Classical Compatibilism and Incompatibilism 67might not have given the exact same initial conditions. Admittedly, there is room
here for critical scrutiny. But the point is that it was taken as a given (perhaps as
merely analytic or definitional) that a cause necessitates or determines its effect.
(We considered this point briefly in Section 1.4). At least some formulations of
the disputed incompatibility of free will and indeterminism also depend on this
interpretation. As we will make clear, a more open- minded approach to what
causation might be like makes room for libertarians that a more restricted under-
standing does not.
Third, charges on both sides of the classical debate did tend toward the exces-
sively polemical. The classical compatibilists accused the incompatibilists of
simple conceptual confusions, and the classical incompatibilists accused com-
patibilists of subterfuge—indeed, wretched subterfuge. More recent work by
both compatibilists and incompatibilists has helped to make clear to both parties
that the more outlandish theses often attributed to their opponents are mostly
misattributions. The competitor views are respectable theses, and no one is in a
position to claim with great confidence that their opposition is simply out to
lunch.
Fourth, perhaps the most contested issue in the classical debate, at least as it
reached its zenith in the middle of the twentieth century, seemed to fall demon-
strably in favor of classical incompatibilism. In particular, the widely shared
classical compatibilists’ strategy of explaining the freedom to do otherwise was
discredited. Participants in the debate were generally convinced that one cannot
analyze the ability to do otherwise in terms of simple counterfactual conditionals
according to which an agent would do otherwise contingent on some feature of
her (a want or choice) being other than it was.
Fifth, for the most part both classical compatibilists and classical incompati-
bilists presumed that source and leeway freedom always converged, perhaps as a
matter of metaphysical necessity, perhaps just as a matter of fact. But in con-
temporary work, as we shall make clear, a considerable divergence among theo-
rists has emerged about whether we should account for free will and moral
responsibility in terms of just source freedom or instead by emphasizing leeway
freedom.
While all of the five points above canvass ways that the philosophical land-
scape has changed, there are three especially significant influences that are so
important that each deserves careful attention. We shall devote the next three
chapters to considering each. The first examines the Consequence Argument, an
especially forceful argument for the conclusion that determinism is incompatible
with leeway freedom, that is, with the freedom to do otherwise. The second con-
cerns Harry Frankfurt’s thesis that the free will that matters for moral responsib-
ility is not leeway freedom but instead source freedom. The third has to do with
P.F. Strawson’s reassessment of the nature of moral responsibility and our prac-
tices of holding morally responsible. Reflecting on this will help us to consider
what the theoretical options would really involve—if, for instance, we were to
conclude that no one is morally responsible, would our human nature really be
suited for such a conclusion?