PHL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Lasagne, Compatibilism
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Compatibilists, remember, believe that we can have free will even if determinism is true. They think that once we get clear on what we really mean by free will we will see that our having free will is perfectly compatible with determinism. The opposite of free action is not determined action, compatibilists insist, but coerced or compelled action. Here is a famous passage from david hume"s 1748 work an enquiry concerning human. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one, who is not a prisoner and in chains. Key idea: the fact that you are causally determined to do something does not entail that you do not want or choose to do it. See p. 478 of the ayer essay for similar remarks. Two versions of the theory and objections to them. You do x freely if and only if (i) you do x and (ii) doing x is what you choose to do.
