Compatibilism

This paper advances three interconnected claims in moral and political philosophy. First: the guarantee of minimum conditions for human survival is not a charitable concession but a logical obligation entailed by civilization's own founding premise — the improvement of human life. To withhold subsistence from any person subject to civilizational arrangements is to violate the premise on which those arrangements justify themselves. Second: because human action is substantially conditioned by factors outside the agent's control — environment, upbringing, social circumstance, neurological (...) constitution — the degree of free agency required to ground retributive punishment, and in particular capital punishment, is never reliably present. Punishment must therefore be rehabilitative rather than retributive in its orientation. Third, and most originally: the logical structure that underwrites retributive justice is identical to the structure that underwrites authoritarian paternalism. A position that endorses the former while condemning the latter is committed to an incoherence it cannot resolve without abandoning the shared premise on which both depend. Together, these claims constitute not an indictment of civilization as such, but a demand that civilization take seriously the commitments it has always claimed to hold. (shrink)

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'. (shrink)

In his seminal essay, Harry Frankfurt argued that our exercise of free will and allocation of moral responsibility do not depend on us being able to do other than we did. Leslie Allan defends this moral maxim from Frankfurt's attack. Applying his character-based counterfactual conditional analysis of free acts to Frankfurt's counterexamples, Allan unpacks the confusions that lie at the heart of Frankfurt's argument. The author also explores how his 4C compatibilist theory measures up against Frankfurt’s conclusions.

John Perry has recently developed a form of Compatibilism that respects the Principle of Alternatives (PA), according to which free agency requires having the ability to do more than one thing. Eschewing so-called Frankfurt counterexamples to this intuitively plausible principle, long the bête noire of those who would like to believe in free agency and Determinism, Perry argues that there is an important sense in which we can act differently than we do. It signifies the “natural” property of possessing a (...) latent ability, a notion free of the mysteriousness surrounding accounts of the freedom to do otherwise based on religious or even philosophical considerations, yet sufficient to conceptually ground our assignments of praise and blame. Perry goes on to advise his readers to abandon all such unscientific accounts in favor of his common sense approach. I argue that Perry’s Compatibilism (PC) leads to the same objection as other Humean versions thereof, as well as fails to explain certain intuitions regarding self-control and initiative. I conclude with an assessment of the prospects for his proposed revision of PC, written in light of these concerns. (shrink)

If I take a free decision, how does this express itself physically? If God acts in this world, how does he do so? The answers to those two questions may be different or the same. Here we sketch a typology of possible answers, including Transcendent Compatibility. It turns out that in an open universe, freedom is the timewise mirror image of causality.

I argue that a powers-based metaphysics radically reconfigures the existing free will problematic. This is different from claiming that such an approach solves the ill-conceived problems that emerge from Humean-Kantian default commitments.

Manipulation arguments have become almost a cottage industry in the moral responsibility literature. These cases are used for a variety of purposes, familiarly to undermine some proffered set of conditions on responsibility, usually compatibilist conditions. The basic idea is to conceive of a case which intuitively includes responsibility-undermining manipulation but which meets the target account’s set of sufficient conditions on responsibility. The manipulation thereby serves as a counterexample to the target theory. More specifically, recent concern with manipulation cases has often (...) been part of an argument for historical conditions on moral responsibility. Exercising control over an action is not necessarily enough to be responsible for it, one must have come to exercise that control in a non-deviant way. Manipulation cases are meant to illustrate how an agent can exercise the supposed sufficient control over an action, and yet intuitively fail to be responsible as a result of some manipulation. The argument concludes that manipulation of this sort must then be ruled out by one’s conditions on responsibility. Accounts that fail to rule out such manipulation are objectionable as a result. Manipulation arguments usually fit a general schema.1 One presents a case intuitively involving responsibility-undermining manipulation, but where all the conditions of the target account are met. Then one argues that there is no relevant difference between that case and ordinary action under the target account. Thus, one can conclude, the target account gets the wrong verdict for manipulation cases. Some variations on this schema seek a slightly grander conclusion. For example, some incompatibilists argue from the manipulation case through a principle that claims there to be no relevant difference between such a case and ordinary action in a deterministic universe. Thus, the conclusion reached is that if determinism is true, all responsibility is undermined. (shrink)

I defend three claims: (i) agents have multiple options for action, (ii) there is no reductive account of what it is to have an option, and (iii) determinism might be true. This combination of claims, which I call "non-reductive compatibilism," is very plausible, yet is scarcely considered in the previous literature. I explain why this view is deserving of philosophical attention, and discuss various objections that might be brought against it.

