Determinism is a claim about the laws of nature: very roughly, it isthe claim thateverything that happens is determined byantecedent conditions together with the natural laws. Incompatibilismis a philosophical thesis about the relevance of determinism to freewill: that the truth of determinism rules out the existence of freewill. The incompatibilist believes that if determinism turned out tobe true, it would also be true that we don't have, and have never had,free will. The compatibilist denies that determinism has theconsequences the incompatibilist thinks it has. According to thecompatibilist, the truth of determinism does not preclude theexistence of free will. (Even if we learned tomorrow that determinismis true, it might still be true that we have free will.) Thephilosophical problem of free will and determinism is the problem ofunderstanding, how, if at all, the truth of determinism might becompatible with the truth of our belief that we have free will. Thatis, it's the problem of deciding who is right: the compatibilist orthe incompatibilist.

Why an encyclopedia entry on arguments for incompatibilism? (Why notan entry on the problem of free will and determinism?) Perhaps forthis reason: until fairly recently, compatibilism was the receivedview and it was widely believed that arguments for incompatibilismrest on a modal fallacy or fairly obvious mistake (e.g., the mistakeof confusing causation with compulsion, or the mistake of confusingdescriptive with prescriptive laws) (Ayer 1954, Dennett 1984).Compatibilists have also tended to dismiss incompatibilism because ofits guilt by association with a metaphysical worldview thatP. F. Strawson famously dismissed as “obscure and panicky”— dualism, agent-causation (Strawson 1962). Indeed, thanks toStrawson's seminal paper, many compatibilists are convinced that thefree will/determinism problem is not ametaphysical problemat all (as opposed to a problem about moral responsibility whicharises within normative ethics or metaethics) (Wallace 1994). And eventhose compatibilists who regard the problem as a metaphysical problemhave, for the most part, been pre-occupied with defending free willagainst those who argue that free will is eitherimpossible orempirically implausible regardless of whether determinism is trueor false (Wolf 1990). And so the literature on the problem of freewill and determinism has come to be dominated by incompatibilists.

• 1. Definitions and Distinctions
• 2. Classification of Arguments for Incompatibilism
• 3. Arguments based on Intuition
  • 3.1 Garden of Forking Paths Argument
  • 3.2 Manipulation and Design Arguments
• 4. Self-Determination and the Causal Chain argument
• 5. Choice and the Consequence Argument
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Definitions and Distinctions

In the literature, “determinism” is sometimes used as anumbrella term for a variety of different claims which havetraditionally been regarded as threats to free will. Given this usage,the thesis that I am calling “determinism” (nomologicaldeterminism) is just one of several different kinds of determinism,and the free will/determinism problem we will be discussing is one ofa family of related problems. For instance,logicaldeterminism is the thesis that the principle of bivalence holds forall propositions, including propositions about our future actions, andthe problem of free will and logical determinism is the problem ofunderstanding how, if at all, we can have free will if there are truthsabout what we will do tomorrow.Theological determinism is the thesis that God exists and hasinfallible knowledge of all true propositions including propositionsabout our future actions; the problem of free will and theologicaldeterminism is the problem of understanding how, if at all, we canhave free will if God (whocannot be mistaken) knows what we are going to do. (For more on logical determinism,see the entry onfatalism, Taylor 1967, Lewis 1976, Sobel 1998, and Westphal 2006, Bernstein2010, Merricks 2009, and Fischer and Todd 2011. For more ontheological determinism, see the entries onfatalism anddivine foreknowledge.) Although there are instructive comparisons to be made concerninglogical, theological, and nomological determinism, these are outsidethe scope of this article. (For some comparisons between arguments forincompatibilism and arguments for logical fatalism, see van Inwagen1983, Mackie 2003, Perry 2004, and Vihvelin 2008.) We will berestricting ourselves to nomological determinism, and to arguments forthe claim that free will is incompatible with nomologicaldeterminism.

At a first approximation, nomological determinism (henceforth“determinism”), is a contingent and empirical claim aboutthe laws of nature: that they are deterministic rather thanprobabilistic, and that they are all-encompassing rather than limitedin scope. At a second approximation, laws are deterministic if theyentail exceptionless regularities; e.g., that allF's areG's, that allABCD's areE's, and so on. Ata third approximation, the fundamental laws of nature areprobabilistic if they say thatF's have an objective chanceN (less than 1) of beingG's. (Note that so-called“statistical laws” need not be probabilistic laws; seeArmstrong 1983, Loewer 1996a.) The laws of nature are all-encompassingif deterministic or probabilistic laws apply to everything in theuniverse, without any exceptions. If, on the other hand, someindividuals or some parts of some individuals (e.g., the nonphysicalminds of human beings) or some of the behaviors of some of theindividuals (e.g., the free actions of human beings) do not fall undereither deterministic or probabilistic laws, then the laws arenot all-encompassing.

Given these rough definitions of the difference between deterministiclaws, probabilistic laws, and limited laws, we can understanddeterminism as the thesis that a complete description of the state ofthe world at any timet and a complete statement of the lawsof nature together entail every truth about the world at every timelater thant. Alternatively, and using the language ofpossible worlds: Determinism is true at a possible worldwiff the following is true at that world: Any world which has the samelaws of nature asw and which is exactly like w at any timet is exactly likew at all times which are futurerelative tot. (See van Inwagen 1983, Earman 1986, Ginet1990, and the entry oncausal determinism.)

Let's call a world “deterministic” iff the thesis ofdeterminism is true at that world; non-deterministic iff the thesis ofdeterminism is false at that world. There are two very different waysin which a world might be non-deterministic. A world might benon-deterministic because at least some of its fundamental laws areprobabilistic, or a world might be non-deterministic because it has nolaws or because its laws are not all-encompassing. Let's call worldswhich are non-deterministic inonly the first way“probabilistic worlds” and let's call worlds which arenon-deterministic in the second way “lawless” or“partly lawless” worlds.

Determinism is a thesis about the laws, but it should not be confusedwith a philosophical analysis or account of lawhood. In particular,determinism should not be confused with the view of laws that has beencalled “the governing conception of laws” (Beebee 2000),“the pushy explainer view” (entry oncausal determinism), and, most commonly, “the necessitarian view”. It's easyto get confused because determinism is often formulated in a loose andmisleading way, e.g. as the thesis that facts about the pastmetaphysically determine or necessitate or “fix” allfuture facts. Determinism is a claim about the relation of entailmentthat holds between, on the one hand, statements of law and statementsof particular fact at a time, and, on the other hand, statements ofparticular fact at any later time. This claim about entailmentrelations is neutral between different accounts of lawhood, rangingfrom the so-called “naïve regularity” account (Swartz1986) to broadly Humean or “best system” accounts (Lewis1973, Earman 1986, Loewer 1996a, Beebee 2000, Schaffer 2008) tovarious kinds of necessitarian accounts (Shoemaker 1980, Armstrong1983, Carroll 1994 and 2008).

Note that determinism is not a thesis about predictability.Determinism is a thesis about the statements of law that correctlydescribe our world; it says nothing about whether these statements areknowable by finite beings, let alone whether they could, even inprinciple, be used to predict all future events. Chaos theory tells usthat some deterministic systems are very difficult to predict.Quantum mechanics tells us, at least according to someinterpretations, that the behavior of probabilistic systems is, insome respects, easy to predict. And it is at least arguable thatthe behavior of a perfectly rational but lawless or partly lawlesscreature is highly predictable.

Note that determinism is not a thesis about causation; in particular,it is not the thesis that every event has a cause. If, as many peoplenow believe, the fundamental laws are probabilistic rather thandeterministic, this doesn't mean that there is no causation; it justmeans that we have to revise our theories of causation to fit thefacts. And this is what philosophers of causation have done; there areprobabilistic versions of “covering law” theories ofcausation, of counterfactual theories of causation, and so on, for allmajor theories of causation. (See entries on themetaphysics of causation andcounterfactual theories of causation.) It is now generally accepted that it might be true that every eventhas a cause even though determinism is false and thus some events lacksufficient or deterministic causes.

