What Are The Arguments Against Compatibilism

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.

When I wake up in the morning, I have a set list of obligations for that day. Reasoning and habit dictate that I will follow through that set list, yet I am my own being and have control over my actions. I have free will and can choose to sleep in bed all day or get up and do my chores. While there are some situations where the consequences are out of our control, we still have the ability to decide when opportunities arise. Either extreme of this argument has its fatal flaws, as the determinist see everything as the product of a choice made long ago, and the libertarianist claims we have free will no matter how dire the situation is. Compatibilism makes the most sense to me, it is the difference between the two in an argument without a solution.

Exposition: In Galen Strawson’s essay “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility,” he presents the Basic Argument and argues it proves we cannot be held truly morally responsible for our actions, which is an invaluable argument in the free will problem. The Basic Argument is seen as an infallible argument. It claims that people are who they are based on the environment that they’ve been born. On the seventh page of the essay, Strawson breaks the ten part argument into five simplified premises. First, it is undisputable that

One of the main questions that we face is whether or not, we as humans have genuine freedom. Are we free to make our own choices? Do we decide what happens in our lives in the future? Or are our lives set pathways in which we have no say at all? Are all our choices already decided? In other words, do we have free will or are our actions pre-determined, or both? Hard determinists, libertarians and soft determinists all set out to provide answers to these questions, holding different views on whether or not free will and determinism are compatible. Both hard determinists and libertarians believe that free will and determinism are incompatible but hard determinists

1.) “Moralities built on the image of the independent, autonomous, rational individual largely overlook the reality of human dependence and the morality for which it calls.” (Camp, 2011:48)

To establish determinism, we can admit by denoting that some events in our lives happen because of prior reasons without yet losing our sense of freedom. It is actually evident that the events and actions that an individual undertakes action have different effects upon him even though they may be past or present events. Though we might not be sure whether our past event result to our present status in life, it is pertinent to note that freedom in decision making is an open forum for each individual and impacts on later activities. We can admit that some events, for example, a next domino fall, are bound to happen because of a prior event. It is possible that if we have no power to act other than us, in fact, to act, then we have no free will. This argument for hard determinism is persuasive. It is certainly valid, and none of the premises appears to be clearly false. Although we have discovered a plausible argument in defense of hard determinism, most people find this argument to be impossible to accept. In our lives, we hold each other in account of our deeds that we had made wrong choices.

Determinists believe that these ideas are based on the illusion of freedom (Chaffee, 2013, p. 178).

In this paper, I will explicate the views of George Sher and Neil Levy on moral responsibility. These philosophers present different arguments on determining how and whether an individual can be held morally responsible for their actions and omissions. To begin this paper, I will address the view of Sher, following with Levy’s view, and then concluding the paper with a contrast of the two views.

Whether we have free will is widely controversial. The absence of a universal definition poses a primary problem to this question. In this essay, I shall base my argument on a set of three conditions for free will: 1) that the actor is unconstraint in his action, 2) the actor could have acted otherwise and 3) the actor must be ‘ultimately responsible’ (Kane, 2005: 121) for his action. After I have explained them, I shall apply these conditions to three scenarios that cover most, if not any, circumstances that occur when taking choices. The purpose of this essay is to show that if my conditions are true, none of the scenarios is based on free will and thus we do not have free will.

For years philosophers mauled over mankind 's free will and its connects to moral responsibility. In such discussion they have come up with multiple theories. The three I’ll address today are determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism; are we products of our past unable to choose another course, or are our actions free from the chain of causality and thus our own? I believe that you can’t take these two questions as black and white. In my opinion compatibilism - which attempts to merge free will and determinism - explains our situation as humans, with a sense of moral responsibility, more clearly.

responsible for their acts. People are responsible for their voluntary acts" (Samaha, 2014, p. 98). Oliver Wendell Holmes best

To truly appreciate the importance of agency in the face of suffering caused by evil, it is important to clarify what Swinburne means by freedom and responsibility, especially the distinction between their trivial and significant forms. Trivial freedom is freedom to perform non-moral actions of one’s own choosing – what restaurant to dine in or what clothes to buy. On the other hand, significant freedom is the ability to choose to benefit or harm ourselves, other humans, animals, and our world. At the same time, trivial responsibility is responsibility for non-humans and inanimate objects and includes such thing as chores and other petty obligations. In contrast, significant responsibility is responsibility for the welfare of our own lives, the lives of others, and the world. Significant freedom and responsibility requires having a strong inclination to do what is bad or wrong; otherwise, choosing what is good or right is less significant, since such choices wouldn’t require much serious deliberation.

There is little doubt that free will is seen as hugely important to western philosophy. In particular, it has been suggested that it’s absence may have ramifications for the existence of moral responsibility, henceforth ‘MR’. I will be arguing that ultimate responsibility is the only sufficient condition forMR and that Baker’s reflective endorsement argument fails to encapsulate all scenarios in which we have MR. In addition, I will argue that belief in moral responsibility isn’t necessary to treat people as moral beings. Unless specified otherwise, when I say ‘free will’, I will be referring to libertarian free will. By moral responsibility, I mean the ubiquitous phenomena whereby someone’s evaluative judgements and actions make them answerable for an event or outcome and liable for certain consequences. Included in this definition is the idea that an agent can be absolved of responsibility if they have a morally relevant justification

Are people genuinely responsible for their own actions, or is there something that causes people to act in the ways that they do? This question has dwelled in the minds of all people at some point or another, whether they have been commoners or scholars, and has puzzled humanity throughout history. Throughout the past, people have greatly thought about the influence of things such as divine power on determining just how free any individual truly is in making moral choices, but the biggest factor in question is Fate.

Philosophical debate on moral responsibility has a long history. Thousands of years, many philosophers have debated on whether human beings are morally responsible for their actions. To answer this question, philosophers use terms like free will, determinism, compatibility and deservingness to help it. The question is still a major issue addressed today. To be morally responsible means to accept praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission in accordance with one 's moral obligations. People could argue that they have free will or not. According to general knowledge of free will, free will can be defined as the ability to do things on ones own discretion. Thus, in this paper I will argue that humans are morally responsible for their actions. I will prove this by using the concepts of Free will and determinism. Free will in the sense that for humans to be morally responsible for an action, one has to be free and conscious of his or her decision. In the case of Determinism, the presence of causation and external forces has minimal effect or no effect on moral responsibility.