Free Will and Determinism
Do we act freely and bear responsibility for what we do, even if everything is causally determined? This area examines free will, determinism, and the conditions for the kind of freedom that grounds moral responsibility.
Definition
The free will problem concerns whether and how agents can have the control over their actions required for responsibility, and whether such control is compatible with determinism.
Scope
Covers causal determinism and fatalism, the consequence argument for incompatibilism, compatibilist analyses of freedom, libertarian theories of agency, and the relation between free will and moral responsibility.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- Is free will compatible with causal determinism?
- What kind of control does responsibility require?
- Could free will require indeterminism, and would that help?
- Do we have free will at all?
Key concepts
- Determinism
- Compatibilism
- Incompatibilism
- Libertarian free will
- Moral responsibility
- Alternative possibilities
- Reactive attitudes
Key theories
- Incompatibilism and the consequence argument
- Van Inwagen argues that if determinism is true, our actions are consequences of the past and the laws, over which we have no control, so we lack the freedom required for responsibility.
- Hierarchical compatibilism
- Frankfurt analyzes freedom of the will in terms of higher-order desires: an agent acts freely when the will by which they act is the will they want to have, a structure compatible with determinism.
- Reactive-attitudes account of responsibility
- Strawson argues that moral responsibility is grounded in the reactive attitudes embedded in interpersonal life, shifting the debate away from the metaphysics of determinism.
History
The problem reaches back to ancient debates over fate and Stoic determinism and to early modern disputes between necessitarians and libertarians. In the twentieth century Strawson reframed responsibility around the reactive attitudes, Frankfurt challenged the principle of alternative possibilities, and van Inwagen sharpened incompatibilism with the consequence argument.
Debates
- Compatibilism versus incompatibilism
- Compatibilists hold that freedom and responsibility are consistent with determinism, analyzing freedom as a kind of unimpeded or reasons-responsive control; incompatibilists deny this, with libertarians affirming free will and hard determinists denying it.
Key figures
- Peter van Inwagen
- Harry Frankfurt
- P. F. Strawson
- John Martin Fischer
- Robert Kane
- Derk Pereboom
Related topics
Seminal works
- vanInwagen1983
- frankfurt1971
- strawson1962
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between determinism and fatalism?
- Determinism is the thesis that the past and the laws of nature fix a unique future. Fatalism is the stronger and distinct claim that certain outcomes will occur no matter what we do, so that deliberation is pointless. Most philosophers reject fatalism even if they accept determinism.