Free Will A Contemporary Introduction

The Free Will Problem 31

compatibility thesis about what is possible—a world that is determined and in
which some persons act freely—they are realists about free will.
The definition of incompatibilism specifies only that free will is incompatible
with determinism. Incompatibilists might or might not in addition hold that free
will is incompatible with indeterminism as well. Many incompatibilists maintain
that some type of indeterminism is true and makes room for free will. Others
contend that even if indeterminism is true, this will not help the case for free
will. These differences will be captured by further distinctions we set out below.
In addition, an incompatibilist who believes that free will is compatible with
indeterminism might nevertheless remain agnostic about whether anyone has
free will insofar as he does not know whether indeterminism is true, and whether
indeterminism of the free- will-friendly sort is true (e.g., Ginet, 1990).
Now consider the most basic distinction between different types of incompat-
ibilism, the distinction between libertarianism and hard determinism. Libertari-
anism is the incompatibilist thesis that determinism is false and persons have
free will. More carefully:

Libertarianism is the thesis that incompatibilism is true, that determinism is

false, and at least one person has free will.

Hard determinism is the incompatibilist thesis that because determinism is true,
no one has free will. More carefully:

Hard determinism is the thesis that incompatibilism is true, that determin-

ism is true, and therefore no person has free will.

The “hard” in “hard determinism” connotes the tough- minded position one
should take about the metaphysical consequences of determinism’s truth.
Accepting that determinism is true, according to the hard determinist, requires
that we face up to the hard truth that no one has free will, and as a result, no one
is morally responsible for what they do (because free will is required for moral
responsibility).
There are several other useful terms that are worth setting out here. One often
finds philosophers, especially in twentieth- century analytic philosophy, using the
expression “soft determinism” rather than “compatibilism” (e.g., Edwards, 1958;
Hobart, 1934; Schlick, 1939; Smart, 1963). While the two are closely related,
there is a difference:

Soft determinism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism,

and determinism is true.^2

One reason that the two different expressions were in earlier times often used
interchangeably is because it is only in more recent times that those with com-
patibilist leanings have become open to conceptions of causation that are inde-
terministic. Indeed, many compatibilists today are not absolutely convinced that