Arguments for Incompatibilism
Updated 2026-09-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Incompatibilism holds that free will and causal determinism cannot both be true. Arguments for it typically begin from the experience of everyday deliberation and choice: we assume that several paths lie open before us and that we could have chosen otherwise, and determinism appears to rule that out. The consequence argument and manipulation arguments give this intuition a more precise form.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Attribute responsibility: ask whether the action had an alternative available and whether blame is therefore warranted. - Test determinism: use the consequence argument to check whether an action was already fixed by a causal chain. - Identify manipulation: use manipulation cases to tell whether an action genuinely originates in the agent.
Anchor fast decisions
Determinism means that given the past and the laws of nature, only one future is possible. If could have chosen otherwise requires a real branching path, determinism conflicts with it. Manipulation arguments approach from another side: a secretly manipulated agent has ordinary capacities, yet we do not call him free, so freedom also requires that the action originate in the agent.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments/verified
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