Traditional compatibilism revisited

Markus Schlosser

Abstract

According to traditional compatibilism (about free will), the ability to do otherwise can be analysed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. This is known as the conditional analysis. It is widely believed, even among compatibilists, that traditional compatibilism is a dead horse, as it were. One of the main reasons for this is that the conditional analysis is thought to be subject to decisive counterexamples. In this paper, I will defend traditional compatibilism against this objection. I will propose a revised version of the conditional analysis that preserves the core of traditional compatibilism, and I will argue that this account avoids the counterexamples. Further, I will explain how compatibilists can use the conditional analysis in order to respond to the consequence argument for incompatibilism (van Inwagen 1983).


References

van Inwagen, P. (1983), An Essay on Free Will. Oxford UP.