Contemporary Incompatibilism: Skeptical Views 269can’t be secured against the determinist compatibilist just by showing that non-
conscious events that precede consciousness causally determine action. For
determinist compatibilists hold that every case of action features such events,
and that this is compatible with free will. In addition, this no- free-will conclu-
sion can’t be secured against most libertarians by showing that there are noncon-
scious events that render actions more probable than not by a factor of 10 percent
above chance (Soon et al. 2008), for almost all libertarians will agree that free
will is compatible with such indeterministic causation by unconscious events at
some point in the causal chain leading to action (De Caro, 2011).
Nahmias (2014) also remarks upon the unusual nature of the Libet- style
experimental situation, that is, one in which a conscious intention to flex at some
time in the near future is already in place, and what is tested for is the subject’s
implementation of this general decision at some specific time. Nahmias points
out that when we drive cars or cook meals we will frequently form a conscious
intention to perform an action of a general sort, whereupon specific implementa-
tions of these general conscious intentions are not preceded by additional spe-
cific conscious intentions. For example, one might form the general conscious
intention to drive home, but the specific turns one makes may not be preceded
by matching specific conscious intentions—one may be on auto- pilot. But in
such cases the general conscious intention nevertheless has the crucial causal
role in producing action. In Libet’s studies, subjects form general conscious
intentions to flex at some time or other when the instructions are given, and if
specific implementations of these general conscious intentions are not preceded
by specific conscious intentions, this would be just like the driving and cooking
examples Nahmias adduces.
The debate about the neuroscientific studies is ongoing and intense, and it
will be interesting to see how it develops in the coming years.
11.5. Derk Pereboom’s Argument for Free Will Skepticism
Pereboom’s case for skepticism about free will features arguments that target the
three rival views, event- causal libertarianism, agent- causal libertarianism, and
compatibilism, and then claims that the skeptical position is the only one that
remains standing. As we explained in the previous chapter (Chapter 10), accord-
ing to event- causal libertarianism, actions are caused solely by way of events,
standardly conceived as objects having properties at times, and some type of
indeterminacy in the production of actions by appropriate events is held to be a
decisive requirement for moral responsibility (Balaguer, 2004, 2009, 2010;
Ekstrom, 2000; Kane, 1996). According to agent- causal libertarianism, free will
of the sort required for moral responsibility is accounted for by the existence of
agents who possess a causal power to make choices without being determined
to do so (Chisholm, 1964, 1976; Clarke, 1993, 2003; Griffith, 2010; Kant,
1781/1787/1987; O’Connor, 2000; Reid, 1788; Taylor, 1966, 1974). In this
view, it is essential that the causation involved in an agent’s making a free