Classical Compatibilism and Incompatibilism 63This classical incompatibilist objection is meant to force upon the compatibilist
the burden of accounting for the ability to do otherwise in a deterministic
context. But, as we have just explained the debate, it appears that the classical
compatibilist case for the compatibility of the ability to do otherwise and deter-
minism decisively failed, and one cannot reductively analyze claims about what
an agent can do in terms of claims about what she would do if she were to
choose (or want) differently.
Another classical incompatibilist thesis can be cast as a counterpoint to the
classical compatibilist thesis that the free will problem is a mere pseudo- problem
grounded on nothing more than misunderstanding and a misappropriation of
terms. Our assessment of this compatibilist charge was that it amounted to little
more than bluster. There are, contrary to what the classical compatibilists claimed,
clearly identifiable puzzles about the relation between free will and determinism.
A natural classical incompatibilist counterpoint to the pseudoproblem charge is
that the classical compatibilists’ efforts to establish their thesis by showing how
terms like “cause” and “compelled” really function, along with their attempt to
analyze “can” as “would... if.. .” amount to no more than a “wretched subter-
fuge” achieved by “petty word jugglery” (Kant, 1788)—a “quagmire of evasion”
(James, 1897). Histrionics aside, the classical incompatibilist charge is that the
attempts by compatibilists to locate freedom by advancing complex accounts of
the notion of a law, of what a cause is, or how compulsion or coercion are ways
of defeating freedom were all beside the rather simple point that transparent fea-
tures of freedom appear on their face to conflict with the plain contention that if
determinism is true only one future is physically possible.
Indeed, there are two very simple arguments that have appeared in slightly
different guises in the long history of incompatibilism. Together, they are prob-
ably the best way to represent the core theses of classical incompatibilism.
Perhaps it will come as no surprise that one features a concern with leeway
freedom and the other features a concern with source freedom.^18 So, consider
first the Basic Leeway Argument for Incompatibilism (BLI):
- If a person acts of her own free will, then she could have done otherwise
than she actually does. - If determinism is true, no one can do otherwise than one actually does.
- Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free will.
And now consider the Basic Source Argument for Incompatibilism (BSI):
- A person acts of her own free will only if she is its ultimate source.
- If determinism is true, no one is the ultimate source of her actions.
- Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free will.
However we assess these arguments, there is no reason to complain that their
intuitive sources are rooted in mere confusions or conceptual trickery.^19 Both
BLI and BSI, or some variations on them, remain to this day as clear ways of