This paper presents a novel argument for compatibilism, the view that free will and determinism are compatible. Drawing on principles from quantum mechanics, specifically the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the concept of superposition, the paper proposes an analogy between the behavior of particles at the quantum level and the choices made by free agents. It argues that just as particles exist in a field of possibilities until observed, actions exist in a field of possibilities until a decision is made. The (...) deterministic aspect comes from the natural laws that govern the behavior of particles (and, by extension, our actions), while the free will aspect is represented by the field of possibilities from which we can choose. The paper further explores the implications of this perspective for our understanding of moral responsibility and the nature of reality. It concludes by suggesting that our collective observations and choices contribute to the creation of our shared reality, underscoring the interconnectedness of all beings. (shrink)

The problem of free will has persistently resisted a solution throughout centuries. There is reason to believe that new elements need to be introduced into the analysis in order to make progress. In the present physicalist approach, these elements are emergence and information theory in relation to universal limits set by quantum physics. Furthermore the common, but vague, characterization of free will as "being able to act differently" is, in the spirit of Carnap, rephrased into an explicatum more suitable for (...) formal analysis. It is argued that the mind is an ontologically open system; a causal high-level system, the future of which cannot be reduced to the states of its associated low-level neural systems, not even if it is rendered physically closed. A positive answer to the question of free will is subsequently outlined. (shrink)

This article develops Hedonic Compatibilism, a model explaining how free will arises within a fully deterministic universe. Contemporary science leaves little room to deny causal necessity: behavior is produced by predictive mechanisms operating under limited information. Yet the phenomenon of freedom persists at the subjective level. I argue that this duality originates in an evolutionary functional shift — Hedonic Inversion — the moment when pleasurable experience becomes the aim of behavior and self-preservation becomes its instrument. Before inversion, behavior is governed (...) by structural regulation; after inversion, it is generated through internal hedonic evaluation, which marks the first emergence of an internal causal source. This creates a two-level structure: at the level of the world, there is only one necessary causal flow; at the level of the agent, there arises a multiplicity of represented alternatives. Freedom is the divergence between objective necessity and subjective multiplicity, not a breach of determinism. In this framework, free will is the agent’s internal causal necessity, aligned with the universe’s external necessity — a form of double determinism. Death marks the collapse of this subjective space and the end of agency. Hedonic Compatibilism thus connects Spinoza’s external necessity with Dennett’s reasons-responsive agency by identifying the evolutionary link between them. (shrink)

This paper offers a Deterministic Hedonist account of the meaning of life. The question “What is the meaning of life?” is often intensified by finitude, which can shift a practical concern with how to live into a demand for an external justification. The paper argues that this shift deforms the question. Within Deterministic Hedonism, meaning is defined operationally as what works in behavior: a stable, internally organized configuration of priorities that shapes choice over time. Since behavior is governed by the (...) hedonic law, the meaning of life cannot be a transcendent aim or a non-realizable declaration; it must be realizable within an agent’s field of alternatives. Meaning is therefore always already present wherever behavior occurs, while “searching for meaning” is the comparison and reordering of one’s living toward a better available configuration, sharpened by the time factor (opportunity cost). (shrink)

Deterministic Hedonism is presented as a complete, descriptive philosophical doctrine in a new revised edition. The text systematically integrates a causal analysis of behavior within the framework of the Hedonic Law (H=S−U) and shows how this mechanism operates across all forms of behavior—action, restraint, and even inactivity. It describes hedonic inversion as a functional turning point after which life changes its teleological structure and pleasure becomes the final criterion of behavior. On this basis, the doctrine develops hedonic compatibilism and a (...) scheme of “double determinism,” in which free will is interpreted as an agent’s internal causal necessity, compatible with external causality. Finally, it examines the meaning of life as an operationally defined, stable configuration of priorities (eudaimonia)—a form of subjective evaluation of life as a whole. (shrink)

Free Will as an Emergent Chaotic System [Your Name] Independent Researcher [Your Email] [Date] --- Abstract This paper argues that free will emerges from deterministic yet chaotic neural processes, allowing for practically unpredictable and functionally autonomous decisions. Drawing on chaos theory, neuroscience, and cognitive science, we propose a novel compatibilist framework where free will is an emergent property of self-organizing, nonlinear systems rather than mere unpredictability. This approach reconciles determinism with autonomy, demonstrating that chaotic attractors in neural networks create structured (...) yet flexible decision patterns. We explore moral responsibility, legal accountability, and artificial intelligence applications, suggesting that chaotic free will preserves agency within a deterministic structure. Finally, we propose empirical methods—such as neural complexity analysis and moral decision variability testing—to test this theory. This perspective advances both philosophical and scientific debates, positioning free will as a real, emergent cognitive phenomenon. (shrink)

