compatibilism

In compatibilists believe that we cannot act freely and be morally responsible for an action in a deterministic world, while compatibilists don’t deny the possibility of free action and moral responsibility for the agent, and they believe that we can find some kind of compatibility between moral responsibility and causal determination. This article will analyze Alfred Mele's zygote argument of manipulation, which is an argument in critique of compatibilism between moral responsibility and the deterministic world. Manipulation argument is an argument based on an agent's intuition of a situation in which the agent is under the control of another person or force. It wants to show that an agent in a manipulated situation, despite satisfying the compatibilists conditions, is not morally responsible for her action, and she is like the agent in a deterministic world.

Are the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness” consistent? The goal of this article is toprovide an affirmative answer to this question and thereby defend compatibilism (or accommodationism), which is the position that evolutionary theory and interventionist theism can coexist harmoniously. Compatibilists, such as van Inwagen (2003), Bartholomew (2008), Dowe (2011), Bradley (2012), and Sober (2014) argue that certain components or features of the biosphere exhibit both chancy and divinely guided aspects. What is chance?The concept of chance, in its scientific sense, is closely related to the concept of probability. One can interpret the probabilities used in scientific theories ontologically. If so, by “chance” we mean whatever objective property in the world the term “ontological probability” picks out (Suárez, 2022).[1] The received view suggests that chance and randomness are identical but technically speaking, “chance” describes the process that leads to the production of an outcome, while the term “random” describes the outcome itself.(Von Mises’ definition of randomness): A sequence, such as a sequence of zeroes and ones, is considered random when no successful gambling strategy can be made to predict the next number in the sequence. In other words, a sequence is random if it cannot be exploited by a gambling system for prediction. (Eagle, 2021)Furthermore, “chance” is often used synonymously with “coincidence.” Coincidence refers to the co-occurrence of two independent deterministic chains of events. In this sense, being chancy implies having a cause. Sometimes “chancy” is used synonymously with “accidental.” In this sense, a chance event does not possess a specific purpose. It is important to note that not every coincidence is considered an accident (Dowe, 2011).Genetic mutations serve as quintessential examples of chance events in evolutionary theory, as they do not occur in response to environmental threats or opportunities faced by species. In other words, there is no statistical relationship or correlation between the usefulness to a particular species of a potential mutation and the probability of that mutation occurring.The compatibility of “chance” and “guidedness”The incompatibilist might argue that chance processes cannot be divinely guided because the very meaning of being guided is not compatible with the meaning of being chancy. In response, van Inwagen (2003) points out that 1) the term “chancy” has multiple meanings, such that (2) some of these meanings can coexist with the idea of being guided, and (3) the meaning of “chancy” relevant to evolutionary theory falls within this category. Therefore, the argument just presented is not valid. Van Inwagen believes that the compatibilist perspective favors considering “chance” as coincidence. Being a coincidence requires having a cause, but having a cause does not necessarily imply having a purpose or being divinely guided. The question facing the compatibilist is whether chance is compatible with being divinely guided. Hence, van Inwagen mistakenly conflates having a cause with being guided.However, van Inwagen's approach can be modified. There are meanings of “chance” and “guided” according to which these two concepts can be considered compatible. To illustrate this, let’s consider a chain of events as follows:Mutation 1, the occurrence of feature 1 in species A; mutation 2, the occurrence of feature 2 in species B; mutation 3, the occurrence of feature 3 in species A; mutation 4, the occurrence of feature 4 in species C, and so on.This chain is random in the sense that knowing one part of it does not allow for predictions of the next event with significant probability. Genetic mutations are chance events; there is no statistical correlation between the usefulness of a particular mutation and the probability of its occurrence. If such a correlation existed, probabilistic predictions would be possible. However, it can still be argued that this chain is guided, meaning that its members are deliberately chosen by an intelligent agent. Having a pattern is a property that describes the relationship among the members of the sequence while being deliberately chosen is a property that results from the fact that each member, and consequently the whole sequence, is somehow related to an external entity, say an intelligent agent.Thus, there is no prima facie contradiction in considering a sequence of events to be random and at the same time divinely guided. One might object that although it may not seem contradictory at first, no truly random sequence can be guided. However, it remains unclear what kind of argument could support this claim solely through an analysis of the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness.” One might argue that being random suggests a lack of direction while being guided requires having a specific direction. Alternatively, one might argue that being random implies that attempting to regenerate the same sequence via a chance process would most likely fail, whereas being guided suggests otherwise. While these objections carry weight, they all require an additional premise beyond the mere meanings of “chance” and “guidedness.”One way to understand “chancy” as opposed to “guided” is to define chance within the incompatibilist sense as follows:The incompatibilist meaning of “chancy”: not being intentionally brought about by an intelligent agent, either human or non-human, nor being necessitated by the laws of nature. (van Woudenberg, 2013)In this sense, a chance event cannot be guided. However, it is worth noting that evolutionary theory itself does not make any claims about intentional agency. The defender of the incompatibilist meaning seems to have assumed ontological naturalism, but not methodological naturalism. It is evident that ontological naturalists tend to favor the incompatibilist meaning. Van Inwagen (2013) highlights that methodological naturalism does not necessitate a scientific theory to explicitly deny the existence and effects of supernatural agents. If a methodological naturalist wishes to adopt the incompatibilist meaning, she or he must make an additional argument that goes beyond merely considering the meanings of “chance” and “guidedness”. [1]. For a defense of the existence of chance in the world, see van Inwagen (1995), Sober (2010), Bradley (2012), and Emery (2022).

