Free Will

Reference notes on the philosophy of free will — the question of whether, and in what sense, agents can be the genuine sources of their own actions, and whether such freedom is compatible with the causal order described by physics. These pages are being built up step by step, starting from the conceptual basics and moving toward the harder problems (compatibilism, moral responsibility, and the bearing of physics — including quantum mechanics — on the debate).

The aim is to be careful and self-contained, distinguishing the metaphysical question (what the world is like) from the conceptual question (what "free" should be taken to mean) and the normative question (what freedom is needed for responsibility).

Contents

Positions

• The Free Will Problem — the core vocabulary of the debate: what free will is supposed to be, what determinism and indeterminism assert, the threat each is thought to pose, and the main positions (hard determinism, libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism).
• Compatibilism — the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism: its history (Stoics, Hobbes, Hume, Frankfurt, Fischer–Ravizza, Strawson), its varieties (conditional analysis, hierarchical/mesh, reasons-responsiveness, deep-self, semicompatibilism), the arguments for and against (Consequence Argument, manipulation/zygote arguments, Frankfurt cases), and common misconceptions.
• Incompatibilism — the thesis that free will is incompatible with determinism: the leeway and source roads, the master arguments (Consequence Argument, Origination/Ultimacy, Manipulation/Zygote), its varieties (libertarianism, hard determinism, hard incompatibilism), the compatibilist replies, its history, and common misconceptions.
• Libertarianism — the incompatibilist position that affirms free will and denies determinism: sourcehood and Ultimate Responsibility, the three models (event-causal, agent-causal, non-causal), its history (Aristotle, Epicurus' swerve, Reid, Kant, Chisholm, Kane), the arguments for it, and the objections it must answer — above all the luck objection.
• Hard Incompatibilism and Free-Will Skepticism — the view that no one has basic-desert free will because compatibilism is insufficient and libertarian indeterminism only adds luck: the two-sided argument, the pervasiveness of luck, its history (Spinoza, Darrow, Pereboom, Caruso, Levy), the constructive "life without basic desert" program (forward-looking responsibility, the quarantine model of punishment), objections, and misconceptions.
• Other Positions and Variants — concise treatments of the positions beyond the main four: revisionism, illusionism, luck-based skepticism, two-stage models, mysterianism, dissolutionism, new dispositionalism, the theological cluster (predestination, foreknowledge, Molinism, open theism), non-Western/Buddhist frameworks, and experimental philosophy.

Arguments

• The Consequence Argument — the rigorous core of leeway incompatibilism: van Inwagen's $N$-operator and the transfer rules $\alpha$ and $\beta$, the formal derivation, the major compatibilist replies (the McKay–Johnson agglomeration failure, Lewis's local-miracle reply, Slote's selective necessity, semicompatibilism), and the companion Mind argument against indeterminism.
• Frankfurt Cases and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities — Frankfurt's attack on PAP (the "could have done otherwise" condition): the Jones-and-Black counterfactual-intervener case, why responsibility tracks the actual sequence rather than leeway, and the major replies (the flicker of freedom, the Kane–Widerker–Ginet dilemma, Pereboom's buffered/blockage cases) — the pivot from leeway to sourcehood.

Concepts

• Moral Responsibility — the structure of responsibility the whole debate serves: free will vs. responsibility, holding vs. being responsible, the reactive attitudes (Strawson), the three faces (attributability, answerability, accountability), basic desert vs. forward-looking responsibility, the control and epistemic conditions, and whether responsibility requires alternative possibilities (PAP, Frankfurt, guidance control).