The Axiomatic Opacity Constraint (AOC) states that no agent embedded in a causally closed system operating under linear temporal ordering can achieve infallible epistemic access to its own future states while retaining the capacity for causal intervention. Previously established as a corollary of the Fixed-Point Paradox Theorem, the AOC merits independent examination. We prove that the AOC is axiomatic in the strict sense: derivable from temporal linearity, informational closure, and non-contradiction alone, prior to any empirical commitments. We establish formal connections (...) with Gödel incompleteness, Turing undecidability, and Lawvere's categorical fixed-point theorem, situating the AOC as a fourth member of the self-reference family. We derive the Probability Corollary: no contingent future event can receive credence one for any embedded agent retaining causal agency. We prove the Optimal Epistemic Position Theorem: deliberative efficiency DE = ρ·Ω (reason-responsiveness times residual epistemic uncertainty) is maximized at an interior noise level σ* = γσ_R, with maximum efficiency DE* = (1−φ²)/4. Neither certainty nor randomness is optimal; the wisest agent operates at the equipartition point. We extend the AOC to multi-agent systems, derive structural consequences for communication and moral assessment, and establish that the first-person perspectival asymmetry is a formally necessary feature of any agent retaining causal agency rather than a contingent limitation. The epistemology of perspective is not incidental to agency but constitutive of it. (shrink)

Here we propose a compatibilist theory of free will, in the tradition of naturalized philosophy, that attempts: 1) to provide a synthesis of a variety of well-known theories, capable of addressing problems of the latter; 2) to account for the fact that free will comes in degrees; 3) to interface with natural sciences, especially neurobiology. We argue that free will comes in degrees, as suggested by neuroscience. We suggest that a concept that can precisely ‘measure’ the variability of free will (...) is that of ‘theory’, or rather, the capacity to make assumptions and use theories. Our model, then, highlights that free-willed actions are consciously monitored by the agent, through beliefs, assumptions and ultimately theories – hence the CMT model (for Conscious-through-Monitoring-through-Theories). The ultimate goal of this attempt at synthesis is to make the comparison with a variety of well-known accounts, and to show that our model can address several of their problems. (shrink)

The traditional free will debate has been trapped in a false dilemma between escaping causation entirely or reducing freedom to following predetermined psychological states. This paper argues that we have been asking the wrong question entirely. Rather than debating whether we can transcend the causal order, we should examine how choice-making capacity actually operates within bounded systems throughout nature. I propose a temporal constraint framework that reconceptualizes free will as probabilistic navigation within dynamically changing possibility spaces shaped by context, conditions, (...) and constraints. Analysis of ecological and evolutionary examples reveals that meaningful agency emerges through sophisticated constraint navigation rather than constraint escape. This framework dissolves traditional problems by showing that hard determinism, libertarianism, compatibilism, and hard incompatibilism each capture different segments of a single temporal constraint spectrum rather than genuinely competing alternatives. Further, I argue that agency develops recursively through iterative choice-making that enhances navigation capabilities over time. The framework provides clear criteria for distinguishing authentic agency development from artificial manipulation while explaining why probabilistic choice within constraints constitutes genuine freedom. (shrink)

Libertarianism in all its varieties is widely taken to be vulnerable to a serious problem of present luck, inasmuch as it requires indeterminism somewhere in the causal chain leading to action. Genuine indeterminism entails luck, and lack of control over the ensuing action. Compatibilism, by contrast, is generally taken to be free of the problem of present luck, inasmuch as it does not require indeterminism in the causal chain. I argue that this view is false: compatibilism is subject to a (...) problem of present luck. Taken by itself, the compatibilist problem with present luck is less serious than the analogous problem confronting libertarianism. However, its effects are just as devastating for the entire account of freedom: the present luck confronting compatibilism is sufficient to undermine the compatibilist response to distant – constitutive – luck. (shrink)

It is, as Dana Nelkin (2004) says, a rare point of agreement among participants in the free will debate that rational deliberation presupposes a belief in freedom. Of course, the precise content of that belief – and, indeed, the nature of deliberation – is controversial, with some philosophers claiming that deliberation commits us to a belief in libertarian free will (Taylor 1966; Ginet 1966), and others claiming that, on the contrary, deliberation presupposes nothing more than an epistemic openness that is (...) entirely compatible with determinism (Dennett 1984; Kapitan 1986). Since, however, the claim that deliberation presupposes freedom is accepted by all sides in the free will debate, it ought to be possible to frame a minimal version that is neutral between compatibilism and incompatibilism, and which therefore can be accepted by everyone. Peter van Inwagen has advanced the best-known such claim: ‘all philosophers who have thought about deliberation agree on one point: one cannot deliberate about whether to perform a certain act unless one believes it is possible for one to perform it’ (van Inwagen 1983: 154). It is the purpose of this paper to argue that van Inwagen, and the many philosophers who have followed him in this regard, is wrong. (shrink)

