Decider’s self-determination in compatibilist version

Abstract

In reaction to Petr Dvořák’s book Agent Causation: Introduction to the Analytic Debate on Free Will I defend a version of compatibilism about free will. Dvořák points out that we do not attribute moral responsibility to an agent whose decision had been predetermined by some causes distinct from him. I propose, however, a kind of “asymmetry thesis”. Within the class of predetermined decisions I admit the absence of responsibility in all the cases of morally wrong decisions, but not in all of those we assess as morally good. There are some voluntary decisions, I argue, such that although we are not able, for strong moral reasons, to choose differently, we feel fully free in making our choice or keeping our volition. And even if we have learned, or get to believe, that the volitional necessity in question has not been a result of our past ‘libertarian’ self-formation, we still hardly could be stopped by such a belief from feeling free in our choice. As philosophers, then, we should opt for respecting the way we actually experience freedom of will.