More controversially, it might be true that every event has a causeeven if our world is neither deterministic nor probabilistic. If therecan be causes without laws (if a particular event, object, or personcan be a cause, for instance, without instantiating a law), then itmight be true, even at a lawless or partly lawless world, that everyevent has a cause (Anscombe 1981, van Inwagen 1983).

It's less clear whether determinism entails the thesis that everyevent has a cause. Whether it does so or not depends on what thecorrect theory of causation is; in particular, it depends on what thecorrect theory says about the relation between causation and law.

What is clear, however, is that we shouldnot make theassumption, almost universally made in the older literature, that thethesis, that every event has a cause, is equivalent to the thesis ofdeterminism. This is an important point, because some of the olderarguments in the literatureagainst incompatibilism assumethat the two claims are equivalent. (For instance, the argument thatan event that is not causally determined is random, and for thatreason not under anyone's control. Hobart 1934, Ayer 1954.)

In the older literature, it was assumed that determinism is theworking hypothesis of science, and that to reject determinism is to beagainst science. This no longer seems plausible. Some people thinkthat quantum mechanics has shown determinism to be false. This remainscontroversial (Loewer 1996b), but it is now generally agreed that wecan reject determinism without accepting the view that the behavior ofhuman beings falls outside the scope of natural laws. If mechanismis the thesis that human behavior can be explained in the same kind ofway — in terms of events, natural processes, and laws of nature— as everything else in the universe, then we can rejectdeterminism without rejecting mechanism.

Note, finally, that determinism neither entails physicalism nor isentailed by it. There are possible worlds where determinism is trueand physicalism false; e.g., worlds where minds are nonphysical thingswhich nevertheless obey deterministic laws (van Inwagen 1998). Andthere are possible worlds (perhaps our own) where physicalism is trueand determinism is false.

So much for determinism. What about free will? Here it is verydifficult to say anything without saying something that will becontested by some philosopher. It is generally agreed that problems of free will are problems about our capacity or ability orpower to perform certain kinds of actions — actions with theproperty of being done freely (with free will, of our own free will).It is also generally agreed that we have this capacity only if we atleast sometimes exercise it, and so challenges to the existence offree will or to its compatibility with determinism are usuallychallenges to the claim that anyone (or anyone at a deterministicworld) ever acts with free will or acts freely. (I will be using thesetwo expressions interchangeably.) It is also widely agreed that theexistence of free will is a necessary condition of the existence ofmoral responsibility; if determinism has the consequence that we don'thave free will, it also has the consequence that we are never morallyresponsible. But beyond this there is very little agreement aboutanything. So we will not attempt to provide even a rudimentarydefinition of free will.

It will be useful, however, to have a precise statement of thethesis at issue between compatibilists and incompatibilists.

Let's define thefree will thesis as the thesis that at leastone non-godlike creature has free will. The free will thesis is aminimal claim about free will; it would be true if one person in theuniverse acted with free will on one occasion. We won't assume thatthe free will thesis is true or even possibly true, but let afreewill world be any possible world where the free will thesis istrue. Since non-determinism is the negation of determinism, and sincedeterminism is a contingent thesis, we can divide the set of possibleworlds into two non-overlapping subsets: deterministic worlds andnon-deterministic worlds.

Given this apparatus, we could define incompatibilism andcompatibilism in the following way: incompatibilism is the thesis thatno deterministic world is a free will world. (Equivalently,incompatibilism is the claim that necessarily, if determinism is true,then the free will thesis is false.) And we could definecompatibilism as the denial of incompatibilism; that is, as the claimthat some deterministic worlds are free will worlds. (Equivalently,compatibilism is the claim that possibly, determinism and the freewill thesis are both true.)

This way of defining compatibilism is unproblematic. There arecompatibilists who are agnostic about the truth or falsity ofdeterminism, so a compatibilist need not be a soft determinist (someonewho believes that it is in fact the case that determinism is true andwe have free will). But all compatibilists believe that it is atleast possible that determinism is true and we have free will. So allcompatibilists are committed to the claim that there are deterministicworlds that are free will worlds.

But this definition of incompatibilism has a surprisingconsequence. Suppose, as some philosophers have argued, that we lackfree will because free will is conceptually or metaphysicallyimpossible, at least for nongodlike creatures like us (C.D. Broad1967, G. Strawson 1986, 1994, 2002). If these philosophers are right,there are no free will worlds. And if there are no free will worlds,it follows that there are nodeterministic free will worlds.So if free will is conceptually or metaphysically impossible, at leastfor creatures like us, it follows that incompatibilism (as we havejust defined it) is true. But this doesn't seem right. If it isconceptually or metaphysically impossible for us to have free will,then we lack free willregardless of whether determinism istrue or false. And if that is so, then the incompatibilist cannot saythe kind of things she has traditionally wanted to say: that the truthor falsity of determinism isrelevant to the question ofwhether or not we have free will, that if determinism were true, thenwe would lack free willbecause determinism is true, and soon.

If we want to avoid this counter-intuitive result, there is aremedy. Instead of understanding compatibilism and incompatibilism aspropositions that are contradictories, we can understand them aspropositions that are contraries. That is, we can understandcompatibilism and incompatibilism as claims that can't both be true,but that can both be false. Compatibilism and incompatibilism are bothfalse if a third claim, impossibilism, is true. Impossibilism is thethesis that free will is conceptually or metaphysically impossible fornon-godlike creatures like us.

If we accept this three-fold classification, we can define our termsas follows: Impossibilism is the thesis that there are no free willworlds. Incompatibilism is the thesis that there are free will worldsbut no deterministic world is a free will world. Compatibilism is thethesis that there are free will worlds and free will worlds includedeterministic worlds.

The term ‘impossibilism’ is being coined here; however,the position it describes is recognized in the literature under avariety of names: the “no free will either way” view,“non-realism”, “illusionism”. Theorists whodefend impossibilism include Double 1991, 1992; Strawson 1986, 1994,and 2002; and Smilansky 1993, 2000. Another kind of impossibilist isthe logical fatalist (Taylor 1992).

In the older literature, there were just two kinds of incompatibilists— hard determinists and libertarians. A hard determinist is anincompatibilist who believes that determinism is in fact true (or,perhaps, that it is close enough to being true so far as we areconcerned, in the ways relevant to free will) and because of this welack free will (Holbach 1770, Wegner 2003). A libertarian is anincompatibilist who believes that we in fact have free will and thisentails that determinism is false, in the right kind of way (vanInwagen 1983). Traditionally, libertarians have believed that“the right kind of way” requires that agents have aspecial and mysterious causal power not had by anything else innature: a godlike power to be an uncaused cause of changes in theworld (Chisholm 1964). Libertarians who hold this view are committed,it seems, to the claim that free will is possible only at worlds thatare at least partly lawless, and that our world is such a world. (Butsee Clarke 2003 and O'Connor 2000.) But in the contemporary literaturethere are incompatibilists who avoid such risky metaphysical claims byarguing that free will is possible at worlds where some of our actionshave indeterministic event causes (Kane 1996, 1999, Balaguer 2004, 2010) or thatfree will is possible at worlds where some of our actions are uncaused(Ginet 1990). Note that none of these three kinds of incompatibilists(agent-causation theorists, indeterministic event-causation theorists,non-causal theorists) need be libertarians. They may reserve judgmentabout the truth or falsity of determinism and therefore reservejudgment about whether or not we in fact have free will. They mightalso be hard determinists because they believe that determinism is infact true. But what they do believe — what makes themincompatibilists — is that it ispossible for us tohave free will and that our having free will depends on acontingent fact about thelaws that govern theuniverse: that they are indeterministic in the right kind of way. (Seethe entry onincompatibilist theories of free will.)

