Classical Compatibilism and Incompatibilism 53[I]t is not... causality that freedom is to be contrasted with, but constraint.
And while it is true that being constrained to do an action entails being
caused to do it, I shall try to show that the converse does not hold. (In
Watson, 1982: 19)Ayer continues:
If I suffered from a compulsion neurosis, so that I got up and walked across
the room, whether I wanted to or not, or if I did so because somebody else
compelled me, then I should not be acting freely. But if I did it now, I shall
be acting freely, just because these conditions do not obtain: and the fact
that my actions have a cause is, from this point of view, irrelevant. For it is
not when it has any cause at all, but only a special sort of cause, that it is
reckoned not to be free. (In Watson, 1982: 21)Hume diagnosed another (alleged) incompatibilist mistake as arising from an
improper understanding of causation itself:
But being once convinced that we know nothing farther of causation of any
kind than constant conjunction of objects, and the consequent inference of
the mind from one to another, and finding that these two circumstances are
universally allowed to have place in voluntary actions; we may be more
easily led to own the same necessity common to all causes.^10According to Hume, it is wrong to attribute a necessary connection between a
cause and effect, or a causal power inhering in a cause and transmitted to its
effect. If causes were like that, Hume thought, it would be reasonable to assume
that they would undermine freedom since they would be like compelling forces.
But once it is understood that causation involves no more than constant conjunc-
tion or regularity among events, and a natural propensity of the mind to infer
accordingly, then it becomes clear that an agent’s actions can be both free and
caused, that is, arising from her desires with regularity.
Further confusions were claimed to arise when insufficient care is taken to
understand the nature of the causal laws. For instance, Schlick held that causal
laws are descriptions of regularities found in nature. But the laws of a legal
system are prescriptive and carry with them a threat if not obeyed. By confusing
the natural and legal laws, the classical compatibilists contended, incompatibil-
ists wrongly assumed that actions necessitated by causal laws would amount to
threats or forces imposed upon agents against their wills (Schlick, 1939: 65–7).
Yet another classical compatibilist diagnosis of incompatibilist confusion
concerns the nature of the self. Some incompatibilists, it was suggested, assumed
that a person’s self is distinct from a person’s causally influenced character. But,
it was argued, this was simply a failure to appreciate that a person’s self is not
distinct from her causally influenced character (Hobart, 1934, in Berofsky, 1966:
66–72). Or instead, it was suggested by some incompatibilists that, by way of a