Indeterminism Luck Objection, according to which indeterministic physical processes cause actions to occur or not, and agent’s lack control over these indeterministic physical processes, so agent’s lack control over, hence it is lucky, whether action occurs or not. After motivating the physical indeterminism luck objection, I consider responses from three recent event-causal libertarian models, and conclude that they fail to overcome the problem, though one promising avenue is opened up. (shrink)

This essay begins by dividing the traditional problem of free will and determinism into a “correlation” problem and an “explanation” problem. I then focus on the explanation problem, and argue that a standard form of abductive (i.e. inference to the best-explanation) reasoning may be useful in solving it. To demonstrate the fruitfulness of the abductive approach, I apply it to three standard accounts of free will. While each account implies the same solution to the correlation problem, each implies a unique (...) solution to the explanation problem. For example, all libertarian-friendly accounts of free will imply that it is impossible to act freely when determinism is true. However, only a narrow subset of libertarians have the theoretical resources to defend the incompatibilist claim that deterministic laws (qua being deterministic) undermine free will, while other libertarians must reject this incompatibilist view. -/- [Version: Nov. 12, 2018]. (shrink)

Plug ‘free will’ into YouTube’s search function and you will find a shocking range of people confidently sharing their untutored opinions on the topic – from recognizable physicists (Neil de Grasse...

Richard Kearney’s new book, Touch: Recovering Our Most Vital Sense, has come as a way of illustrating the paradoxes of our times, most deeply felt as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Have a look...

Largely due to the popular allegation that contemporary science has uncovered indeterminism in the deepest known levels of physical reality, the debate as to whether humans have moral freedom, the sort of freedom on which moral responsibility depends, has put aside to some extent the traditional worry over whether determinism is true. As I argue in this paper, however, there are powerful proofs for both chronological determinism and necessitarianism, forms of determinism that pose the most penetrative threat to human moral (...) freedom. My ultimate hope is to show that, despite the robust case against human moral freedom that can be made without even relying on them, chronological determinism and necessitarianism should be regarded with renewed urgency. (shrink)