Wikipedia

Compatibilism

This article is about the philosophical view on free will. For other uses, seeCompatibility.

Compatibilismis the belief thatfree willanddeterminismare mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent.[1]AsSteven Weinbergputs it: "I would say that free will is nothing but our conscious experience of deciding what to do, which I know I am experiencing as I write this review, and this experience is not invalidated by the reflection that physical laws made it inevitable that I would want to make these decisions."[2]The opposing belief, that the thesis of determinism is logically incompatible with the classical thesis of free will, is known as "incompatibilism".

Compatibilists believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do withmetaphysics.[3]In other words, that causal determinism does not exclude the truth of possible future outcomes.[4]Because free will is seen as a necessary prerequisite formoral responsibility,compatibilism is often used to support compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.

Similarly,political libertyis a non-metaphysical concept.[5]Statements of political liberty, such as theUnited States Bill of Rights,assume moral liberty: theabilityto choose to do otherwise than what one does.[6]

History

edit

Compatibilism was mentioned and championed by the ancientStoics[7]and some medievalscholastics.More specifically, scholastics likeThomas Aquinasand laterThomists(such asDomingo Báñez) are often interpreted as holding that human action can be free, even though an agent in some strong sense could not do otherwise than what they did. Whereas Aquinas is often interpreted to maintain rational compatibilism (i.e., an action can be determined by rational cognition and yet free), later Thomists, such as Báñez, develop a sophisticated theory of theological determinism, according to which actions of free agents, despite being free, are, on a higher level, determined by infallible divine decrees manifested in the form of "physical premotion"(praemotio physica), a deterministic intervention of God into the will of a free agent required to reduce the will from potency to act. A strong incompatibilist view of freedom was, on the other hand, developed in theFranciscantradition, especially byDuns Scotus,and later upheld and further developed byJesuits,especiallyLuis de MolinaandFrancisco Suárez.In the early modern era, compatibilism was maintained byEnlightenmentphilosophers (such asDavid HumeandThomas Hobbes).[8]

During the 20th century, compatibilists presented novel arguments that differed from the classical arguments of Hume, Hobbes, andJohn Stuart Mill.[9]Importantly,Harry Frankfurtpopularized what are now known asFrankfurt counterexamplesto argue against incompatibilism,[10]and developed a positive account of compatibilist free will based onhigher-order volitions.[11]Other "new compatibilists" include Gary Watson,Susan R. Wolf,P. F. Strawson,andR. Jay Wallace.[12]Contemporary compatibilists range from the philosopher and cognitive scientistDaniel Dennett,particularly in his worksElbow Room(1984) andFreedom Evolves(2003), to the existentialist philosopherFrithjof Bergmann.[13]Perhaps the most renowned contemporary defender of compatibilism isJohn Martin Fischer.

A 2020 survey found that 59% of philosophers accept or lean towards compatibilism.[14]

Defining free will

edit
Arthur Schopenhauer

Compatibilistsoften define an instance of "free will" as one in which the agent had the freedom to act according to their ownmotivation.That is, the agent was not coerced or restrained.Arthur Schopenhauerfamously said: "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."[15]In other words, although an agent may often be free to act according to amotive,the nature of that motive is determined. This definition of free will does not rely on the truth or falsity ofcausal determinism.[3]This view also makesfree willclose toautonomy,the ability to live according to one's own rules, as opposed to being submitted to external domination.

Alternatives as imaginary

edit
Saying "there may be a person behind that door" merely expresses ignorance about the one, determined reality.

Some compatibilists hold both causal determinism (all effects have causes) andlogical determinism(the future is already determined) to be true. Thus statements about the future (e.g., "it will rain tomorrow" ) are either true or false when spoken today. This compatibilist free will should not be understood as the ability to choose differently in an identical situation. A compatibilist may believe that a person can decide between several choices, but the choice is always determined by external factors.[16]If the compatibilist says "I may visit tomorrow, or I may not", he is saying that he does not know what he will choose—whether he will choose to follow the subconscious urge to go or not.

Non-naturalism

edit
Not to be confused withReligious naturalism.

Alternatives to strictlynaturalistphysics, such asmind–body dualismpositing a mind or soul existing apart from one's body while perceiving, thinking, choosing freely, and as a result acting independently on the body, include both traditional religious metaphysics and less common newer compatibilist concepts.[17]Also consistent with both autonomy andDarwinism,[18]they allow for free personal agency based on practical reasons within the laws of physics.[19]While less popular among 21st-century philosophers, non-naturalist compatibilism is present in most if not almost all religions.[20]

Criticism

edit
Compatibilism has much in common with "hard determinism", including moral systems and a belief indeterminismitself.

A prominent criticism of compatibilism isPeter van Inwagen'sconsequence argument.

Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definitions of free will: incompatibilists may agree that the compatibilists are showingsomethingto be compatible with determinism, but they think that thissomethingought not to be called "free will". Incompatibilists might accept the "freedom to act" as anecessarycriterion for free will, but doubt that it issufficient.The incompatibilists believe that free will refers togenuine(i.e., absolute, ultimate, physical) alternate possibilities for beliefs, desires, or actions,[21]rather than merelycounterfactualones.

