Title: Compatibilism
Headings: Compatibilism
Compatibilism
Content: Compatibilism




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Compatibilism
Compatibilists argue that determinism is compatible with human freedom, and that indeterminism is not compatible or at best incoherent. They feel (correctly) that there must be a deterministic or causal connection between our will and our actions. This allows us to take responsibility for our actions, including credit for the good and blame for the bad. As long as the agent is free from external coercion, they have freedom of action, which is the compatibilist freedom we have according to Thomas Hobbes and David Hume . Compatibilists (or "soft determinists" as they have been known since William James) identify free will with freedom of action - the lack of external constraints. We are free, and we have free will, if we are not in physical chains. But freedom of the will is different from freedom of action. Many compatibilists accept the view of a causal chain of events going back indefinitely in time, consistent with the laws of nature, with the plan of an omniscient God, or with other determinisms. As long as our own will is included in that causal chain, we are free, they say. And they think causality in nature is related to the very possibility of reason and logic.