Given these definitions and distinctions, we can now take the firststep towards clarifying the disagreement between compatibilists andincompatibilists. Both sides agree that it is conceptually andmetaphysically possible for us to have free will; their disagreementis about whether any of the possible worlds where we have free willare deterministic worlds. The compatibilist says ‘yes’;the incompatibilist says ‘no’. Arguments forincompatibilism must, then, be arguments for the claim thatnecessarily, if determinism is true, we lack the free will we mightotherwise have.

2. Classification of Arguments for Incompatibilism

A common first response to determinism is to think that it means thatour choices make no difference to anything that happens becauseearlier causes havepredetermined or “fixed” ourentire future. On this view, determinism implies that we have adestiny or fate that we cannot avoid, no matter what we choose ordecide and no matter how hard we try.

Man, when running over, frequently without his own knowledge,frequently in spite of himself, the route which nature has marked outfor him, resembles a swimmer who is obliged to follow the current thatcarries him along; he believes himself a free agent because hesometimes consents, sometimes does not consent, to glide with thestream, which, notwithstanding, always hurries him forward. (Holbach1770, p. 197. See also Wegner 2003.)

It is widely agreed, by incompatibilists as well as compatibilists,that this is a mistake. Determinism might imply that our choices andefforts have earlier sufficient causes; it does not imply that wedon't make choices or that our choices and efforts are causallyimpotent. Determinism is consistent with the fact that ourdeliberation, choices and efforts are part of the causal processwhereby our bodies move and cause further effects in the world. And acause is the kind of thing which “make a difference”. If Iraise my hand because I chose to do so, then it's true, ceterisparibus, that if my choice had not occurred, my hand-raising would nothave occurred.

Putting aside this worry, we may classify arguments forincompatibilism as falling into one of two main categories:

1. Arguments for the claim that determinism makes it impossible for ustocause and control our actions in the right kind ofway.
2. Arguments for the claim that determinism deprives us of thepower or ability to do or choose otherwise.

Arguments of the first kind focus on the notions of self, causation,and responsibility; the worry is that determinism rules out the kindof causation that we invoke when we attribute actions to persons(“It was Suzy who broke the vase”) and make judgments of moral responsibility. (“It wasn't her fault; Billy pushedher.”) Someone who argues for incompatibilism in this way mayconcede that the truth of determinism is consistent with the causalefficacy of our deliberation, choices, and attempts to act. But, sheinsists, determinism implies that theonly sense in which weare responsible for our actions is the sense in which a chess-playingcomputer is responsible for its moves. Moral responsibility requiressomething more than this, she believes. Moral responsibility requiresautonomy or self-determination: that our actions are caused andcontrolled by, and only by, our selves. To use a slogan popular inthe literature: We act freely and are morally responsible only if weare the ultimate source of our actions.

Each of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what wedo, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing — or no one— causes us to cause these events to happen. (Chisholm 1964, p.32)

Free will…is the power of agents to be the ultimate creatorsor originators and sustainers of their own ends or purposes…whenwe trace the causal or explanatory chains of action back to theirsources in the purposes of free agents, these causal chains must cometo an end or terminate in the willings (choices, decisions, or efforts)of the agents, which cause or bring about their purposes. (Kane 1996,p. 4)

Arguments of the second kind focus on the notion of choice. To have achoice, it seems, is to have genuine options or alternatives —different ways in which we can act. The worry is that determinismentails that what we do is theonly thing we can do, and thatbecause of this we neverreally have a choiceaboutanything, as opposed to being under the (perhaps inescapable)illusion that we have a choice. Someone who argues for incompatibilismin this way may concede that the truth of determinism is consistentwith our making choices, at least in the sense in which achess-playing computer make choices, and consistent also with ourchoices being causally effective. But, she insists, this is not enoughfor free will; we have free will only if we have a genuine choiceabout what actions we perform, and we have a genuine choice only ifthere is more than one action weare able to perform.

A person has free will if he is often in positions like these: he mustnow speak or be silent, and hecan now speak andcannow remain silent; he must attempt to rescue a drowning child or elsego for help, and he isable to attempt to rescue the childandable to go for help; he must now resign his chairmanshipor else lie to the members; and he has it within his power to resignand he has it within his power to lie. (van Inwagen 1983, p. 8)

By freedom of the will is meant freedom of action. I havefreedomof action at a given moment if more than one alternative courseof action is thenopen to me. Two or more actions arealternatives if it is logically impossible for me to do more than oneof them at the same time. Two or more alternatives are open to me at agiven moment if which of them I do is entirely up to my choice at thatmoment. Nothing that exists up to that moment in time stands in theway of my doing next any one of the alternatives (Ginet 1990,p. 90)

One might question whether these are really independent ways ofarguing for incompatibilism, for the following reason: We cause andcontrol our actions in the “right kind of way” (let's callit the “self-determining way”) only if we have the powerto do or choose other than what we actually do or choose. And if wehave the power to do or choose otherwise, then we also have the power(even if we don't always exercise it) to cause and control our actionsin the self-determining way. That is, there is just one power atissue, not two. The power to cause and control one's actions in theself-determining way is thesame power as the power to do orchoose otherwise. And if there is just one power, then eitherdeterminism entails that we lack this power or it does not.

There is something to this suggestion. It seems that whatdistinguishes us from a chess playing computer (or an even moresophisticated machine) is something that makes it true that ouractions areup to us in some way that the actions of even themost intelligent machines are not. And if our actions are up to us insome special way, then it seems reasonable to suppose that it's trueboth that our power to cause and control our actions differsfrom the causal powers of mere machinesand that thisdifference consists in the fact that we have the power to do or atleast choose to do more than one action.

However, the claim that the power to do otherwise and the power ofself-determination are one and the same is controversial. HarryFrankfurt has argued that a person who is unable to do or even chooseotherwise may nevertheless be morally responsible because she causesand control her actions in the right, self-determining kind of way.(Frankfurt 1969). If he is right, then the power to cause one'sactions in the self-determining way does not entail the power to do orchoose otherwise

Frankfurt's argument has persuaded many, but remains highlycontroversial. (For a good collection of critical essays, see Widerkerand McKenna 2003. See also Lamb 1993 and Vihvelin 2000b, 2008.) Since thereis nothing like a consensus concerning Frankfurt's claim, we won'tassume that the power of self-determination and the power to do orchoose otherwise are one and the same (nor will we assume that theyare different). Nor will we assume that either of these powersmust be understood in a way that entailsincompatibilism. That is, we won't assume that the power ofself-determination entails the falsity of determinism. An influentialcompatibilist program identifies a person's self with some subset ofher motives (e.g., her values or the desires with which sheidentifies) and then argues that a person's free actions are thoseactions which have their source in the agent's self thus understood(Frankfurt 1971, 1988; Watson 1975, 2004; Fischer and Ravizza 1998).Nor will we assume that the power to do otherwise entails the falsityof determinism. This might be true, but we need an argument.

Before we turn to a discussion of either of these two main ways ofarguing for incompatibilism, let's pause to discuss a thirdargumentative strategy.

3. Arguments based on Intuition

Perhaps the most common kind of argument for incompatibilism is anargument that appeals primarily to our intuitions. There are manyvariations on this way of arguing for incompatibilism, but the basicstructure of the argument is usually something along these lines:

If determinism is true, then we are like: billiard balls, windup toys,playthings of external forces, puppets, robots, victims of a nefariousneurosurgeon who controls us by directly manipulating the brain statesthat are the immediate causes of our actions. Billiard balls, …have no free will. Therefore if determinism is true, we don't havefree will.

Intuition-based arguments are inconclusive. Even if determinismentails that there issomething we have in common with thingswhich lack free will, it doesn't follow that there are no relevantdifferences. Billiard balls, toys, puppets, and simple robots lackminds, and having a mind is a necessary condition of having free will. And determinism doesn't have the consequence that all our actions arecaused by irresistible desires that are, like the neurosurgeon'sdirect manipulations, imposed on us by external forces outside ourcontrol. (For criticism of “intuition pumps”, see Dennett1984. For discussion of more complicated cases involving indirectmanipulation, see Section 3.2 below.)

