Comparing Compatibilism Vs Incompatibilism : A Compatibilist View

Human factors are involved wildly in human behaviors and various social systems, including social laws and religion doctrines. Just like what I mentioned previously, scientists believe that the human life is pre-determined and human’s behavior is inevitable. They consider that if someone has all the information of one person, he or she may get to know how he or she is going to change in advance. But from the point of view throughout the history of human society people often turn to emphasize personal responsibility. Law and legal penalties for criminals act based entirely on the idea of individual “free will”. Most Jewish and Christian also believed that individuals should be responsible for the crime and suspects should be punished. We can imagine a psychology professor who believes determinism would say to a student: "You have to concentrate to your study, otherwise you will get nothing!" You can see the contradiction of human behaviors from this typical and ironic statement above, and notice that there exists a deviation between theoretical knowledge and actual human behaviors.

When discussing the topic of compatibilism, several aspects of the concept must be considered, such as free will and determinism: those who are skeptical and criticize this philosophical position and or stance, are typically weary or concerned with the reality of both free will and determinism flowing freely together.

There are 3 basic views that can be taken on the view of determinism, (1) deny its reality, either because of the existence of free will or on independent grounds; (2) accept its reality but argue for its compatibility with free will; or (3) accept its reality and deny its compatibility with free will.In this paper I am going to be defending the view compatibilism, specifically W. T. Stace’s view of compatibilism.

Compatibilism, also known as soft determinism, is the position or view that causal determinism is true, but we still act as free, morally responsible agents. In the absence of external constraints, our actions are caused by our desires. W.T Stace, wanted to prove that the hard determinist definition of “free” was incorrect. He posed that free does not mean random, but that our acts are casually determined in a particular fashion. There must be a deterministic or causal connection between our will and our actions. This allows us to take responsibility for our actions, including credit for the good and blame for the bad.

The focus of this essay will be an argument by Peter Van Inwagen known as the “Consequence Argument.” The argument’s main goal is to refute compatibilism, or the idea that free will and determinism are reconcilable. Van Inwagen’s argument can be expressed as follows:

Compatibilists and Incompatibilists debate determinism and free will. Determinism is the idea that our actions are determined by past events. In other words, in our present state we do not have control over our actions and they are pre-determined. Only one thing can happen given a certain condition and nothing else can occur. Determinism seems to pose a problem because it tests the possibility that we do not have free will or control over our actions because with certain conditions there can only be one possible outcome. Another problem it poses towards the idea of free will is that since there are infinite possibilities of what actions one takes, this means we do not have control over our actions according to determinism. Compatibilists

The notion of free will has received a lot of attention in philosophy. Before we can examine it, however, we must understand some basic terminology. Determinism, when simply put, is the idea that everything including thoughts, decisions, and actions are predetermined before it even happens. Everything was determined to happen up to what kind of toast you ate for breakfast. There is no choice, randomness, and free will does not exist. Indeterminism is the opposite of determinism. It is a theory that one event does not necessarily cause another event to happen, and that if you were to put the universe into rewind and play it over again, it would have a different outcome each time. Compatibilism or soft determinism, agrees that determinism

It has been debated over centuries whether us humans have control over our destiny, and if we are really able to decide on our own. The controversy between free will and determinism has been argued about for years. If we look into a dictionary, free will is define as the power given to human beings to be able to make free choices that is unconstrained by external circumstances or a force such as fate or divine intervention. Determinism is defined as a philosophical doctrine that every event, act, and decision is the inescapable consequence of antecedents that are independent of the human will. Determinism states that humans have no free will to choose what they wish. Due to this fact, contemporary philosophers cannot agree whether free will does exist, let alone it be a divine influence.

The concept of free will has been a point of contention among philosophers who study metaphysics. Regarding this concept of free will, three theories have arisen: hard determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Hard determinism states that all human actions have been predetermined, whereas libertarians state that all human actions are free, and compatibilism states that some human actions are free, though they are all casually determined (Stewart et al., 2013, p. 154). Each of these three theories have a different definition of freedom, where hard determinism and libertarianism define freedom as that the person was not casually determined and could have chosen the alternative to his action, and compatibilists define freedom as a person’s ability to perform action through his desires, feelings, and emotions (Stewart et al., 2013, p. 154). Perhaps one of the greatest arguments for libertarianism involves the theory of causality.

Compatibilism “is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.” (Mckenna) Hume believed that even though potential acts are predetermined due to the laws of nature, humans still have the choice to do what they please. However he had to avoid any misconception by stating that the lack of responsibility implies a lack of freedom. He sought the common ground between the opposing sides of the free will problem. Free will to Hume was the power to take any action by the will of one’s own volition. However, having such admiration for Sir Isaac Newton, Hume had to consider the mechanical laws of physics, which make it difficult to incorporate something so abstract as free will. Despite of this dilemma, Hume wrote “men still entertain a strong propensity to believe, that they penetrate farther into the powers of nature, and perceive something like a necessary connection between the cause and the effect. When again they turn their reflections towards the operations of their own minds, and feel no such connection of the motive and the action; they are thence apt to suppose, that there is a difference between the effects, which result from material force, and those which arise from thought and intelligence.” (Enquiry, 156,

I agree with this position completely. In the free will debate, compatibilism is the view that physical determinism and human freedom co-exist. By arguing compatibilism ultimately changes the subject from human freedom, I claim the concept of free will is meaningless. In essence, compatibilist arguments exploit the ambiguity of language, indefinable metaphysical notions, and unsound reasoning. In this essay, I attempt to eliminate compatibilism. First,

The philosophical thesis of incompatibilism, at moments, seems very puzzling because it has two opposite ideas in it; hard determinism and libertarian free will. How can hard determinists and libertarians be comparable in a thesis called incompatibilism, when the two of them have two very opposite concepts? One denies free will, and the other one endorse it. It is comprehensible when both determinism and indeterminism are being compared, but not when we do it with compatibilism and incompatibilism; These last two concepts do not appear to be coherent with the concept of freedom.

The philosophical questioning of free will is really a matter of the volition of man. That is, free will is a central dogma that many subscribe to that empowers them to be accountable for their own lives and that provides meaning to something that is largely unknown. Free will proves to be a profound and highly debated topic in the philosophical realm. Whether free will truly exists or not is largely implicating in how one perceives the world and, even, other more life-defining topics. Though there is great debate on free will, the following argues that the philosophical belief of compatibilism rationalizes the most logically sound stance upon free will.

Determinism: According to Sappington (1990) there are two types of determinism, hard and soft. He states that those who hold hard determinism say that human behavior is completely determined by outside factors and that ideas such a free will or moral responsibility are meaningless. Many famous psychologists take this approach such as Freud who believed that people’s behavior is controlled by unconscious factors and any conscious reasons given are simply the brain rationalizing actions to the superego. Skinner argued against Freud and said that behavior is determined by their reinforcement histories. Although they argue on the finer points they both believe that conscious choice is irrelevant.

This is because all of his desires, beliefs and even his character is determined and thus, Taylor concludes, determinism is “inconsistent” with “some conceptions of morals” (Richard Taylor, 1992 pg 38). This claim can be challenged as many argue that although every action is determined ,as humans, we should still be responsible for the character we posses.