62 Classical Compatibilism and Incompatibilism
alternative possibilities, the classical compatibilist hasn’t yet provided a success-
ful determinism- friendly account of free will.
3.3. The Case for Classical Incompatibilism
The case for classical incompatibilism can now be set out rather economically.
Much of its content builds upon the various considerations figuring against the
case for classical compatibilism, considerations we have just canvassed. Con-
sider, for instance, the compatibilist thesis that the core notion of acting freely is
doing what one wants unencumbered. The weakness in such a thesis, as noted
above (Section 3.1), is that one’s wants might be a source of one’s unfreedom
insofar as they too might compel a person to act as she does, such as in a case of
extreme addiction. The classical incompatibilist can build on the worry arising
from compulsive desires, arguing that, under the assumption of determinism,
they share something with the altogether ordinary desires involved in any action
at all. In particular, they arise from conditions over which an agent has no
control. So, for example, in giving voice to a hypothetical hard determinist
arguing against a classical compatibilist, Paul Edwards wrote:
“You are right,” he [the hard determinist] would say [to the compatibilist], “in
maintaining that some of our actions are caused by our desires and choices.
But you do not pursue the subject far enough. You arbitrarily stop at the
desires and volitions. We must not stop there. We must go on to ask where
they come from; and if determinism is true there can be no doubt about the
answer to this question. Ultimately our desires and our whole character are
derived from our inherited equipment and the environmental influences to
which we are subject at the beginning of our lives. It is clear that we had no
hand in shaping these.” (Edwards, 1957, in Hook, 1958: 121; our brackets)Note that this classical incompatibilist worry is a matter of source freedom. The
root causes of our actions are freedom- defeating under the assumption of
determinism.
Now consider the classical incompatibilist worry with respect to leeway
freedom. Granting that a person’s acting unencumbered from her desires is
necessary for her acting freely, it is insufficient, so the classical incompatibilist
will argue, if she cannot do other than act on those desires. Here is how Roderick
Chisholm expressed the point (he was discussing the case of a murderer who
was determined to act as he did):
For if what we say he did was really something that was brought about by
his own beliefs and desires, if these beliefs and desires in the particular situ-
ation in which he happened to have found himself caused him to do just
what it was that we say he did do, then, since they caused it, he was unable
to do anything other than just what it was that he did do. (Chisholm, 1964,
in Watson, 1982: 25)^17