With this caveat in mind, let's take a closer look at the twomost influential intuition-based arguments.

3.1 Garden of Forking Paths Argument

The Garden of Forking Paths argument (van Inwagen 1993, Fischer 1994,Ekstrom 2000) begins by appealing to the idea that whenever we make achoice we are doing (or think we are doing) something like what atraveler does when faced with a choice between different roads. Theonly roads the traveler is able to choose are roads which are acontinuation of the road he is already on. By analogy, the onlychoices we are able to make are choices which are a continuation ofthe actual past and consistent with the laws of nature. If determinismis false, then making choices really is like this: one“road” (the past) behind us, two or more different“roads” (future actions consistent with the laws) in frontof us. But if determinism is true, then our journey through life islike traveling (in one direction only) on a road which has nobranches. There are other roads, leading to other destinations; if wecould get to one of these other roads, we could reach a differentdestination. But we can't get to any of these other roads from theroad we areactually on. So if determinism is true, ouractual future is our only possible future; we can never choose or doanything other than what we actually do. (See also Flint 1987 andWarfield 2003 for discussion of a related argument that appeals to themetaphor of our freedom to “add” to the list of truthsabout the world.)

This is a powerful intuition pump, since it's natural to think of ourfuture as being “open” in the branching way suggested bythe road analogy and to associate this kind of branching structurewith freedom of choice. But several crucial assumptions have beensmuggled into this picture: assumptions about time and causation andassumptions about possibility. The assumptions about time andcausation needed to make the analogy work include the following: thatwe “move” through time in something like the way that wemove down a road, that our “movement” is necessarily inone direction only, from past to future, that the past isnecessarily “fixed” or beyond our control in someway that the future is not. These assumptions are all controversial;on some theories of time and causation (the four-dimensionalist oreternalist theory of time, a theory of causation that permits timetravel and backwards causation), they are all false (Lewis 1976,Horwich 1987, Sider 2001, Hoefer 2002).

The assumption about possibility is that possible worlds are concretespatio-temporal things (in the way that roads are) and that worlds canoverlap (literally share a common part) in the way that roads canoverlap. But most possible worlds theorists reject the firstassumption and nearly everyone rejects the second assumption (Adams1974, Lewis 1986).

Determinism (without these additional and controversial assumptions)doesnot have the consequence that our “journey”through life is like moving down a road; the contrast betweendeterminism and non-determinism isnot the contrast betweentraveling on a branching road and traveling on a road with nobranches.

As an argument for incompatibilism, the appeal to the metaphor of theGarden of Forking Paths fails. If the intuitions to which it appealsnevertheless continue to engage us, it is because we think that ourrange of possible choices is constrained by two factors: the laws andthe past. We can't change or break the laws; we cannot causally affectthe past. (Even if backwards causation is logically possible, it isnot withinour power.) These beliefs — about the lawsand the past — are the basis of the most influential contemporaryargument for incompatibilism: the Consequence argument. More of thislater.

3.2 Manipulation and Design Arguments

We turn now to a family of arguments that work by appealing to ourintuitive response to cases involving two persons, whom we may call“Designer” and “Tool”. Designer designs Tool(in some of the stories, in the way the maker of a robot designs hisrobot or a god creates a human being; in other stories, by employingtechniques of behavioral engineering). Designer's purpose is toensure either that Tool performs a specific action (Mele 1995 and2006, Pereboom 2001, Rosen 2002) or that he will have the kind ofpsychology and motivational structure which will ensure or makeprobable that he performs certain kinds of actions and leads a certainkind of life. (See Kane 1996 for discussion of Huxley'sBrave NewWorld and Skinner'sWalden Two. See also Pereboom2001.)

We are supposed to have the intuition that Tool is not responsiblebecause he acts unfreely and that he acts unfreely because ofDesigner's role in the causation of his actions. Tool performs theactions he performs because that's what he was made (meant, built,designed) to do, and it was Designer who made him that way.

The argument then goes as follows:

1. Tool doesn't act freely and, for that reason, is not morallyresponsible for what he does.
2. If determinism is true, there is no relevant difference betweenTool andany normal case of apparently free and morallyresponsible action.
3. Therefore, if determinism is true no one ever acts freely or ismorally responsible for what he does.

We are supposed to accept premise 1 on the grounds of our intuitiveresponse to the story about Tool. The argument for premise 2 is thatif determinism is true, then we are like Tool with respect to the factthat we are merely theproximate causes of our actions. We dowhat we do because of our psychological characteristics or‘design’, and the causes of our psychologicalcharacteristicsultimately come from outside us, from forces andfactors beyond our control. The only difference between us (inthis imagined scenario in which determinism is true) and Tool is thatour psychological features are not the causal upshot of the work of adesigner (or design team) who had a specific plan for us. But thisfact about the remote causes of our actions — that they arecaused by a variety of natural causes rather than the intentional actsof a single designer or design team — is not relevant toquestions about our freedom and responsibility. Or so it is argued, bythe advocates of Manipulation and Design arguments.

The success of an instance of this argument depends on the case usedto motivate and justify premise 1. What's required is a case (or setof cases) which both grounds our belief that Tool is unfree and whichsupports premise 2. If there is no such case (or set of cases), theargument fails.

Let's begin with cases of theBrave New World variety —cases where children are subjected to intensive behavioral engineeringfrom birth, in a way intended to make them accept their assigned rolesin a rigidly hierarchical society. Everything depends on the details,but it is surely not implausible to think that the subjects ofBrave New World cases lack freedom because their cognitive,evaluational, and volitional capacities have been stunted or impairedin certain ways: “they are incapable of effectively envisagingor seeing the significance of certain alternatives, of reflecting onthemselves and on the origins of their motivations”. (Watson1987.) (See also Wolf 1990, who argues, on the basis of similarcases, that the ability that grounds our freedom and responsibility isthe unimpaired capacity to choose and act in accordance with“the True and the Good”.) Determinism does not have theconsequence that everyone's cognitive, evaluational and volitionalcapacities are impaired in these sorts of ways. So if the Watson/Wolfdiagnosis is right, cases of theBrave New World varietycannot be used to support premise 2. (For other criticisms of some ofthe cases, see Haji 1998, Kapitan 2000, and Fischer 2004.)

Defenders of Manipulation and Design arguments claim, however, thatthe argument works even if these cases are set aside. They say thatthe intuitive force of the argument depends only on the historicalfact that deterministically caused actions are ultimately caused, asare Tool's, by factors and forces outside the agent's control. They say thatthe argument succeeds even in cases where Designer designs a creaturewith unimpaired capacities and a ‘normal’ psychology,perhaps the kind we’d like our children to have, perhaps arationally egoistic psychology of a kind we would prefer our childrennot to have (cf. Plum, as described by Pereboom 2001 and Ernie fromMele 2006).

To remind ourselves that we are now considering only a subset of ouroriginal cases, let's call the person in these cases ‘NormalTool’. If we met Normal Tool, not knowing the peculiar factsabout his history, we would think he was one of us. Pick your favoriteexample of a person you think is free and responsible; call him“Norm”. You may think of Normal Tool as someone who is,for all practical purposes, a psychological and physical duplicate ofNorm. (Neither a psychologist nor close friend would be able to tellthe difference between them.) If historical facts are part of youraccount of freedom and responsibility (eg. if you think that a freeand responsible agent is someone whose current values and deliberativemethods have evolved in certain kinds of ways in response to pastexperience and critical reflection) you may add these features so thatNormal Tool resembles Norm in these ways as well. Despite this, theadvocates of the Manipulation and Design argument claim that, when weadd to our story about Normal Tool the fact that the causes of hisactions trace back, via his ‘design’ and the relevantfacts about the evolution of his ‘design’, to Designer,our intuitive response is that he is neither free norresponsible.

