Abstract

This chapter introduces some traditional positions in the free will debate: (1) standard _compatibilism_, according to which free agenthood is compatible with determinism, and we are indeed free agents; (2) _incompatibilism_, according to which freedom is not compatible with determinism; (3) libertarianism, a form of incompatibilism according to which we are free, and according to which determinism is (therefore) false. According to another view, and (4) the issue of determinism is irrelevant to the question of freedom: whether or not determinism is true, we cannot be free in such a way as to be ultimately morally responsible. A question arises: could believing you are free somehow be a necessary condition of being free? More generally, must one experience one's agency in a certain way in order to be free? A distinction is made between two kinds of conditions of freedom. There are basic capacity conditions on agency, _Structural_ conditions of the sort specified in Chapter 7, and there are _Attitudinal_ conditions, which require a certain sort of _experience_ of one's agency.