Abstract

Compatibilism is the view that free will can exist even if determinism — the thesis that there is only one physically possible future at any given time — is true. In this thesis, I defend compatibilism by arguing against two of its main rivals. I first argue against necessary eliminativism — the view that free will is impossible — by deploying an attractive view of language (Lewis, 1983, 1984; Sider, 2001) to show that, so long as ordinary folk are liable to experience conflicting intuitions about how to use the term ‘free,’ it will refer to some property which is possibly exemplified. I then argue that libertarians — believers in free will who hold that it is incompatible with determinism — must reject either a naturalistic view of the world with no ontological commitments above and beyond those proscribed by science or the soundness of the best argument in favor of libertarianism (van Inwagen, 1983, ch. 3). Finally, I sketch a way a proponent of compatibilism can use my arguments against necessary eliminativists and naturalistic libertarians to offer a positive argument for compatibilism