It is far from obvious that this empirical claim about“our” intuitions is correct. It is a notorious fact thatthe intuitions that people have in response to philosophical thoughtexperiments can differ a great deal and that the way in which thethought experiment is presented can affect the intuitionproduced. McKenna (2008) argues that the way in which the stories aretold makes all the difference: If the stories are told carefullyenough, and in a different order (beginning with the case of a normaldeterministic agent who closely resembles Norm) we, or at least manyof us, have the intuition that Normal Tool is both free andresponsible. If so, the argument fails at its first step. (See alsoMele 2006, pp. 139–144, for a different kind of empirical criticism ofPereboom's version of the argument.)

Let's concede, for the sake of argument, that the defenders of theargument are right; we (or most of us, or enough of us) have theintuition that Normal Tool is neither free nor morally responsible,regardless of how the cases are presented. Butwhy do we havethis intuition? Defenders of the argument say that we have it becausewe accept a generalization — that deterministic causation by forcesoutside our control robs us of freedom and responsibility — and NormalTool's case is an instance of this generalization. But there is asimpler and narrower explanation that accounts for ourintuition. We might believe that Normal Tool is unfree because he isDesigner's creature or “tool”; his entire existence is ameans to the achievement of Designer's ends. Of course, Normal Tool isnotliterally a tool insofar as he has his own purposes, hisown values, goals, and plans. But he has these purposes only becauseDesigner gave them to him, and Designer gave him these purposes (andother parts of his nature) so that he would thereby serve Designer'spurposes. We believe that it is Designerrather than Tool whois the true agent of Tool's actions. In short, we believe thatDesigner is not just Tool's designer, nor is he just someone whocauses Tool, somehow or other, to do things. We believe that Designeris Normal Tool'scontroller; he has, and exercises, the powerto cause Normal Tool to do exactly the things he wants him to do.(See also Berofsky 2006.)

If this is the correct explanation of our intuitions concerning NormalTool's unfreedom, then what explains our intuitions does not alsogeneralize in a way that applies to every case of action at adeterministic world. Causation is not the same as control, anddeterminism does not have the consequence that every person has acontroller, nor does it have the consequence that every action iscontrolled by earlier events, forces, or factors (Dennett 1984).

It might be objected that the existence of a designer/controller is abad reason for believing that Normal Tool is unfree. Whatmatters, so far as questions about freedom and responsibility areconcerned, arefacts about the agent, not facts about someoneelse. The existence of a designer/controller is relevant only insofaras it has the consequence that Normal Toollacks the kind ofcontrol that is required for freedom and responsibility.(“My freedom to dance is equally impaired whether my legs areparalysed by organic disease or shackled by human hands”. Watson1987, p. 171.)

This may be right. But it is beside the point. A causal explanation isnot necessarily a justification, and what causally explains ourintuitions about Normal Tool's unfreedom need not also justify thoseintuitions. It's an empirical question whether this proposed causalexplanation of our intuitions is correct. But if it is, then theManipulation and Design argument is in trouble. For either theexplanation is also a justification, in which case there is a relevantdifference between Normal Tool and a normal deterministic agent. Orthe explanation is not a justification, in which case our intuitionsabout Normal Tool are suspect because they are based on badreasons.

A defender of the argument might respond as follows: “Granted,our intuitions may be based on bad reasons. But they mightnevertheless direct us towards good reasons. Before we thought aboutdeterminism, we thought that Normal Tool is unfree because of theexistence of Designer/Controller. This was a bad reason for thinkinghim unfree. But now that we have reflected about the nature andimplications of determinism, we see that Normal Tool is exactly like anormal deterministic agent in a way that is intuitively relevant tofreedom and responsibility: the actions of both are ultimately causedby something beyond their control (another agent, in Normal Tool'scase; natural forces and factors, in the deterministiccase). Therefore, there is no relevant difference between the two and,since Normal Tool acts unfreely, so does the normal deterministicagent.”

There are two problems with this reply. First, our intuitions aboutthe case of Normal Tool were supposed to support the verdict ofunfreedom about the normal deterministic case. If we can no longerassume that our intuitions are justified, we can no longer use theseintuitions to support our belief about the unfreedom of the normaldeterministic agent. We can agree that there are no relevantdifferences between the two, but this leaves open the possibility thatboth are free, as well as the possibility that both are unfree.Second, the relevant similarity claimed between Normal Tool and anormal deterministic agent is ahistorical fact about the remotecauses of their actions. But historical facts (whether aboutcontrollers or other remote causes) are relevant to an agent's freedomonly insofar as these facts have the consequence that the agent lacksthe kind of control over himself and his actions that is required forfreedom and responsibility. The free will/determinism problem is theproblem of deciding whether facts about the deterministic causes ofactions are the kind of facts that have this consequence. Let us turn,then, to the two main kinds of argument for this claim.

4. Self-Determination and the Causal Chain argument

What has this boy to do with it? He was not his own father; he wasnot his own mother; he was not his own grandparents. All of this washanded to him. He did not surround himself with governesses and wealth.He did not make himself. And yet he is to be compelled to pay. (Darrow1924, p. 65)

Libertarians and incompatibilists do not want indeterminism for itsown sake…indeterminism is something of a nuisance for them. Itgets in the way and creates all sorts of trouble. What they want isultimate responsibility and ultimate responsibility requiresindeterminism. (Kane 1989, p. 121)

Let's turn now to arguments for incompatibilism based on the idea thata free and responsible action is an action that is caused andcontrolled by its agent in a special self-determining way, a way thatis incompatible with deterministic event-causation.

The most popular instance of this kind of argument is an argument thatI will call “the desperate defense attorney's argument”(Darrow 1924). The defense attorney's argument is simple:

1. My client is responsible for his crime only if he “madehimself” — that is, only ifhe caused himself tobe the kind of person he is.
2. My client did not make himself.
3. Therefore my client is not responsible for his crime.

The defense attorney is trying to persuade the jurors that his clientis not responsible for his action, but not for any of the standardexcusing conditions — insanity, accident, mistaken belief,duress, mental handicap, and so on. Nor does he claim that there isanything that distinguishes his client from any of the rest of us. Hisargument is that his client is not responsible because he did not makehimself. But none of us has made ourselves (at least not from scratch)— we are all the products of heredity and environment. So if weaccept the defense attorney's argument, it appears that we arecommitted to the conclusion thatno one is ever responsible foranything.

It's not clear that this is an argument for incompatibilism. It's anargument for incompatibilism only if it's an argument for harddeterminism — that is, if it's an argument for the thesis thatdeterminism is true andbecause of this we are neverresponsible for anything. Let's take a closer look.

What's the argument for premise (2)? After all, we do make our selves,at least in the garden-variety way in which we make other things: weplant gardens, cook dinners, build boats, write books and, over thecourse of our lives, re-invent, re-create, and otherwise “makesomething of ourselves”. Of course we don't do any of thesethings “from scratch”, without help from anyone oranything else, but it's impossible (or at least impossible for humanbeings) to make anything from scratch. The truth or falsity ofdeterminism has no bearing on this point.

(See G. Strawson 1986, 1994, and 2002 for an argument for theimpossibility of “true responsibility”that is based on a more sophisticated version of the defense attorney'sargument. See also Smilansky 2000. See Clarke 2005 and Mele 1995for a critique of Strawson's argument.)

If we pressed our defense attorney (or brought in a philosopher tohelp him out), we might get the following reply: Making our actions(and thereby our selves) in the way that we make dinners, gardens,boats, and books is not good enough because we are talking about moralresponsibility. In order to be truly responsible — in a way thatallows us to justify blame and punishment — for our actionswe must be theultimate sources orfirstcauses of the choices we make. Of course we can't be thesolecause of what we do because of our choice; we have to work withthe raw material of our physical bodies and that part of the way weare that is the product of external causes. And of course the successof our attempts to act on our choices depends on factors outside ourcontrol (Nagel 1976). But in order to be responsible for the upshotsof our choices, we must be responsible for our choices. And we areresponsible for our choices only ifwe cause our choices and noone and nothing causes us to cause them.

