The Free Will Premise

AbstractObligation incompatibilism is the thesis that determinism and moral obligation are incompatible. Responsibility incompatibilism is the homologous thesis concerning determinism and responsibility. Central arguments for these two varieties of incompatibilism share the premise that determinism precludes freedom to do otherwise: if all of one’s actions are deterministically produced—if these actions are all outcomes of the past and the laws of nature—then one cannot do otherwise. The proposition that one cannot do otherwise is ambiguous between a strong and weak reading. On the strong or incompatibilist reading—roughly, given the same past and the laws, one could have done otherwise—it seems highly credible that determinism rules out alternatives. On the weak or compatibilist reading—roughly, given a subset of facts of the past and the laws, one could have done otherwise—it is problematic whether determinism is incompatible with freedom to do otherwise. The chapter uncovers features of being weakly able to do otherwise that problematize the weak reading.