The direct predecessor to compatibilism wassoft determinism(a term coined by William James, which he used pejoratively).[22]Soft determinism is the view that we (ordinary humans) have free will and determinism is true. (Compatibilists, by contrast, take no stand on the truth-value of determinism.) James accused the soft determinists of creating a "quagmire of evasion" by stealing the name of freedom to mask their underlying determinism.[22]Immanuel Kantcalled it a "wretched subterfuge" and "word jugglery".[23]Kant's argument turns on the view that, while all empirical phenomena must result from determining causes, human thought introduces something seemingly not found elsewhere in nature—the ability to conceive of the world in terms of how itoughtto be, or how it might otherwise be. For Kant, subjective reasoning is necessarily distinct from how the world is empirically. Because of its capacity to distinguishisfromought,reasoning can "spontaneously" originate new events without being itself determined by what already exists.[24]It is on this basis that Kant argues against a version of compatibilism in which, for instance, the actions of the criminal are comprehended as a blend of determining forces and free choice, which Kant regards as misusing the wordfree.Kant proposes that taking the compatibilist view involves denying the distinctly subjective capacity to re-think an intended course of action in terms of whatoughtto happen.[23]

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^Coates, D. Justin; McKenna, Michael (February 25, 2015)."Compatibilism".Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Archivedfrom the original on June 3, 2024.RetrievedMay 10,2016.
  2. ^Weinberg, Steven (2011-02-10)."The Universes We Still Don't Know".The New York Review of Books.Vol. 58, no. 2.ISSN0028-7504.Retrieved2024-06-10.
  3. ^abPodgorski, Daniel (October 16, 2015)."Free Will Twice Defined: On the Linguistic Conflict of Compatibilism and Incompatibilism".The Gemsbok.Archivedfrom the original on March 8, 2016.RetrievedMarch 7,2016.
  4. ^McKenna, Michael and Coates, D. Justin,"Compatibilism",The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Winter 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
  5. ^Locke, John(1690).The Second Treatise of Civil Government.
  6. ^"Reid on moral liberty"Archived2021-06-03 at theWayback Machine.The Monist,Vol. 70, No. 4, "Thomas Reid and His Contemporaries" (October 1987), pp. 442–452. Published by Oxford University Press Stable. Accessed: 06-12-2019.
  7. ^Ricardo Salles, "Compatibilism: Stoic and modern."Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie83.1 (2001): 1–23.
  8. ^Michael McKenna: "Compatibilism". //The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy//. Edward N. Zalta (ed.). 2009.
  9. ^Kane, Robert (2005).A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will.Oxford University Press. p.93.ISBN978-0-19-514970-8.
  10. ^Kane 2005, p. 83.
  11. ^Kane 2005, p. 94.
  12. ^Kane 2005, pp. 98, 101, 107, 109.
  13. ^Frithjof Bergmann (1977).On Being Free.Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.doi:10.2307/j.ctvpj760s.ISBN978-0-268-15889-7.JSTORj.ctvpj760s.
  14. ^Bourget, David; Chalmers, David J. (2023)."Philosophers on Philosophy: The 2020 PhilPapers Survey"(PDF).Philosophers' Imprint.23(1). University of Michigan Library.doi:10.3998/phimp.2109.Archived(PDF)from the original on 2024-02-08.Retrieved2024-02-08.
  15. ^Schopenhauer, Arthur (1945). "On the Freedom of the Will".The Philosophy of American History: The Historical Field Theory.Translated by Morris Zucker. p. 531.
  16. ^Harry G. Frankfurt (1969). "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility",Journal of Philosophy66 (3):829–839.
  17. ^Ridge, Michael (3 February 2014)."Moral Non-Naturalism".The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.Archivedfrom the original on 24 February 2024.Retrieved3 June2019.
  18. ^Lemos, John (2002). "Evolution and Free Will: A Defense of Darwinian Non–naturalism".Metaphilosophy.33(4): 468–482.doi:10.1111/1467-9973.00240.ISSN1467-9973.
  19. ^Nida-Rümelin, Julian (1 January 2019). "The Reasons Account of Free Will: A Libertarian-Compatibilist Hybrid".Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie.105(1): 3–10.doi:10.25162/arsp-2019-0001.S2CID155641763.
  20. ^Stump, Eleonore (1996). "Libertarian Freedom and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities". In Howard-Snyder, Daniel; Jordan, Jeff (eds.).Faith, Freedom, and Rationality.Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 73–88.
  21. ^Danko D. Georgiev (2021). "Quantum propensities in the brain cortex and free will".Biosystems.208:104474.arXiv:2107.06572.Bibcode:2021BiSys.20804474G.doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2021.104474.PMID34242745.S2CID235785726.Free will is the capacity of conscious agents to choose a future course of action among several available physical alternatives.
  22. ^abJames, William. 1884 "The Dilemma of Determinism",Unitarian Review,September 1884. Reprinted inThe Will to Believe,Dover, 1956, p. 149.
  23. ^abKant, Immanuel 1788 (1952).The Critique of Practical Reason,inGreat Books of the Western World,vol. 42, Kant, University of Chicago, p. 332.
  24. ^Kant, Immanuel 1781 (1949).The Critique of Pure Reason,trans. Max Mueller, p. 448.
edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Compatibilism&oldid=1232789923"