Hume takes a compatibilist view in the debate on liberty and necessity. In his view, we need both “necessity” and “liberty” for moral responsibility. In this paper, at first, I will clarify Hume’s path to accomplishing his project. Then, I will explain the classic interpretation of Hume’s compatibilism according to which, in Hume’s view, it is the external compulsion that conflicts with free will rather than causation itself. Then, I will try to explain Botterill’s interpretation of Hume’s compatibilism. Botterill claims that Hume’s focus is on what he calls intentional agency or liberty 2. Finally, I will try to show that Hume’s project still faces difficulties, even if we accept Botterill’s account of Hume’s compatibilism. Although in his view, Hume’s emphasis is on agency, determinations of the will, and intention, it does not still respond to our concern about other possibilities. This interpretation also does not show that intentional agency is compatible with the broad determinism that governs an agent’s psychological states and passions.

Nagel and Williams have identified the problem of moral luck as arising from a tension between the control principle and our moral practices. Some believed that there is a real and unsettling problem has been stated in contemporary philosophy. Not all agree, however. Michael Moore has claimed that the problem of moral luck is not a genuine problem in its own right, but that it boils down to the classic problem of free will. The second claim of Moore is about Nagel’s notion of control; Nagel is wrong about his idea of control – to control a result is to control all factors necessary to that result. This incompatibilist notion of control, according to Moore, has no usage in the ordinary activity of moral assessment. The aim of the first section of this paper is to formulate and discuss the problem of moral luck, thereby dealing with the question: ‘how to understand the problem of moral luck?”. The second section deals with the analysis and examination of the compatibilist concept of control as presented by Moore. In this study, these two claims have been separated and concluded that the first is right and the second is wrong.

Free will is one of the philosophical topics that have important and significant functions in the humanities, and is one of the theoretical foundations of the humanities. Various forms of free will have been provided; each of these forms has functions in the humanities that are completely different from other functions of the other form. One of these functions is the use of legal theories about the punishment of offenders. In this paper, after introducing different theories of free will and two major legal theories about punishment (Retributivism and Utilitarianism) , the ratio of different forms of the free will to the legal theories of punishment is measured and the result is obtained that the legal theory Retributivism is based solely on an incompatible form of free will, and it is only this type of freedom can apply the theory of punishment; contrary to the legal theory of Utilitarianism, which is non-conditioned to free will, and all the different forms, and even the attitude of hard determinism, can use this theory of punishment. According to this result, Mulla Sadra's view was drawn on punishment, and it was clear that he - as a Compatibilist philosopher - did not deny the ability to praise and deserve punishment; but in a diminishing approach, he reduces the concentration of these concepts in an incompatible intellectual system and reduces them in the sense that it can be used in the system of Compatibilism; this has led him to be very similar in terms of practical functions, to the theories of Utilitarian punishment.