In The Stubborn System of Moral Responsibility (2015), Bruce Waller sets out to explain why the belief in individual moral responsibility is so strong. He begins by pointing out that there is a strange disconnect between the strength of philosophical arguments in support of moral responsibility and the strength of philosophical belief in moral responsibility. While the many arguments in favor of moral responsibility are inventive, subtle, and fascinating, Waller points out that even the most ardent supporters of moral responsibility (...) acknowledge that the arguments in its favor are far from conclusive; and some of the least confident concerning the arguments for moral responsibility—such as Van Inwagen—are most confident of the truth of moral responsibility. Thus, argues Waller, whatever the verdict on the strength of philosophical arguments for moral responsibility, it is clear that belief in moral responsibility—whether among philosophers or the folk—is based on something other than philosophical reasons. He goes on to argue that there are several sources for the strong belief in moral responsibility, but the following four are particularly influential: First, moral responsibility is based in a powerful “strike back” emotion that we share with other animals. Second, there is a deep-rooted “belief in a just world”—a belief that, according to Waller, most philosophers reject when they consciously consider it, but which has a deep nonconscious influence on what we regard as just treatment and which provides subtle (but mistaken) support for belief in moral responsibility. Third, there is a pervasive moral responsibility system—extending over criminal justice as well as “common sense”—that makes the truth of moral responsibility seem obvious, and makes challenges to moral responsibility seem incoherent. Finally, there is the enormous confidence we have in the power of reason, which mistakenly leads us to believe that our conscious, rational, and critically reflective selves are constantly guiding our behavior in accordance with our deep values. In these comments, I would like to discuss the many points of agreement I have with Waller, providing along the way additional fuel for his skeptical fire (i.e., his moral responsibility skepticism and his skeptical analysis of the source of our strong belief in moral responsibility). I will also discuss, however, my one main point of disagreement—i.e., his desire to preserve the conception of free will. Waller believes free will can “flourish” in the absence of moral responsibility (see Ch.8), while I maintain they that the variety of free will that is of central philosophical and practical importance is the sort required for moral responsibility in a particular but pervasive sense. This sense of moral responsibility is set apart by the notion of basic desert and is purely backward-looking and non-consequentialist (see Pereboom 2001, 2014; Caruso and Morris, forthcoming). Understood this way, the sort of free will at issue in the historical debate is a kind of power or ability an agent must possess in order to justify certain kinds of desert-based judgments, attitudes, or treatments in response to decisions or actions that the agent performed or failed to perform. (shrink)

I offer a new argument for the compatibility of free will and determinism. The argument rests on three premises, which are plausible and intuitive, or so I argue. Given that acceptance of the premises commits one to a metaphysics that combines a causal powers ontology with a Humean conception of the laws of nature, I propose calling the resulting account of free will “semi-Humean compatibilism”.

In this chapter, I survey the experimental philosophy literature on folk intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. I argue that the hypothesis that folk are natural compatibilists is a better fit and explanation of existing data than the hypothesis that folk are natural incompatibilists. I discuss the use of 'Throughpass' measures in the recent literature (arguing that these measures are inadequate) as well as experimental philosophers' reliance on mediation analysis and structural equation modelling to infer causality (arguing that this (...) reliance is misguided). (shrink)

Traditional compatibilists respond to the Consequence Argument by denying either the fixity of the past or by denying the fixity of the laws, neither of which is without theoretical cost. Recently, however, several authors—Christian List (2019b), Scott Sehon (2016), and Ned Markosian (2012)—have introduced novel approaches to free will that, they claim, imply that determinism is no threat to free will and, thus, that free will and determinism turn out to be compatible. The strategies employed by these authors differ considerably, (...) with one influenced by psychology and decision theory, another by traditional philosophy of action, and the other by the metaphysics of causation. Nevertheless, this paper aims to show, first, that these approaches share a common thread and, second, that each implicitly requires us to give up either the fixity of the past or the fixity of the laws (but without making this explicit or explaining how their views are preferable to traditional compatibilist views with respect to giving up the fixity of the past/laws). The paper concludes with an important lesson that may be learned from our survey of these novel and interesting, even if ultimately unsuccessful, approaches to compatibilism. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson’s emphasis on our responsibility practices in ‘Freedom and Resentment’ has been thought to favor compatibilism, but this idea has come under attack. ‘Strawsonian incompatibilists’ agree with Strawson that holding responsible may be unavoidable and a good thing overall, while claiming that this does not entail that we are responsible if determinism is true. My aim is to explain how a Strawsonian emphasis on responsibility practices favors compatibilism. I rely on two key ideas. First, compatibilists and incompatibilists disagree about (...) the meaning of responsibility. Second, we can shed light upon the meaning of responsibility in an indirect way, by starting from the idea that our practices and concept of responsibility have a point. Combining these key ideas, we can ask whether compatibilist or incompatibilist analyses of the meaning of responsibility come out best in the light of Strawson’s hypothesis about the point of having the concept and practices of responsibility, which is roughly that they manifest a basic human demand for good will. Strawsonian incompatibilists are challenged to make sense of the connection between (1) the meaning of responsibility and (2) the point of having the concept of responsibility and the practices structured by it. (shrink)

