The Online Library of Liberty

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• Literature of Liberty a Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought
• Editorial Staff
• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Henry B. Veatch, Natural Law: Dead Or Alive?
• I: Natural Law
• “nature” and “law” In Natural Law
• The Anatomy of Natural Rights
• Egoism and Rights
• The Is/ought Chimera
• Deriving “ought” From “is”
• Facts Vs. Value-laden Whims
• Is/ought and Probable Reasons
• Does Righteous Anger Imply Rights?
• Why Be Moral?
• Truth As an Objective Value
• Was the Revolution Objectively Necessary?
• Natural Law and State of Nature
• Natural Law and the State
• Natural Rights and Anarchism
• Dworkin On Rights
• Liberalism, Rights, and Abortion
• Rights and “mercy Killing”
• Rights and the “brain Drain”
• The Natural Law Right to Work
• Grotius: Contract and Natural Law
• Rights and Communication
• II: Autonomy, Privacy, and Authority
• Bureaucracy and “the Organization Man”
• Autonomy and Anarchism
• Autonomy and Taking Responsibility
• Autonomy, Motivation, and “buck-passing”
• Schooling For Conformity
• The Schoolroom Vs. Autonomy
• Obedience to Authority
• The Meaning of Privacy
• Privacy and Autonomy
• Privacy and Consent
• The Court and Privacy
• III: The Ambiguities of Liberty
• Clarifying Freedom
• Rehabilitating Mill's “harm Principle”
• Experiencing Freedom
• Do Offers Coerce Freedom?
• The Danger of “dangerousness”
• Freedom, Motivation, and Government Programs
• Freedom Vs. Determinism
• Negative Vs. Positive Freedom
• Smith and Utilitarian Economic Freedom
• Locke, Freedom, and Tacit Consent
• Religious Freedom
• Freedom, Existentialism, and Innocent Victims
• Does Censorship Harm Freedom?
• IV: Slavery
• Slavery, Ideology, and Subordination
• Slavery and Imperialist Ideology
• Enlightenment Liberalism Vs. Slavery
• The Anatomy of a Slave Revolt
• Colonial American Slave Law
• Jefferson On Slavery
• Slavery and the Poor
• V: Planning
• Regulation and the Warfare State
• Mail, Privacy, and Social Control
• Corporate State Capitalism: Coal
• French War “planification”: Chlorates
• Bureaucracy and British Regulation
• British Foreign Policy and Stagnation
• Political Decisions and the Economy
• Government, Labor, and Multinationals
• Black Markets Vs. Regulation
• Regulation Vs. Academic Autonomy
• Government Schools and Social Control
• The Economics of Charity
• International State Planning and Inflation
• Competition and Individual Knowledge

Freedom vs. Determinism

Richard Foley

• University of Note Dame

“Compatibilism.” Mind 87 (July 1978): 421–428.

Is a deterministic account of human action compatible with human freedom? A theory known as compatibilism (or soft determinism) denies that determinism must mean a person's lack of freedom or ability to act otherwise than he does.

The compatibilist grants that prior conditions causally determine human action. However, not all of those considerations are relevant in deciding whether a person has the ability to act otherwise. As G.E. Moore argued, a person's behavior is partly determined by what he wills. If a person wills differently, he can act differently. The compatibilist must, accordingly, explain our ability to will or choose. The best strategy for the compatibilist to show the compatibility of freedom and determinism is to focus on deliberate action. If the determinist can explain how a person could deliberately act otherwise than how he in fact did, he would explain the most important kind of freedom.

Deliberate freedom of action appears possible from the following analysis. A person is said to do x “freely” if, although doing x, he is also able to do something else, namely y. In this case he would be able to do y if: (1) there is something z such that, were he to will z, he would do y; and (2) there is some physically possible situation in which he would know y is the best alternative and, with this knowledge, he would do z.

This analysis means that a person would be free to regulate what he values or desires by a program of self-training. We can clarify this. There was some time prior to time t when the person was able to bring about his having at time t different values and desires. He thus could have willed differently at time t because it would bring about more of what he valued.