Introduction 5problem is approached. The first, which is the subject of Chapter 4, concerns the
Consequence Argument for incompatibilism, which is designed to show that the
freedom to do otherwise is incompatible with determinism. The second major
development, treated in Chapter 5, features Harry Frankfurt’s argument for the
thesis that the freedom to do otherwise is not the sort of freedom that is required
for persons to be morally responsible for what they do. It is, rather, a different
sort of freedom, one that concerns the source of a person’s agency. The third
development, set out in Chapter 6, concerns P.F. Strawson’s efforts to reconfig-
ure the free will problem by reference to our moral emotions and how our inter-
personal lives reveal our own understanding of human freedom and the
conditions for moral responsibility.
Chapter 7 is dedicated to three arguments for the conclusion that freedom and
responsibility are incompatible with determinism. All three are significant as
influences on the contemporary debate because each aims to establish incompati-
bilism by way of resources that do not concern the freedom to do otherwise.
Attention is rather paid to the sources of human agency in light of the prospect
that determinism affects those sources in a way that precludes freedom and
responsibility.
With Chapters 1 through 7 in place, we turn to an assessment of the major
contemporary positions on free will and moral responsibility. Chapters 8 and 9
address the various proposals for defending compatibilism, which is the view
that free will and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism. Chap-
ters 10 and 11 focus on the different varieties of incompatibilism, which denies
the truth of compatibilism. Chapter 10 is devoted to forms of incompatibilism
that affirm the reality of free will and moral responsibility, known as libertarian-
ism, and Chapter 11 addresses forms of incompatibilism that affirm skepticism
about free will and moral responsibility, including hard determinism and hard
incompatibilism.
Chapter 12 addresses Manuel Vargas’s original proposal, revisionism, which
recommends that we revise our concepts of free will and moral responsibility so
as to remove their incompatibilist implications and that we preserve our practice
of holding responsible. This chapter also concludes the book by addressing a
range of topics we did not cover in detail: responsibility for omissions, the chal-
lenge to rational deliberation from the belief in determinism, experimental philo-
sophy on folk concepts and presuppositions animating the free will debate, and
the theological roots and implications of this debate.
Note
1 This passage is from Miles Corwin, “Icy Killer’s Life Steeped in Violence,” Los
Angeles Times, May 16, 1982. Quoted from Gary Watson’s highly influential article,
“Responsibility and the Limits of Evil” (1987: 269–70).