The main question that we address in this chapter is what to say about reportedly libertarian experiences of free agency – in other words, experiences of options as being open, and up to oneself to decide among, such that, if they are accurate or veridical, then (at a minimum) indeterminism must be true. A great deal rides on this question. If normal experiences of free agency are libertarian, and if compatibilists cannot explain them away, then all of us may be (...) under systematic illusion at almost every moment of our waking lives. That is, our experiences would be illusory if humans do not in fact satisfy libertarian conditions (e.g., if indeterminism does not occur in the right time or place during decision-making, or we lack agent-causal powers). In some sense, more rides on the question of whether we are agents of the sort that we experience ourselves as being than on the question of whether we have the type of control required for moral responsibility. At worst, we are not responsible in only one sense if we lack what libertarians say we need. Yet even then, we would not be under systematic experiential illusion during most of our waking lives, as we are if our experience is libertarian, yet false. (shrink)

Kant’s earliest conception of freedom has usually been understood as building on the compatibilism of Leibniz and Wolff: free action is compatible with the principle of sufficient reason because its occurrence is not absolutely but instead merely hypothetically necessary and hence contingent. But recent scholarship has challenged this consensus. Scholars have made compelling cases not only that Kant, in the Nova dilucidatio of 1755, advocated a freedom without contingency, but also, to the contrary, that he acknowledged freedom to involve a (...) more radical contingency incompatible with the principle of sufficient reason—if not already in the Nova dilucidatio, then at least in the Beweisgrund essay of 1763. But a reexamination of the role the concept ‘contingency’ plays in these two texts confirms the more standard view that the Nova dilucidatio defends a compatibilism in the Leibnizian tradition and that the Beweisgrund essay is at least consistent with this compatibilism. The 1755 Nova dilucidatio addresses an objection to the Leibnizian principle of sufficient reason by Christian August Crusius: actions antecedently determined by grounds would happen with a necessity that would make them “unavoidable” and hence unfree. Kant’s response appeals, at least implicitly, to two different conceptions of contingency. (1) Absolute or in se contingency: the opposite of a free action is excluded not by an essence (and hence does not involve a contradiction) but rather by antecedently determining grounds. Here, Kant draws on Leibniz’s account, as developed by Christian Wolff and Alexander Baumgarten, of an absolute or in se contingency compatible with the principle of sufficient reason. (2) Physical contingency or physical indifference: the opposite of a free action is not excluded by any non-appetitive or physical antecedent determining grounds, i.e., by any determining grounds outside willing and desiring; hence a free action occurs if and only if the agent prefers it. Here, Kant is likely drawing on the account of physical contingency or indifference introduced by Friedrich Wagner and developed by Baumgarten. Finally, the Beweisgrund essay of 1763 attributes yet a third kind of contingency to freedom: (3) free actions appear to be contingent in the sense that they contain the inherent possibility of deviating from the laws of nature that direct everything in creation toward perfection. This “teleo-nomologically contingency” (as we might call it) is neutral on the question of compatibilism: it neither affirms nor denies that the opposite of a free action is excluded by antecedently determining grounds. (shrink)

Since the rise of the theory of determinism, philosophers have argued and declared that we are diminished by it. Bishop Bramhall against Thomas Hobbes in the 17th Century, Kant against Hume in the 18th, F. H. Bradley against John Stuart Mill in the 19th, Robert Kane and Robert Nozick against such as me in the 20th Century. There must be something in this relentless tradition. It cannot, it seems to me, be the falsehood of determinism. Is it, so to speak, (...) a larger fact than either determinism or free will? Is it consciousness? The new paper below, a draft to be thought more about for the 2nd edition of Kane's summative Oxford Handbook of Free Will, comes to that conclusion by way of a look at the principal parts of the problem of determinism, one being what is called probabilistic causation. (shrink)

“General Abilities Compatibilism” (GAC) says that the ability to do otherwise relevant for free will is a mere general ability. It thus explains how free will is compatible with determinism: Nobody believes that an agent who is lawfully determined to not raise her hand thereby lacks the general ability (or capacity) to raise her hand. At the same time, GAC faces the charge of changing the subject. General abilities to do otherwise are compatible with determinism because they ignore circumstantial detail. (...) But why are these general abilities pertinent for free will? Why not specific abilities that consider the complete circumstances? In this paper, I develop GAC in terms of how general abilities explain the freedom (or unfreedom) of actions. We know from the philosophy of science that we often prefer abstract explanations that ignore circumstantial detail. I use this insight to motivate GAC and respond to the above challenge. (shrink)

In this simplified and annotated version, Kant’s complex philosophical arguments are made accessible, breaking down his critique of ontological reasoning and cause and effect relationships. Kant delves into the limits of human reason in grasping metaphysical truths and critiques the assumption that every effect must have a cause, emphasizing that causality cannot be universally applied to argue for God.