The defense attorney (or philosopher) is defending premise (2) byarguing for a certain interpretation of premise (1) — that ourresponsibility for our actions requires that we have “madeourselves” in the sense that, over the course of our lives, wehave frequently been the first cause of the choices that result inactions and thus eventually (albeit often in ways we can neitherpredict nor control) to changes in our selves. In arguing this way, hehas shifted the focus of the argument from theobviouslyimpossible demand that moral responsibility requires (entirely)self-made selves to the intuitively appealing and at leastnotobviously impossible demand that moral responsibility requireswhat Robert Kane has called “ultimate responsibility” (thatwe are the ultimate sources or first causes of at least some of ourchoices, decisions, intentions, or acts of will). (See Kane 1996. Seealso Chisolm 1964, Zimmerman 1988, Clarke 1993, 1996, and 2003,O'Connor 1995 and 2000, and Pereboom 2001.)

Insofar as this is an argument for incompatibilism, it is an argumentfor the claim that determinism entails that we aremere links in acausal chain and thereforemerely the proximate causesof our choices. Our choices cause our actions, but our choices arecaused by our beliefs and desires (or values, reasons, charactertraits, etc.) and these in turn have external causes. So ifdeterminism is true, then the way in which our actions are caused doesnot, after all, differ in any relevant way, from the way that the‘actions’ of the chess-playing computer are caused.

This brings us to the philosopher's version of the defense attorney'sargument. Let's call it the ‘Causal Chain argument’. (Forvariations on this kind of argument, see Kane 1996, McKenna 2001, andPereboom 2001.)

1. We have free will (of the kind required for moral responsibility)only ifwe are the ultimate sources (originators, firstcauses) of our choices.
2. If determinism is true, then everything we do is ultimately causedby events and circumstances outside our control.
3. If everything we do is ultimately caused by events andcircumstances outside our control, thenwe are not theultimate sources (originators, first causes) of our choices.
4. Therefore, if determinism is true, we are not the ultimate sourcesof our choices.
5. Therefore, if determinism is true, we don't have free will (of thekind required for moral responsibility).

Premise (2) follows from the definition of determinism (at least giventwo widely accepted assumptions: that there is causation in adeterministic universe and that causation is a transitive relation).(For some doubts about the latter assumption, see Hall 2000, andHitchcock 2001). Premise (3) is clearly true. So if we want to rejectthe conclusion, we must reject Premise (1).

Compatibilists have argued against (1) in two different ways. On thepositive side, they have argued that we can give a satisfactoryaccount of the (admittedly elusive) notion of self-determinationwithout insisting that self-determination requires us to be the firstcauses of our choices (see Bok 1998, Dennett 1984, Fischer 1994,Fischer and Ravizza 1998, Frankfurt 1971 and 1988, Wallace 1994 and2002, Watson 1975, 1987 and 2004, Wolf 1990). On the negative side,compatibilists have challenged (1) by arguing that it is of no help tothe incompatibilist: if we accept (1), we are committed to theconclusion that free will and moral responsibility areimpossible, regardless of whether determinism is true orfalse.

The challenge to (1) takes the form of a dilemma: Either determinismis true or it's not. If determinism is true, then my choices areultimately caused by events and conditions outside my control, so I amnot their first cause and therefore, if we accept (1), I am neitherfree nor responsible. If determinism is false, then something thathappens inside me (something that I call “my choice” or“my decision”) might be thefirst event in acausal chain leading to a sequence of body movements that I call“my action”. But since this event is not causallydetermined, whether or not it happens is a matter of chance or luck.Whether or not it happens has nothing to do withme; it isnot under my control any more than an involuntary knee jerkis under my control. Therefore, if determinism is false,I amnot the first cause or ultimate source of my choices and, if we accept(1), I am neither free nor responsible (Ayer 1954, Wolf 1990).

In order to defend (1) against the so-called “determined orrandom” dilemma, above, the incompatibilist has to offer apositive account of the puzzling claim thatpersons are thefirst causes of their choices. The traditional incompatibilist answeris that this claim must be taken literally, at face value. We —agents, persons, enduring things — are causes with a veryspecial property: we initiate causal chains, but nothing and no onecauses us to do this. Like God, we are uncaused causers, or firstmovers. For instance, if Joe deliberately throws a rock, which breaksa window, then the window's breaking (an event) was caused by Joe'sthrowing the rock (another event), which was caused by Joe's choice(another event). But Joe's choice was not caused by any furtherevent, not even the event of Joe's thinking it might be fun to throwthe rock; it was caused byJoe himself. And since Joe is notan event, he is not the kind of thing which can be caused. (Or so itis argued, by defenders of the conceptual possibility ofagent-causation. See Chisolm 1964 and O'Connor 1995 and 2000, andPereboom 2001.)

Many philosophers think that agent-causation is either incoherent orimpossible, due to considerations about causation. What sense does itmake to say that a person or other enduring thing, as opposed to achange in a thing, or thestate of a thing at atime, is a cause? (Broad 1952, Bok 1998. See also Clarke 2003 for adetailed and sympathetic examination of the metaphysics ofagent-causation, which ends with the conclusion that there are, onbalance, reasons to think that agent-causation is impossible.)

Others (Broad 1952, Taylor 1960, van Inwagen 2000, Mele 2006) haveargued that even if agent-causation is possible, it would not solvethe problem of transforming an undetermined event into one which is inour control in the way that our free choices must be.

Recently some incompatibilists have responded to the “determinedor random” dilemma in a different way: by appealing to the ideaof probabilistic causation (Kane 1996). If our choices are eventswhich have probabilistic causes (e.g., our beliefs, desires, and otherreasons for acting), then it no longer seems plausible to say that wehaveno control over them. We make choices for reasons, andour reasons cause our choices, albeit indeterministically. Kane'sreply may go some way towards avoiding the second (no control) horn ofthe dilemma. But it doesn't avoid the first horn. If our reasons causeour choices, then ourchoices are not the first causes of ouractions. And our reasons are presumably caused, eitherdeterministically or probabilistically, so they are not the firstcauses of our actions either. But then our actions areultimately caused by earlier events over which we have no control andwe are not the ultimate sources or first causes of our actions.

5. Choice and the Consequence Argument

… determinism … professes that those parts of theuniverse already laid down absolutely appoint and decree what the otherparts shall be. The future has no ambiguous possibilities hidden in thewomb. The part that we call the present is compatible with only onetotality. Any other future complement than the one fixed from eternityis impossible. The whole is in each and every part, and welds it withthe rest into an absolute unity, an iron block, in which there can beno equivocation or shadow of turning…. necessity on the one handand impossibility on the other are the sole categories of the real.Possibilities that fail to get realized, are, for determinism, pureillusions; they never were possibilities at all. (James, 1884, p.150–51)

We think that we make choices, and we think that our choices typicallymake a difference to our future. We think that there is a point todeliberation: how we deliberate — what reasons we consider— makes a difference to what we choose and thus to what wedo. We also think that when we deliberate we are trying to decidewhich, of many possible futures, is the one we want to make actual.That is, we believe that therereally is more than one choicewecan make, more than one action wecan perform,and more than one future which is, at least partly,within ourpower to bring about.

Our beliefs about our power with respect to the future contrastsharply with our beliefs about our lack of power with respect to thepast. We don't think we haveany choice about the past. Wedon't deliberate about the past; we think it irrational to do anythingaimed at trying to change or affect the past. (“You had yourchance; you blew it. It's too late now to do anything aboutit.”) Our beliefs about our options, opportunities,alternatives, possibilities, abilities, powers, and so on, are allfuture-directed. We may summarize this contrast by saying that wethink that the future is “open”in some sensethat contrasts with the non-openness or “fixity” of thepast.

