Compatibilism
Overview
Compatibilism is the view that free will and determinism are compatible: that a person acts freely when they act according to their own desires, reasons, and character, without external coercion, even if those desires, reasons, and character were themselves determined by prior causes. On this view "free" means "not compelled", not "uncaused".
The position has a long history (Hobbes, David Hume, Mill) and its best-known modern defender is Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room, 1984; Freedom Evolves, 2003). Its opponents are hard determinists, who hold that determinism is true and free will therefore false (Robert Sapolsky, Sam Harris), and libertarians, who hold that free will is real and determinism therefore false.
Notes
- I accept determinism and I do not find the compatibilist redefinition useful (see Freewill vs Determinism). If "free will" simply means "acting in accordance with one's own desires", then the term no longer describes the thing most people believe they have, which is the capacity to have done otherwise. The compatibilist has changed the subject and kept the name.
- That said, the disagreement is partly verbal. Compatibilists and hard determinists agree about the facts: every decision has prior causes. They disagree about which word to attach to them. On the questions that matter in practice, such as whether praise, blame, and punishment are justified, I reach the same answer the compatibilist does, by a consequentialist route: they are justified insofar as they work, because they are themselves causes. See Death Penalty.
- This is one of the positions I hold loosely: I reject compatibilism as unhelpful, not as false.