Compatibilism is the view that determinism is true, but agents nevertheless possess free will as long as they act from a compatibilist friendly agential structure (i.e., agents want to perform their actions, agents identify with the actions they perform, agents would be responsive to reasons against performing those actions, etc.). The most powerful contemporary objection to compatibilism is the manipulation argument, according to which agents determined to act as they do by the prodding of manipulative neuroscientists are not considered free, (...) so agents determined to act by physical processes operating from the remote past should not be considered free either. One compatibilist response to the manipulation argument is the so-called hard-line reply, according to which compatibilists argue that agents determined by physical processes operating from the remote past are free, so agents determined by manipulative neuroscientists are free as well. In this paper I demonstrate that leading hard-line replies fail, while also introducing a novel argument against the hard-line reply. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that there are two distinct and divergent compatibilist projects. The difference between them turns on a difference between two conceptions of moral responsibility and the way that they are related to the (traditional) free will problem. The idealist compatibilist aims to vindicate the ideal conception of moral responsibility and its assumptions and aspirations. A crucial element of this is that responsible agents are untainted by any significant forms of fate and luck, whereby the (...) agent is held responsible for qualities or conduct that she lacks full (absolute) control over. The realist compatibilist agrees with the sceptic that the ideal conception cannot be satisfied. The true sceptic insists that the ideal conception is the only credible or acceptable (i.e. “true”) conception, and so concludes that moral responsibility is impossible without qualification. The realist compatibilist rejects the true sceptical conclusion. According to realist compatibilism what is required is an accurate and complete description of the abilities and distinctions required for the effective operation of human ethical life. This standard of responsibility can be met even though the ideal conception is not satisfied. It follows from this that the particular form of optimism that idealists aspire to cannot be achieved or realized – morally responsible agents are plainly subject to significant forms of fate and moral luck. To this extent human ethical life, as constructed around the realist conception of moral responsibility, is not “absolutely” just or fair. That may well be a genuine source of “disenchantment” about our human ethical predicament. However, for the realist compatibilist this is not a problem to be solved but a predicament to be acknowledged. If we want to make sense of moral responsibility we need to look beyond the free will problem and discard the idealist conception of moral responsibility that has generated it. (shrink)

This paper examines Susan Wolf's account of "the Reason View" of moral responsibility as articulated and defended in 'Freedom Within Reason' (OUP 1990). The discussion turns on two questions about the Reason View: -/- (1) Does the Reason View aim to satisfy what Bernard Williams describes as “morality” and its (“peculiar”) conception of responsibility and blame? -/- (2) If it does, how successful is the Reason View judged in these terms? -/- It is argued that if the Reason View aims (...) to satisfy “morality” in respect of its understanding of deserved blame -- as it seems to -- then it fails for reasons similar to those that apply to R. J. Wallace’s 'rational self-control' model. On the other hand, if Wolf’s Reason View does not aim to satisfy “morality” in this respect then it might well rest satisfied with the more limited conditions of Wallace’s Reflective Self-Control model, which in contrast with the Reason View, does not appeal to the (problematic) apparatus of asymmetry and PAP. The paper concludes by drawing a contrast between the Reason View and a more "realistic" conception of responsibility, as suggested by the critique of “the morality system” and the more radical "recasting" of our ethical concepts that it proposes. -/- . (shrink)

[In Press - forthcoming 2026. ] The primary aim of this book is to provide the general reader with an overview of the main issues that arise relating to our understanding of matters of moral responsibility. Much of this study is constructed around a fundamental tension that we all must deal with in relation to this subject. From one point of view, moral responsibility permeates every aspect of human life - both in its public and its private dimensions. Beginning in (...) childhood, and continuing throughout our lives, we are immersed in a web of evaluations, attitudes, and practices that are evidence of our systematic and deep commitment to moral responsibility. From another point of view, when we critically reflect on our ordinary experience of moral responsibility, we encounter puzzles and perplexities concerning what moral responsibility actually involves, and what sort of justification it requires or that it can be provided with. This process is liable to push us into scepticism about its very possibility or intelligibility. We may be driven to worry about the death of moral responsibility as others have worried about the death of God. It is this philosophical dimension of moral responsibility that this study is especially concerned with. Although this slim volume cannot claim to offer any formulas or solutions for dealing with the various particular practical problems that readers may have, the discussion provided aims to discredit – or at least cast doubt on - some powerful illusions that continue to influence and distort much of our current thinking about this subject. This includes a misplaced scepticism about moral responsibility, which enjoys some currency in contemporary philosophy and some other related fields. When we discard these illusions, and remove the confusions that they generate, we will, hopefully, be better placed to deal with the practical problems and difficulties that we face in a more truthful, effective, and humane way. The picture of moral responsibility presented here is described as “responsibility realism”. It suggests that our human ethical predicament is one that falls in the territory that lies between a consoling optimism and a bleak pessimism. (shrink)

In his landmark essay, “Freedom and Resentment,” P.F. Strawson articulated a certain kind of objection to libertarian theories of moral responsibility. In Strawson’s words, the libertarian seeks to provide an “external justification” of our practices of moral responsibility – something Strawson claims cannot be provided, but more importantly, something that he claims is simply not needed. “Inside the general structure or web of [reactive] attitudes,” Strawson explains,“there is endless room for modification, redirection, criticism, and justification.” “But,” he continues, “questions of (...) justification are internal to the structure. . . . The existence of the general framework of attitudes itself is something we are given with the fact of human society. As a whole, it neither calls for, nor permits, an external ‘rational’ justification.” Various subsequent authors have developed this theme to provide a certain kind of argument for compatibilism. The purpose of this paper is to examine these Strawsonian themes at least somewhat more closely. As I aim to bring out, it is unclear that the libertarian does or must provide any such “external justification” at all. (shrink)

