The Free Will Problem

Causal determinism: the view that everything that happens is rigidly caused by prior events, so that given the prior history and the laws of nature only one event is (nomologically) possible at any given place and time.

Initial positions:

Hard determinism: genuine freedom is incompatible with causal determinism (because a person could not have done anything other than he did); causal determinism is true (appeal to scientific evidence and common sense); therefore genuine freedom does not exist.

Libertarianism: genuine freedom is incompatible with causal determinism (because a person could not have done anything other than he did); genuine freedom exists (appeal to intuition and common sense); therefore, causal determinism must not be true.

Compatibilism (soft determinism): causal determinism is true (appeal to scientific evidence and common sense); genuine freedom exists (appeal to intuition and common sense); therefore, genuine freedom must not be incompatible with determinism (but must rather be a species of causal determination: having one’s actions determined by one’s own choices rather than by external causes).

Revised positions (in light of the realization that a chance or random event is clearly not an instance of freedom, and also in light of scientific evidence that causal determinism is false):

Hard determinism*: genuine freedom is incompatible with causal determinism; genuine freedom is also incompatible with indeterminism (because an undetermined event would be chance or random); therefore, (since these are the only two possibilities) genuine freedom does not exist.

Compatibilism*: genuine freedom is incompatible with indeterminism (because an undetermined event would be chance or random); genuine freedom exists (appeal to intuition and common sense); therefore, genuine freedom must be a species of causal determination (even if causal determinism is not true in general): having one’s actions determined by one’s own choices rather than by external causes.

Libertarianism*: genuine freedom is incompatible with either causal determination or mere chance or randomness; genuine freedom exists (appeal to intuition and common sense); therefore, a genuinely free action must be neither determined nor random (so that there must be a third alternative—agent causation?).