3 Classical Compatibilism and Classical Incompatibilism
We devote this chapter to the classical free will debate. The classical debate is
characterized by a collection of assumptions and arguments that in more recent
times have been either rejected or substantially attenuated. Rather than attempt
to state here at the outset what these assumptions and arguments are, we shall
instead set out and critically assess the main contours of the classical compati-
bilist and the classical incompatibilist positions. In the course of doing so, the
relevant assumptions and arguments distinctive of the classical debate will
become clear. We’ll then close the chapter with some reflections on these
matters.
The classical debate persisted until the late 1960s, when three major influ-
ences radically altered the philosophical discussion of free will and moral
responsibility. We’ll take up each of these three influences in Chapters 4
through 6. In this chapter, we set out the classical debate by reference to
various historical figures reaching back to the early modern era, but mostly in
terms of how the free will debate came to have the shape it did arising out of
the heyday of analytic philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century.
This will set the stage for our discussion of contemporary work in subsequent
chapters.
Both compatibilism and incompatibilism have been richly represented in the
history of philosophy. As for compatibilism, the Stoics, Augustine, Hobbes,
Leibniz, Hume, and Mill all endorsed it, as did the early American philosopher
Jonathan Edwards. Historically, classical compatibilism was most thoroughly
defended in the writings of Hobbes and Hume. It was later adopted by early
twentieth- century analytic philosophers such as G.E. Moore, R.E. Hobart,
Moritz Schlick, C.L. Stevenson, P.H. Nowell- Smith, and A.J. Ayer. Historically,
classical incompatibilism was most thoroughly defended by Scotus, Ockham,
Suarez, Spinoza, and Reid, while Lucretius, Berkeley, Holbach, (arguably)
Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and James also endorsed it. Sartre was an
incompatibilist, and while incompatibilism was the minority position in main-
stream analytic philosophy prior to the late 1960s, it had a number of able
defenders, including C.A. Campbell, C.D. Broad, Paul Edwards, Richard Taylor,
and Roderick Chisholm.^1
We begin with examining the case for classical compatibilism.