56 Classical Compatibilism and Incompatibilism
Griffiths, 2010; O’Connor, 2000; Taylor, 1966, 1974). Yet a third incompatibil-
ist response specifies a non- causal relation between agent and action that at the
same time is not merely chance or random (Bergson, 1889; Ginet, 1990; Goetz,
2008; McCann, 1998). In subsequent chapters, we will explore these options in
detail.
Suppose, just for argument’s sake, that this classical compatibilist argument
is sound; indeterminism does rule out free will because the relation between
agent and action will then be chance or random and thus preclude the agent’s
moral responsibility. Would this prove compatibilism true? No. It would only
show that no sense is to be made of libertarian (incompatibilist) free will. It is
worth keeping in mind that incompatibilism is minimally the thesis that deter-
minism is incompatible with free will. A more substantive incompatibilist thesis
would make the further claim that indeterminism is compatible with free will.
But an incompatibilist need not commit to this latter thesis. One viable option,
open to a moral responsibility skeptic or a hard incompatibilist, is to accept the
minimal incompatibilist thesis that determinism is incompatible with free will,
and to accept as well the compatibilist argument considered here that indeter-
minism is also incompatible with free will. According to this strategy, free will
is incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism (e.g., Nagel, 1986;
Pereboom, 1995, 2001; Strawson, 1986). In summary, this classical compatibil-
ist argument, while provocative for placing the incompatibilist—and especially
the libertarian—on the defensive, does not prove that free will and determinism
are compatible. Demonstrating its soundness would not allow the compatibilist
to rest her case.
3.2. The Dispute over the Analyses of “Could Have
Done Otherwise”
Consider the following classical incompatibilist objection to the classical com-
patibilist account of free will set out above, the unencumbered ability of an agent
to do as she wants:
If causal determinism is true, agents are causally determined to act as they
do. But then, even if an agent does do what she wants to do, and she acts
unencumbered, she still cannot do otherwise – because she is causally deter-
mined to act as she does. However, free will requires the freedom to do
otherwise. Hence, the classical compatibilist account of free will is inad-
equate – causal determinism is incompatible with free will because causal
determinism is incompatible with the ability to do otherwise.Is this correct? Is the classical compatibilist account of free will incomplete?
Notice that this incompatibilists’ objection does not reject the classical compati-
bilist conditions on free will in terms of acting as one wants unencumbered—
conditions cast in terms of source freedom. The incompatibilists’ concern is a
matter of leeway freedom. So, as this objection goes, even if acting from one’s