Although we don't think we (now) have a choice about the past, we havebeliefs about whatwas possible for us in the past. Whencalled upon to defend what we did, or when we blame or reproachourselves, or simply wonder whether we did the right thing (or thesensible thing, the rational thing, and so on), we evaluate our actionby comparing it to what we believe were our other possible actions,at that time. We blame, criticise, reproach, regret, and soon, only insofar as we believe we had alternatives. And if we laterdiscover that we were mistaken in believing that some actionX was among our alternatives, we think it is irrational tocriticise or regret our failure to do X.

Is determinism compatible with the truth of these beliefs? Inparticular, is it compatible with the belief that we are often able tochoose and do more than one action?

Incompatibilists have traditionally said “No”. And it'snot hard to see why. If we think of ‘can’ in the“open future” way suggested by the commonsense view, thenit's tempting to think that the past isnecessary in someabsolute sense. And it's natural to think that we are able to dootherwise only if wecan do otherwise given the past; thatis, only if our doing otherwise is a possible continuation of thepast. If we follow this train of thought, we will conclude that we areable to do otherwise only if our doing otherwise is apossiblecontinuation of the past consistent with the laws. But ifdeterminism is true, there is onlyone possible continuationof the past consistent with the laws. And thus we get James'conclusion: Determinism says that the actual future is necessary andany other future is impossible. What will be,must be. Whatwill not be,cannot be.

But this argument is too quick. There is an alternative explanationfor our beliefs about the “open” future as opposed to the“fixed” past — the direction of causation. Causalchains run from past to future, and not in the other direction. Ourdeliberation causes our choices, which cause our actions. But not theother way around. Our choices cause future events; they never causepast events. Why causation works this way is a deep and difficultquestion, but the leading view, among philosophers of science, is thatthe temporal asymmetry of causation is a fundamental but contingentfact about our universe. If things were different enough — if wecould travel backwards in time — then we would have an abilitythat we don't actually have — the ability to causally affectpast persons and things (Horwich 1987, Lewis 1976). If this is right,then we don't need to suppose that the past is metaphysically orabsolutely necessary in order to explain the open future/fixed pastcontrast. The pastcould have been different. But, given theway things actually are (given the contingent fact that accounts forthe forward direction of causation), there is nothing thatweare able to do that would cause the past to be different.

This alternative explanation of our commonsense belief about thecontrast between open future and fixed past allows the compatibilistto say the kind of things that compatibilists have traditionallywanted to say: The “can” of freedom of choice is the‘can’ of causal and counterfactual dependence. Our futureis open because it depends causally and counterfactually, on ourchoices, which in turn depend, causally and counterfactually, on ourreasons. (At least in the normal case, where there is neither externalconstraint nor internal compulsion or other pathology.) If our reasonswere different (in the appropriate way), we would choose otherwise,and if we chose otherwise, we would do otherwise (Moore 1912, Lehrer1980). And our reasonscan be different, at least in thesense that we, unlike simpler creatures and young children, have theability (skill, capacity) to critically evaluate the reasons (beliefs,desires, values, principles, and so on) that we have and, at leastsometimes exercise, the ability to change our reasons (Bok 1998,Dennett 1984, Fischer 1994, Frankfurt 1988, Lehrer 1980, Wallace 1994,Watson 1975, 1987, and 2004, Wolf 1990). All this is compatible withdeterminism. So the truth of determinism is compatible with the truthof our commonsense belief that we really do have a choice about thefuture, that we really can choose and do other than what we actuallydo.

Incompatiblists think that this, andany compatibilistaccount of the ‘can’ of freedom of choice, is, andmust be, mistaken. But they have traditionally had a hardtime explaining why. The Consequence Argument, due chiefly to Ginetand van Inwagen (Ginet 1966, 1980, 1983, 1990, van Inwagen 1974, 1975,1983; but see also Wiggins 1973 and Lamb 1977) is widely regarded asthe best argument for the conclusion that if determinism is true, thenno one everreally has a choice about anything. In theremainder of this section we will take a closer look at van Inwagen'sversion of this important and influential argument.

InAn Essay on Free Will (1983), van Inwagen presents threeformal arguments which, he says, are intended as three versions of thesame basic argument, which he characterized as follows:

If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequence of laws ofnature and events in the remote past. But it's not up to us what wenton before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws ofnature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including ourpresent acts) are not up to us. (p. 56)

We will begin by looking at the third version of the argument (themodal argument) and conclude by considering David Lewis's criticism ofthe first (truth-functional) version of the argument. The modalargument uses a modal sentential operator which van Inwagen defines asfollows: ‘Np’ abbreviates‘p and no one has, or ever had, any choice aboutwhetherp’. Van Inwagen tells us that the logic of‘N’ includes these two inference rules,where □p asserts that it is logically necessity thatp:

Alpha:
From □p, we may inferNp.

Beta:
FromNp andN(p ⊃q), we may inferNq.

In the argument below, ‘L’ is an abbreviation fora sentence expressing a conjunction of all the laws of nature;‘H’ is a sentence expressing a true propositionabout the total state of the world at some time in the distant pastbefore any agents existed; ‘□’ is ‘it islogically necessary that’; ‘⊃’ is the materialconditional, and ‘P’ is a dummy for which we maysubstitute any sentence which expresses a true proposition.

The argument is a conditional proof: Assume determinism and showthat it follows that no one has, or ever had, a choice aboutany true proposition, including propositions about theapparently free actions of human beings.

1.	□((H &L) ⊃P)	definition of determinism
2.	□(H ⊃ (L ⊃P)	from 1, by modal and sentential logic
3.	N(H ⊃ (L⊃P))	from 2, by rule Alpha
4.	NH	premise, fixity of past
5.	N(L ⊃P)	from 3, 4, by rule Beta
6.	NL	premise, fixity of laws
7.	NP	from 5, 6, by rule Beta

Premises (1) and (2) follow from determinism. (3) follows from (2), byapplication of rule Alpha. Rule Alpha is uncontroversial. If somethingis a logically necessary truth, then no one has, or ever had, anychoice about it.

Premises 4 and 6 also look uncontroversial. N necessity isn't logicalor metaphysical necessity. We can insist that the laws and the distantpastcould, in the broadly logical sense, have beendifferent, so neither □H nor □L aretrue. But it still seems undeniably true thatwe havenochoice about whether the laws and the distant past are the waythey are; there is nothing thatwe are able to do that wouldmake it the case that either the laws or the distant past aredifferent from the way they actually are.

Rule Beta is the key to the argument. It's what makes the differencebetween the modal version of the Consequence Argument and an argumentwidely agreed to be fallacious.

□(P ⊃Q)
P
Therefore, □Q

An example of this invalid inference is an argument sometimes called“the fatalist fallacy”:

□(it's true that it will rain tomorrow ⊃ it willrain tomorrow)
It's true that it will rain tomorrow
Therefore, □(it will rain tomorrow)

Another example:

□((H &L) ⊃P)
H &L
Therefore, □P

On the other hand, the following is a valid inference:

□P
□(P ⊃Q)
Therefore, □Q

The necessity expressed by the ‘no choice about’ operatoris not logical or metaphysical necessity. But it might nevertheless besimilar enough for Beta to be a valid rule of inference. Or so arguedvan Inwagen, who gave examples:

N(The sun explodes in the year 2000)
N(The sun explodes in the year 2000 ⊃ All life on earth ends in the year 2000)
Therefore,N(All life on earth ends in the year 2000)

An early response to the Consequence argument was to argue that Betais invalidbecause a compatibilist account of ability to dootherwise is correct (Gallois 1977, Narveson 1977, Foley 1979, Slote1982, Flint 1987). For instance, if “S is able to doX” means “ifS chose to doX,S would doX”, then the premises of theargument are true (since even ifS chose to change the lawsor the past, she would not succeed), but the conclusion is false(since determinism is consistent with the truth of conditionals like“ifS chose to raise her hand, she would”).

Incompatibilists were unmoved by this response, saying, in effect,that the validity of Beta is more plausible than the correctness ofany compatibilist account of ability to do otherwise. They pointedout that there was no agreement, even among compatibilists, about howsuch an account should go, and that the simplest accounts (so-called“Conditional Analyses”, originally proposed by G.E. Moore1912) had been rejected, even by compatibilists.