This paper seeks to explain and evaluate, by an analytic method, the conflict between determinism and free will from the viewpoint of two physicalist reductionist philosophers, namely, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. Dennett is a compatibilist philosopher who tries to show compatibility between determinism and free will, while Sam Harris is a non-compatibilist philosopher who turns to determinism with the thesis that our thoughts and actions have been pre-determined by the neurobiological events associated with them, and thus, considers free will to be an illusion. Therefore according to him, we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions.  However, Dennett tries to establish the existence of free will through the use of concepts like control and deliberation and defends ‘free will worth wanting’. Therefore, if we take the agency of the agent and the absence of determinism as two criteria for free will, Dennett accepts both and Harris denies them; since there is neurobiological determinism, and all of Dennett's deliberations, etc. are also determined neurobiologically. Between the two conditions of free will, Dennett accepts that the origin of action must be in the agent; however, he refutes the condition of alternate possibilities, establishing his view based on a causal theory. As a Neo-Darwinist, he explains human beings’ physical and mental phenomena based on evolution theory and despite accepting causal determinism, he shows how the agent can still have agency in decisions and actions. As a result, he does not consider determinism to requisite compulsion. In his philosophical system, one can change the future that has not yet taken place. This decision-making regarding the future takes place through the process of deliberation, which has a special place in Dennett’s view. On the other hand, by adhering to Libet’s neurological experiments, Harris refutes both conditions of free will and considers the cause of all human being actions to arise from activities of the brain and concludes that one cannot have any conscious control over one’s actions. As a result, he emerges as a non-compatibilist determinist. In both his works, The Moral Landscape and Free Will, Harris addresses the topic of free will. In Free Will, he criticizes the view of compatibilists like Dennett, who responds to those criticisms in his article, ‘Reflections on Free Will, Review of Sam Harris’ Free Will’. Like Harris, Dennett too addresses free will in his two important books, Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves. Following an analysis of the views of Dennett and Harris and explaining the criticisms of the two regarding each other, the present article will show that neither Dennett, considering the rest of the elements of his philosophical views in philosophy of mind and philosophy of action can well justify compatibilism, nor can Harris, considering his neurological approach defend his determinist idea. The conflict that is present in Dennett’s views causes his explanation of the agent being the origin of his action to also be indefensible. Furthermore, due to the incompatibility of the different elements of his view and the vagueness of his idea regarding the effect of unconscious intentions on action, Harris too is placed in a weak position. In contrast to Harris’ supposition, a human is not “a puppet [who] is free as long as he loves his strings”; rather, a human chooses, makes decisions and acts according to his own will. As a result, despite the objections that apply to both philosophers, Dennett’s view is more acceptable than Harris’ in terms of the effort to justify free will; even though neither have been apparently successful in defending their own ideas.

This article examines Manuel Vargas’s revisionism, which is a theory of free will as a condition of moral responsibility. In this theory, both diagnos tic and prescriptive account of free will and moral responsibility in commonsense are explained. The diagnos tic account describes commonsense beliefs about free will and moral responsibility and prescriptive account aims to tell us how we ought to think about free will and moral responsibility. Commonsense intuitions about free will are Incompatibilis t and especially Libertarianis t. But prescriptive account can’t be Libertarianism, since it has to assume indeterminism specifically in the subjective decision-making process, and this goes beyond the available evidences. It also can’t be Eliminativism, because we can revise common sense about these things, in a way that to be consis tent. The prescriptive account is a kind of Compatibilism, free will, in this regard, is the ability to recognize moral considerations and guide their behavior in the light of these considerations. At the end, Vargas’s use of Consequence Argument, citing empirical evidence, the use of a Compatibilis t concept of can and relying on Libertarianis t norms for interpretation his Prescriptive account has been criticized.

Abstract Libet’s experiments, showing that we become aware of our intention to act only after we have unconsciously formed it. Based on these experimental studies, Some claim that we do not possess free will. This paper offers three responses to this claim; First, it is doubtful that actions studied in the Libet’s experiments are ideal exemplars of free will. They are at best ‘degenerate’ examples of free will. Second, Libet uses such terms as ‘urge’ and ‘intention’ interchangeably. An alternative interpretation of Libet’s results says, what the subjects were required to report was not a conscious intention or decision to act, but rather a perceived urge to move. Third, Libet’s results do not constitute a separate challenge to our freedom. It is merely rehearsing the claim that determinism is incompatible with free will. So, Libet’s experiments provide no evidence against compatibilist notion of free will. Keywords: Libet’s experiments, Free will, Readiness potential, Conscious decision, Compatibilism.

This article studies one of the two current conceptions of free will i.e negative conception or the definition of free will to having alternative possibilities; and tries to assess and ascertain the truth or untruth of this historically popular conception, by means of rational counting of all possible rejections and defends of it. The investigations indicate that the disputes on this truth and untruth is the first dispute that causes philosophers to revolt against one another in debate of free will problem in form of two main groups of Compatibilist and incompatibilist philosophers. The dispute of these two groups begins with debating on the relation between negative free will and Determinism, continues with researching on possibility of free will in a determined world and finally firms in form of two fundamental objections against one another: The harm-mind hypothesis of Determinism on side of Incompatibilists against of Intelligibility challenge on side of Compatibilists. And thus confirming or rejecting of such conception at last depends on assessing these two objections. The result of our assessment in this article consists of rejecting the negative conception.

