64 Classical Compatibilism and Incompatibilism
capturing core incompatibilist positions. (Perhaps they are better classified as
statements of core incompatibilist positions rather than as arguments; as we will
see, these statements as they stand do not have much force against compatibi-
lism, nor, arguably, do incompatibilists intend them to.) Indeed, throughout the
remainder of this book, we will from time to time make use of these two simple
statements as touchstones in the course of assessing more complex controversies
between compatibilists and incompatibilists.
3.4. Classical Incompatibilism and Agent Causation
In the previous section, we canvassed three of the four classical compatibilist
theses discussed in this chapter. In each case we used objections to them to
unpack the classical incompatibilist position. There is one further classical com-
patibilist thesis that we have yet to consider. This is the thesis that indeterminism
is incompatible with free will (and with moral responsibility). While the free will
debate is mostly associated with the disputed question of the compatibility of
free will and determinism, as the classical compatibilists made clear, there is also
a real puzzle about accounting for free will under the assumption that determin-
ism is false. This remains true of the contemporary debate; the puzzle abides.
How did the classical incompatibilist respond to this challenge? That depends
on whether the classical incompatibilist was out to defend the reality of free will.
Those who were free will and moral responsibility skeptics (e.g., Spinoza or
Nietzsche) defended some variation on a hard determinist thesis or instead an
impossibilist position, and so were not under pressure to solve this problem. But
classical incompatibilists who were also libertarians were forced to take up the
challenge.^20 While in the history of the classical debate there was no single
general solution to this problem, the view of free will most commonly con-
sidered, and the one that to this day remains highly influential, is one that appeals
to the notion of agent causation. Here, we’ll consider the classical incompatibil-
ist appeal to agent causation as a way to counter the charge that free will is
incompatible with indeterminism.^21
To appreciate the proposed solution, it’s best to have in mind at least three
background suppositions widely shared by those engaged in the classical debate.
First, it was assumed that the causal relation involved a kind of necessity or
determination: if A causes B, then A causally necessitates or determines B.
Second, it was also assumed that if an event did occur without a cause it could
not count as the product of an agent’s control. Third, the only credible candidate
explanation for the occurrence of an event—keeping in mind that actions are
events—is that something causes the event. Now, with these three assumptions
in mind, consider this passage by Roderick Chisholm, in which he deductively
infers that agents must be causes of their (free) acts:
Perhaps there is less need to argue that the ascription of responsibility also
conflicts with an indeterministic view of action—with the view that the act, or
some event that is essential to the act, is not caused at all. If the act—the firing