Position
Compatibilism
Free will is compatible with causal determinism: an action is free when it flows from the agent's own reasons, desires, or character, whether or not those are themselves causally determined.
Classification
- Position level
- specific
- Domains
- Ethics , Metaphysics
Overview
The compatibilist denies that the free-will question turns on whether determinism is true. What matters is the source of an action: whether it flows from the agent's own deliberation, desires and character, or from coercion, compulsion or manipulation that bypasses them. A determined action can meet that test; a coerced one cannot, determinism or no determinism.
The recurring objection is that this relocates the problem rather than solving it. If an agent's character and desires were themselves fixed by causes reaching back before their birth, then a manipulated agent and an ordinary one differ in their proximate story but not in any way that looks capable of grounding responsibility.
Position on
Incompatible positions
- Hard Determinism
Question scope: Free Will
- Libertarian Free Will
Question scope: Free Will
References
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Compatibilism
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Compatibilism, §1 (compatibilism and hard determinism agree that determinism holds and disagree over whether a determined agent acts freely)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Incompatibilist Theories of Free Will, §1 (libertarianism asserts the incompatibility thesis that compatibilism denies)