(For criticism of Conditional Analyses, see Austin 1961, Berofsky2002, Lehrer 1968, and van Inwagen 1983. For defense of acompatibilist account of ability to do otherwise, see Kapitan 1991,1996, and 2002, Lehrer 1980, Bok 1998, Smith 1997 and 2004,Campbell 2004, Perry 2004, and Vihvelin 2004. For defense of theclaim that the ability to do otherwise is not necessary for moralresponsibility and/or any variety of free will worth wanting, seeFrankfurt 1969, Dennett 1984, Fischer 1994, and Fischer andRavizza 1998.)

More recently, van Inwagen has conceded that Beta is invalid (vanInwagen, 2000). McKay and Johnson (1996) showed that Beta entailsAgglomeration:

Np
Nq
Therefore,N(p &q)

Agglomeration is uncontroversially invalid. To see this, let‘p’ abbreviate “The coin does not land heads”,let ‘q’ abbreviate ‘The coin does not landtails’, and suppose that it's a fair coin which isn't tossed butsomeone could have tossed it (McKay and Johnson 1996).

(For cases that are counterexamples to Beta, see Widerker 1987,Huemer 2000, and Carlson 2000.)

Van Inwagen proposed to repair the Consequence argument by replacing‘N’ with‘N*’, where‘N*p’ says “p andno one can, or ever could, do anything such that if she did it,p might be false”. Agglomeration is valid for‘N*’, and thus this particular objectionto the validity of Beta does not apply.

It has also been suggested (Finch and Warfield 1998) that theConsequence argument can be repaired by keeping‘N’ and replacing Beta with Beta 2:

Beta 2:
FromNp and □(p ⊃q), we may inferNq

This would yield the following argument:

N(L &H)	fixity of laws and past
□((L &H) ⊃P)	determinism
NP	from 1, 2 by Beta 2

Other ways of repairing the argument have been proposed byO'Connor 1993 and Huemer 2000.

These revised versions of the Consequence argument may not be asplausible as the original version, but it still looks as though thecompatibilist is in trouble. For it seems plausible to suppose thatthere is nothing that we are able to do thatmight make itthe case that eitherH orL is false. And it seemsplausible to suppose that we have no choice about whether (H&L). We need to dig deeper to criticize theargument.

Lewis (1981) begins with a clear and elegant statement of the firstversion of the argument. Paraphrasing slightly, it goes like this:

Suppose that determinism is true, and that I just put my hand down onmy desk. As a compatibilist, I claim that this is a free butdetermined act. I was able to act otherwise, for instance to raise myhand. But there is a true historical propositionH about theintrinsic state of the world long ago, and a true propositionL specifying the laws of nature, such thatH andL jointly determine what I did, and jointly contradict theproposition that I raised my hand. If I had raised my hand, then atleast one of three things would have been true: contradictions wouldhave been true,H would not have been true, orLwould not have been true. So if I claim that I am able to raise myhand, I am committed to the claim that I have one of three incredibleabilities: the ability to make contradictions true, the ability tochange the past, or the ability to break (or change) the laws. It'sabsurd to suppose that I have any of these abilities. Therefore, byreductio, I could not have raised my hand.

Lewis replies by agreeing that if he had raised his handcontradictions would still not be true, and agreeing that if he hadraised his hand,H would still have been true. What aboutL? Lewis draws a distinction between twocounterfactuals:

(C1) If I had raised my hand,L would not havebeen true. (“… a law would have been broken”)

(C2) If I had raised my hand, my act would have been or caused anevent which entails not-L (“… would have been orcaused a law-breaking event”)

Lewis accepts (C1) (for the theory of counterfactuals which supportsthis claim, see Lewis 1973 and 1979), but denies (C2). He thendistinguishes between two ability claims:

(A1) I am able to do something such that if I did it,L wouldnot have been true (“…a law would have beenbroken”)

(A2) I am able to do something such that if I did it, my act wouldhave been or caused an event which entails not-L(“…would have been or caused a law-breakingevent”)

As a compatibilist who accepts (C1), Lewis is committed to the truthof (A1). But since he rejects (C2), he is not committed to (A2). Andit is (A2) rather than (A1) which describes an incredible ability. Orso Lewis argues. (For criticism and discussion, see Beebee 2003,Oakley 2006, and Graham 2008.)

If Lewis is right, the Consequence argument fails to show that anycompatibilist account of ability to do otherwisemust bemistaken. Lewis is basically saying that the Consequence argumentequivocates between two ways of understanding ability claims (whenthey are applied to propositions) and two correspondingly differentways of understanding the “N” necessityof a proposition. The compatibilist is committed to the claim thatfree determined agents have the ability to do something such that ifthey did it, then eitherH would not have been true orL would not have been true. But this is just another way ofsaying something that compatibilists have always said: that someonemay have the ability to doX even though she would notexercise her ability unless different circumstances obtained (e.g.,circumstances which provide her with reasons for doingX). The compatibilist isnot committed to the claimthat free determined agents have the ability tocause eitherthe past or the laws to be different. So the compatibilist is notcommitted to any incredible claims about the abilities of free agents.(See also Fischer 1983, 1988, and 1994, Horgan 1985, Vihvelin 1991,Kapitan 1991, 1996, and 2002, Carlson 2000, and Schneider 2004.)

If the aim of the Consequence argument was to show that nocompatibilist account of ‘could have done otherwise’can succeed, then Lewis is surely right; the reductio fails.The distinction between (A1) and (A2) (and a similar distinctionconcerning ability with respect to the past) permits the compatibilistto avoid making incredible claims about the powers of free determinedagents. On the other hand, the incompatibilist surely has a point whenshe complains that it is difficult to believe that anyone has theability described by (A1). We believe that our powers as agents areconstrained by the pastand by the laws. Granted, one way tounderstand this belief is the way the compatibilist suggests:welack causal power over thepast and thelaws.But it's natural to understand the constraint in a different, simplerway: we have the power to do only those things which we can do,given the past and the laws. And this leads more or lessdirectly to the incompatibilist conclusion that if determinism istrue, then we are never able to do otherwise.

This brings us back to our starting point. Our common sense web ofbeliefs about ourselves as deliberators, choosers, and agents includesthe belief that the future is open in some sense that the past is not.It also includes the belief that our abilities and powers areconstrained by the laws. One way of understanding these beliefs leadsto incompatibilism; another way does not. Which one is right?

The Consequence argument is an attempt to provide anargumentin defense of the incompatibilist's way of understanding these commonsense beliefs. Even if it fails as a reductio, it has been successfulin other ways. It has made it clear that the free will/determinismproblem is a metaphysical problem and that the underlying issuesconcern questions about our abilities and powers, as well as moregeneral questions about the nature of causation, counterfactuals, andlaws of nature. Can the abilities or powers of choosers and agents beunderstood as a kind of natural capacity or disposition? Is there aviable incompatibilist alternative? How should we understandcounterfactuals about the alternative actions and choices of agents atdeterministic worlds? Is the compatibilist proposal about the way inwhich the laws and past constrain us defensible? Are incompatibilistscommitted to the defense of a particular view about the nature of lawsof nature? Are they committed to the rejection of a Humean view, forinstance?

Insofar as the Consequence argument has pointed us in the directionof these deep and difficult underlying metaphysical questions, itrepresents a significant step forward in the discussion of one of themost intractable problems of philosophy. (For discussion of some ofthese modal and metaphysical issues, see Lewis 1973, 1979 and 1981, Berofsky1987, Smith 1997 and 2004, Vihvelin 1991, 2000a and 2004, Stone 1998,Markosian 1999, O'Connor 2000, Beebee and Mele 2002, Beebee2003, Bennett 2003, Clarke 2003, Perry 2004 and 2008, van Inwagen2004a, Smith 2004, and Fara 2008.)

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