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Professor Michael Blome-Tillmann
PHIL 200
Oct. 8, 2021
The existence of compatibilism stems from a seemingly unsolvable dilemma residing between
free will and determinism. Determinism asserts that all actions have a cause, a thesis, if true,
would mean that all human behaviour is determined; there is no free will. Libertarianism, on the
other hand, declares that humans have free will by rejecting determinism entirely and declaring
that humans are not fully subject to the laws of nature. However, to someone with no spiritual
belief, the complete rejection of science concerning humans seems absurd, so another view
related to determinism and separate from libertarianism exists. Compatibilism (also known as
soft determinism) puts forth that determinism is true but our actions can still be free provided
they are "caused in the right way” (T. Sider, p.127).
Although compatibilism may initially seem like a complete solution to the issue of free will,
several issues quickly arise. The first of these issues is the question of what being “caused in the
right way” means. Sider provides a rough definition that “a free action
is one that is
caused by
the person’s beliefs and desires.” (p.128) This definition, at first, seems to fix several of the
issues that exist with the compatibilist position. For example, if I choose to drink a cup of coffee,
according to this definition it would be a free act. However, if I am held at gunpoint and told to
drink the same cup of coffee against my will, that would be defined as unfree within this
frameset. Both of these examples align with our general concept of free will. Nonetheless, an
argument consistently used against this definition is the case of hypnotism. Suppose you are
hypnotized into believing that you want to drink a cup of coffee. The ensuing action of drinking
the coffee would come from your desires and beliefs yet clearly be unfree. Furthermore, there are
people with certain mental conditions that will always compel them to act in certain ways. When
a kleptomaniac
steals, they are not freely choosing to do so, yet under this definition, they appear
to be. So, to solve this predicament we need a new definition that states that free action comes
from your own beliefs and desires, provided that you were not compelled to have those beliefs
and desires. But this definition brings with it even more issues. I specifically appreciate the quote
from Sider “humans are not an island.” (p.130) Human desires will always be influenced by the
culture and people around them, so how can we know which actions stem from one’s own beliefs
and not from those around them?
Overall, compatibilism does deserve to be critically observed and respected as much as other
views on free will. The alternatives of libertarianism, where we reject science, and hard
determinism, where we reject all that gives life meaning, do not seem particularly appealing.
However, compatibilists need to refine their definition of free will to account for cases such as
hypnotism and the compulsions that certain mental health disorders create.
Works Cited
Conee, Earl Brink, and Theodore Sider, “Free Will and Determinism.” Essay. In
Riddles of
Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2014
McKenna, M., & Coates, D. J. (2019, November 26).
Compatibilism
. Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/compatibilism.
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