Title: Arguments for Incompatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Headings: Arguments for Incompatibilism
Arguments for Incompatibilism
1. Preliminaries
2. Two Reasons for Thinking that Free Will is Incompatible with Determinism
3. Arguments based on Intuition
3.1 No Forking Paths Argument
3.2 Manipulation Arguments
4. Sourcehood Arguments
5. Choice and the Consequence Argument
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Content: While this response has a powerful intuitive grip (as can be seen from much of the popular and even scientific discussion of time travel), it is generally agreed, by philosophers, that the fatalist is making a mistake. Different diagnoses have been given of the “fatalist fallacy” or other mistake in modal reasoning, but the basic point is simple. Truth is not the same as necessity; it isn’t the same as logical necessity, metaphysical necessity, or even the relative necessity of unavoidability or lack of ability or power. The existence of a detailed set of truths about my future actions is consistent with my ability to do things other than the things I actually do. It is of course possible to agree that the existence of truths about all our future actions is compatible with free will while denying that the existence of nomologically determined truths about all our future actions is compatible with free will. But an argument is needed for this conclusion, an argument which doesn’t rely on fatalist reasoning or an appeal to fatalist intuitions. For comparisons between arguments for incompatibilism and arguments for fatalism, see van Inwagen 1983, Mackie 2003, Perry 2004, and Vihvelin 2008 and 2013. At a first approximation, nomological determinism (henceforth “determinism”), is a contingent and empirical claim about the laws of nature: that they are deterministic rather than probabilistic, and that they are all-encompassing rather than limited in scope.