While some philosopher believes that it is impossible for a free act to be determined, others consider that possible. the first group is named incompatibilist and the second compatibilist. Compatibilist should be able ,in addition to rejecting the arguments that is presented for incompatibilism, to present a criteria about the nature of free will that is compatible with determinism. they have presented various criteria. In this paper, the author intends to categorize and evaluate these criteria in the form of six titles, after determining what he means by the Free Will and Determinism. Having the ability and the absence of impediment, the ability of reflective self-evaluation, the ability of choosing according with the ones valuational system, the ability of understanding the true and good, having the guidance control, having proper history, are the criteria that have been discussed in this article. Finally, it is concluded that none of these criteria alone is sufficient and the only theory that includes all of these criteria can be an appropriate theory about the free will from viewpoint of compatibilism.

The purpose of this article is to criticize Daniel Dennett's main argument which has been formulated to explain and justify the compatibility of Human's mental phenomena, particularly his free will, with causal determinism on the basis of ontological naturalism (Physicalism). The article begins with the formulation of this argument. Then, the theories of naturalism and evolution as the backgrounds of Dennett's thesis are explained. Dennett tries to justify the premises of his argument by a novel interpretation of casual determinism based on a difference between casual determinism and inevitability. Finally, it is shown that Dennett's solution for making a compatibility between free will and causal determinism is insufficient and unsatisfactory, and, thus, he has not solved the deep and historical problem of compatibilism.

In this paper، we present four philosophical approaches and their prominent advocates toward the problem of relationship between Darwinian evolution and theistic beliefs: (1) Atheistic Inconsistency: there is a deep conflict between Darwinian evolution and theism; among atheists، Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett could be regarded as the best representatives in this branch. (2) Theistic Inconsistency: A deep conflict could also be seen among theists، M. H. Tabātabā’ī’s Quranic exegesis is one of the most significant sources in this regard from Islamic side، correspondent to the same in other theistic religions. (3) Theistic Consistency: There is a concord between theism and Darwinian evolution; we have considered Alvin Plantinga and Murtazā Mutaharī in this category. (4) Reductionist Consistency: Theism and Darwinian evolution، or science and religion in general، are two different and noncompeting levels of explanation; John Haught advocates such reductionist consistency between science and religion. Having mentioned the four above classes and a few of many representatives of each category and some important questions toward these approaches، we have attempted to show that the alleged consistency between theistic beliefs and Darwinian evolution by the principle of natural selection fails.

With no doubt, the element by which we are permitted to admire or blame one for his good or bad actions is freedom. But what the essence of freedom is and how human being can get it, in a world governed by causal determinism, are two questions which most moral philosophers in west have discussed. In this regard some of them believe that compatibility between freedom and causal determinism is impossible, so they have denied one of them in the favor of the other and have established incompatibilism. In contrary, some others, from modern era up now, have tried to make them compatible, in order to revival moral responsibility and prevent from falling in randomness. This view has been called compatibilism. This article studies compatibilism from the viewpoints of philosophers’ such as Hobbes, Hume, Ayer, Frankfurt, Watson, Wolf and Fischer. Finally this paper it cleared that despite the rightness of compatibilism, because of their unsuccessfulness in proposing a true explanation of human freedom and moral responsibility, compatibilists have failed to show that this view is reasonable and justified.

One of the important questions in philosophy of mind concerns nature of mental intentional states and the way to determine them. Some experiences such as that of twin earth confirm externalism in contents, in the sense that at least in some cases content is determined by external, environmental, and most likely social and historical facts. On the other hand, it is intuitively accepted that we have a distinct (and free from experience) access to the contents of our own ideas. But compatibility between distinct access and externalism is controversial. After some prefatory notes concerning externalism and knowledge of the soul, one of the arguments for their incompatibility (argument of gradual change) will be introduced in the present article; then two objections against this argument will be described and discussed: in the first one and through an study of the theory, alternatives of the claim “second order content is determined based on the first order content” are considered as confirming subject’s knowledge of the contents of his own thought; and the other does not regard internalism as being based on evidence; and thus does not accept theoretical efficiency of the alternative introduced in internalism. Then, it is shown that if those who believe in these critiques manage to ascribe to the subject knowledge of the content of his own thought, that is a knowledge which requires justification. Then, having separated negative and positive independence of a justified belief from experimental facts, the author shows that argument of gradual change rejects only negative independence; and knowledge of the mind may be still regarded in the positive sense as being independent from experience.