Title: Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Headings: Compatibilism
Compatibilism
1. Free Will and the Problem of Causal Determinism
1.1 Determinism and Alternative Possibilities
1.2 Determinism and Sourcehood
1.3 Compatibilists Replies
2. Classical Compatibilism
2.1 Freedom According to Classical Compatibilism
2.2 The Classical Compatibilist Conditional Analysis
2.3 The Lasting Influence of the Conditional Analysis
3. Compatibilism in Transition
3.1 The Consequence Argument
3.2 A Challenge to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities
3.3 Focus upon the Reactive Attitudes
4. Contemporary Compatibilism
4.1 Compatibilism about the Freedom to Do Otherwise
4.1.1 Challenging Power Necessity and the Past
4.1.2 Challenging Power Necessity and the Laws of Nature
4.1.3 Challenging the Inferences Based upon Power Necessity
4.1.4 Accounting for the Freedom to Do Otherwise
4.1.5 The New Dispositionalism
4.2 Hierarchical Compatibilism
4.2.1 Higher-Order Desires and Free Will
4.2.2 Two Problems for a Hierarchical Theory
4.3 The Reason View
4.4 Reasons-Responsive Compatibilism
4.4.1 Agent-Based Reasons-Responsiveness
4.4.2 A Tension between Reasons-Responsiveness and Frankfurt Examples
4.4.3 A Mechanism-Based Reasons-Responsive Theory
4.4.4 Assessing Reasons-Responsive Compatibilism
4.5 Strawsonian Compatibilism
Bibliography
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Acknowledgments

Content: If determinism is true, then only one future is possible holding fixed the actual past and the laws of nature. If only one future is possible holding fixed the actual past and the laws of nature, then there are no alternative courses of action to any act open to x (i.e., x could not have done otherwise than she actually does). Therefore, if determinism is true, it is not the case that any agent, x, performs any act, a, of her own free will. For ease of reference and discussion throughout this entry, let us simplify the above argument as follows: If someone acts of her own free will, then she could have done otherwise (A-C). If determinism is true, no one can do otherwise than one actually does (D-E). Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free will (F). Call this simplified argument the Classical Incompatibilist Argument. According to the argument, if determinism is true, no one has access to alternatives of the sort you might plausibly think to be required for free will. 1.2 Determinism and Sourcehood
There is a second conception of the sort of control that might be necessary for morally responsible agency.