Up until now we have looked at libertarianism and compatibilism – and considered a number of objections that can be raised against them – from the point of view that one or the other of them may be correct. That is, I have assumed that we do have free will in some sense. But what if we do not? According to an increasing number of commentators, while we may have a certain degree of autonomy, and the ability to act rationally, intentionally, voluntarily, morally and so on, what we do not have is free will, or moral responsibility, in either a libertarian or a compatibilist sense.

Traditionally, the “third position” in the free will debate has been taken by the hard determinist. This is one who agrees with the libertarian that determinism and free will are incompatible but who denies that we have free will because he believes that we live in a deterministic universe. A more modern variation of hard determinism is to agree with the compatibilist that the libertarian is unable to answer the randomness problem (discussed in Chapter 3), but also to agree with the libertarian that the compatibilist is unable to answer the consequence argument (discussed in Chapter 6).