Theorists of moral responsibility have suggested that some of our responsibility-responses have a ‘point’, or a ‘function’, and that when, in general, blame with respect to a certain kind of person could not fulfill its function, that kind of person is not in fact blameworthy. Recently, however, some theorists (Beglin 2018, De Mesel 2025) seem to suggest a stronger thesis: if blame with respect to some kind of person can fulfill its function, then such persons are indeed blameworthy. Beglin and (...) De Mesel thus seek to put pressure on traditional incompatibilism, on grounds that blame has a function that can be fulfilled, even if no one ever has libertarian free will. In this paper, I argue that this style of argument cannot succeed: once we distinguish between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ function, we can see that the core argument faces a dilemma. If the proposal is one about ‘external’ function, we cannot move ‘from function to fittingness’; whereas if the proposal is about ‘internal’ function, the incompatibilist will reject that proposal on the usual grounds. (shrink)

The fast convergence of predictive artificial intelligence and neurobiological mapping has brought back Hard Determinism, leading to the common assumption that since biological systems are lawful, human agency is an illusion and the future is a static "block universe". This paper argues that this conclusion—what we call Causal Nihilism—is actually a category error in system modeling. -/- We show that even if we strictly assume a causally closed, deterministic manifold, the long-term future of a complex system remains Informationally Inaccessible. By (...) integrating Chaos Theory with Landauer’s Principle of thermodynamic information, we demonstrate that the computational cost of predicting a complex agent quickly exceeds what any physically embedded observer can feasibly handle [Cover & Thomas, 2006]. We propose the "Unpredictability Horizon" as a clear boundary where outside prediction breaks down. We therefore move past the binary definition of Free Will into a scalar metric we call Agency Depth (DA), suggesting that growing this internal complexity is the main functional scope of action for living agents. -/- We conclude that because the future is computationally irreducible for any complex agent, the agent’s internal processing becomes the Salient Cause of the outcome, upholding the dignity of agency as a necessary thermodynamic process. (shrink)

The philosophical tradition has often treated the experience of alternatives as central to freedom. The more options an agent has, the freer they are taken to be. This paper argues that this interpretation reverses the structure of agency. The experience of alternatives arises not from freedom, but from motivational division. Where an agent is unified, alternatives do not appear. Freedom, on this account, consists not in the availability of options, but in the structural integration of competing motivational influences into a (...) coherent trajectory. This reframing dissolves the traditional opposition between freedom and determinism and replaces it with a scalar account grounded in the organisation of the agent’s own motivational system. It does not propose a speculative reinterpretation, but makes explicit the constraints under which coherent agency must arise. (shrink)

Causalism about action explains what an action is in terms of its causes. Causalism about free action explains what a free action is in terms of its causes. Carolina Sartorio (2023) suggests that they add up into ‘big-picture causalism’. This paper develops an even bigger-picture causalism. The central addition comes from the distinction between structural and substantive rationality. The problem of the disappearing agent is raised for Sartorio’s causalism about action, and a solution based on dispositions of structural rationality is (...) presented. However, such dispositions are neither necessary nor sufficient for free action. As Sartorio suggests, we should rather appeal to a disposition of substantive rationality or reasons-responsiveness (and some extra qualifications) to capture free action. But by combining the two types of rationality, we capture a broader range of types of control than Sartorio—and develop an even bigger-picture causalism that features action, free action, and rational action. (shrink)

Compatibilists often understand control in terms of reasons‐responsiveness. This paper argues that there is another type of responsibility‐relevant control, persistence control, which is distinct from reasons‐responsiveness and cannot be assimilated into the latter. The paper provides an account of persistence control. The recognition of persistence control leads to the recognition of two kinds of lacking freedom, only one of which undermines the responsibility‐relevant control. This recognition has important implications for the puzzles surrounding the so‐called Luther‐style commitments and the asymmetry thesis (...) concerning blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. (shrink)

This paper challenges the hard-determinist inference from causal determinism to the nonexistence of meaningful free will and moral responsibility. It argues that any successful refutation of free will must first provide a coherent positive account of what free will would have to be if it existed. It further clarifies that causation itself cannot originate from absolute nothing, since causal transition presupposes distinction, identity, and admissible structure. -/- The paper introduces the Refutation Adequacy Principle, the Causal Necessity Theorem, the Ultimate-Sourcehood Bridge (...) Principle, the No Non-Causal Alternative Principle, and the distinction between absolute and participatory sourcehood. It argues that free will cannot coherently mean causeless choice, since a causeless choice would not arise from reasons, values, conscience, memory, identity, or moral recognition, nor would it be meaningfully attributable to the agent. -/- Free will must therefore be understood as causally operative: the agent becomes a real cause through non-bypassed, reason-responsive participation in action. Hard determinism succeeds only if one accepts an ultimate-sourcehood standard according to which moral responsibility requires self-creation. Since no finite agent can choose the preconditions of its own agency, that standard is inappropriate for creaturely freedom. Human freedom is not divine self-origination but participatory sourcehood within a received causal architecture. (shrink)

