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6 - A wretched subterfuge

Mathew Iredale
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Summary

How can that man be called quite free at the same point of time and in regard to the same action in which and in regard to which he is nevertheless subject to an unavoidable natural necessity? It is a wretched subterfuge to seek to evade this by saying that the kind of determining grounds of his causality in accordance with natural law agrees with a comparative concept of freedom, according to which that is sometimes called a free effect, the determining natural ground of which lies within the acting being.

Immanuel Kant

The consequence argument

Unlike libertarians, compatibilists do not believe that we need to be the originators of our decisions (such that we can choose between physical alternatives) in order for us to be in control of our decisions in a way that is consistent with our experiences. You are in control of your decisions, they say, if you are able to make your decisions voluntarily, intentionally and in accordance with your character or true nature. If your decision was not forced upon you by another person or by some other external factor beyond your control, or caused by brain damage or psychosis or some other internal factor beyond your control, then your decision was free. Invoking what the compatibilist regards as the mysterious notion of ultimate origination adds nothing to this.

Libertarians raise two significant objections against compatibilism. In the first place, since it allows no room for origination of our decisions, the libertarian claims that such a freedom is insufficient to enable us to be truly morally responsible for our actions.

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The Problem of Free Will
A Contemporary Introduction
 , pp. 87 - 96
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2012

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