That the two theses of compatibilism (free will; determinism) are incompatible is hard to show. However, compatibilists always incorporate three irrational moves into their arguments, by committing an endless regress, by begging the question, by asserting without evidence. Each of these moves can be shown to be tolerable in the short run, but their persistence raises the probability that the arguments in which they are employed are unsound.

The supposed contradiction which incompatibilists charge compatibilists with holding is extremely difficult to discover. In the form:

1. x could have not done A

2. x could not have not done A

the contradiction holds. However, when we state the two positions more informally as

3. A person could have done other than what that person did;

4. A person’s doing what that person did is the determined result of all history combined with all the natural laws

it seems possible to formulate aspects under which both propositions hold.

The purpose of this paper is not to make yet another attempt to show that these two sentences are contradictory. The purpose is to show that compatibilism entails

(a) a vicious regress;

(b) the begging of the question of the originating power of animate beings;

(c) the assertion without evidence of the unity of physical nature according to the model of the movement of the sun and the planets.

(a) Vicious Regress

The Free Will Thesis: Causality according to the laws of nature is not the only causality needed to account for all events in the world; to understand them and to take purposive action in the face of more than one possible action, for each of which we can possibly be held responsible, we need also to assume a causality through freedom.