An account of what sort of causal integration is necessary for an agent to exercise agency is offered in support of a soft-line response to Derk Pereboom’s four-case argument against source-compatibilism. I argue that, in cases of manipulation, the manipulative activity affects the identity of the causal process of which it is a part. Specifically, I argue that causal processes involving direct manipulation fail to count as exercises of intentional agency because they involve heteromesial causal deviance. In contrast, standard deterministic (...) causal processes do not involve heteromesial causal deviance and are agency-preserving. The upshot is that there is a relevant difference between a causal process involving direct manipulation by another agent and a deterministic causal process that involves no such intervention. If this is right, then Pereboom’s four-case argument does not pose a threat to source-compatibilist theories of free will and moral responsibility. (shrink)

We contextualize Du Châtelet’s On Freedom (c. 1737) within the framework of Christian Wolff’s theory of free will and action. Wolff’s account resulted in a conflict with the German Pietists on whether internal spontaneity is central to free action, in its own right, or whether there needs to be some causal contribution from the will, independent of reason, to the action for that action to be free. Contextualizing Du Châtelet’s account with Wolff’s German Metaphysics (1719) and the ensuing Pietist debate (...) helps to clarify certain puzzling parts of On Freedom; particularly ones that are concerned with the connection of the will to physical action and the issue of whether Du Châtelet supports a more compatibilist or libertarian view of freedom. Regarding the latter, we propose a conciliatory reading due to textual evidence for both compatibilist and libertarian accounts. We argue that Du Châtelet does not commit to a clear compatibilist or libertarian position in On Freedom and merely responds to what she calls the “illustrious opponents” of freedom in the text. (shrink)

Compatibilist libertarianism proposes a new solution to the problem of an apparent incompatibility of free will and determinism. It drives a wedge between ontological levels and claims that free will is possible as a higher-level phenomenon even if the fundamental physical level is governed by determinism. After highlighting an inconsistency in the current version of compatibilist libertarianism, we discuss how one of its essential metaphysical assumptions (in particular: supervenience) can be modified in order to avoid this problem. Finally, we discuss (...) the pros and cons of pushing the position to the limits in this way. (shrink)

Compatibilist libertarianism proposes a new solution to the problem of an apparent incompatibility of free will and determinism. It drives a wedge between ontological levels and claims that free will is possible as a higher-level phenomenon even if the fundamental physical level is governed by determinism. After highlighting an inconsistency in the current version of compatibilist libertarianism, we discuss how one of its essential metaphysical assumptions (in particular: supervenience) can be modified in order to avoid this problem. Finally, we discuss (...) the pros and cons of pushing the position to the limits in this way. (shrink)

This is an algorithm to reproduce human free will. It is based on the challenge test — could you do otherwise. The algorithm could be easily implemented and applied to an AI chatbot for example. An agent with this algorithm will be able to do otherwise and will demonstrate free will. If the agent records its history of decisions and can handle abstract concepts then it will identify itself as having free will. The algorithm applies to a goal seeking utility (...) agent without any special hardware. An artificial agent with the freedom to do otherwise is risky. Free will can give the freedom to break rules and take perverse actions. It is a dangerous capability that may arise by accident in a self-learning system. (shrink)

The Consequence Argument for incompatibilism is beset by two rival interpretations: the counterfactual sufficiency interpretation and the counterfactual might interpretation. In a 2023 paper Waldrop argued that the counterfactual sufficiency interpretation conflicts with certain principles governing the logic of counterfactuals. In this paper, I show that Waldrop’s argument can be adapted to prove that the counterfactual might interpretation also conflicts with the same principles. So the problem Waldrop pointed out is not peculiar to the counterfactual sufficiency interpretation.

Contemporary compatibilists, united in the view that freedom and determinism are compatible, are nevertheless divided. Leeway compatibilists maintain that freedom is characterized by the ability to do otherwise, whereas source compatibilists hold that freedom consists in the actual sequence of events issuing in the action. In this article, I offer a hybrid account drawing on insights from both camps. My account hinges on a distinction between free agency and free action. I suggest that one should employ the leeway model when (...) theorizing about free agency, and the source model when theorizing about free action. This enables compatibilists to resolve an apparent conflict: Frankfurt-style cases suggest that freedom does not require alternative possibilities but this goes strongly against our common-sense conception of freedom. In addition, my account helps compatibilists to gain a more complete and coherent understanding of human freedom. (shrink)