Compatibilism: A Sketch
What the compatibilist is saying is that free will -- real free will
-- is compatible with determinism. The reason the metaphysical
libertarian thinks they're not compatible is that he's adopted a
mistaken analysis of what free will is or would have to be.
Here's a first approximation to the compatibilist analysis: Suppose
we're talking about somebody whom we'd describe as free and responsible
for her acts. She has certain raw capacities, given by nature, which
have been shaped through the course of education and experience into an
adult's information-gathering, reason-considering, action-guiding
capabilities. For the sake of having a short name, call these
capacities, or rather what underlies them, her deliberative
machinery.
In the normal case, her actions depend on the output of her
deliberative machinery: If she decides to do something, she does it; if
she decides against it, she doesn't. She can also (often) defer a
decision pending the availability of further information or the outcome
of further consideration.
What, then, defeats a claim that she was acting freely or
responsibly? The compatibilist says that it is not causation that
defeats ascriptions of responsibility, but rather compulsion --
which is a matter of being caused in certain ways. Compulsion is not
the same thing as causation; it's a narrower category. She can't jump
17 feet straight up right now, and there's a perfectly adequate causal
explanation for that, but that doesn't mean she is compelled not
to jump 17 feet straight up. Compulsion is something that interferes
with what a person would otherwise be able to do (or perhaps would have
reason to do). It makes sense to talk about it against a background of
assumptions about the person's uncompelled abilities. It makes no sense
when we are talking about the full causal background that includes
all of the person's abilities. Basically -- lots of complications apart --
there are two things that can defeat or undermine ascriptions of
responsibility: The agent's deliberative machinery may be bypassed
or it may be short-circuited.
It is bypassed if it simply has no effect on the behavior. Paradigms of
this are cases of sheer physical compulsion. She starts across town to
keep a promise but has a flat tire. Or she trips and falls in a way
that injures someone. When things like this happen, we say she is not
responsible because what happens is a matter of (merely) something
happening, not a matter of what she did. Her deliberative machinery
doesn't enter into it. There was no decision on her part to break the
promise or cause the injury nor any consideration of the merits of
injuring or promise-breaking. (In at least some cases, there is room to
think that there are psychological analogues -- a person has or suffers
from some compulsion that drives behavior independently of conscious
intentions or reasoning or deliberation. In many of these, however,
matters are mixed: the person with the compulsion may have collaborated
in coming to have it or be able to take steps to avoid being in
circumstances where it is exhibited.)
The deliberative machinery is short-circuited if it plays a role in
controlling behavior but not the normal kind. A paradigm here is
response to a threat. She makes a decision and the decision controls
her behavior, but the only reason her decision was to turn over all her
money to you is that you threatened her with "your money or your life!"
But suppose the deliberative machinery isn't interfered with,
isn't bypassed or short-circuited -- which is surely the normal case.
Then, she can control her actions in the light of reasons and
information she has and can direct her actions to the satisfaction of
her desires and the achievement of her goals. If she should wonder
whether she has enough information to make reliable judgments about
what to do, she can investigate further. If she should come to question
her goals or desires, she can reconsider them and, if she finds it
appropriate, can alter or change them (or undertake steps to bring
about their alteration, such as acquiring new or breaking old habits,
undergoing therapy and dozens of other possibilities.)
Her life is under her own control, shaped by her own goals, and even
her goals are not simply given or something she is stuck with -- they
are what they are because of the thinking and deliberation she has (or
hasn't) done about them. In short, she is free, responsible for who and
what she is and for the actions that flow from who and what she is.
