TheMINDargument and libertarianism

Abstract

Many critics of libertarian freedom have charged that freedom is incompatible with indeterminism. We show that the strongest argument that has been provided for this claim is invalid. The invalidity of the argument in question, however, implies the invalidity of the standard Consequence argument for the incompatibility of freedom and determinism. We show how to repair the Consequence argument and argue that no similar improvement will revive the worry about the compatibility of indeterminism and freedom. Libertarians believe that free will exists and is incompatible with determinism. Among the many problems facing libertarians is the problem of the alleged incompatibility of free will and indeterminism. If free will is, as many have suggested, incompatible with indeterminism then libertarianism is false. Libertarians have not adequately addressed this issue to date. It is this gap in the libertarian program that we seek to fill. We will show that the strongest argument for the incompatibility of indeterminism and free will, the so called Mind argument, 1 is a failure. We will also, in providing an improvement on Peter van Inwagen’s well known Consequence argument, show that the failure of the Mind argument does not threaten the strongest libertarian argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. In his widely influential book An Essay on Free Will (1983), Peter van Inwagen presented, among other arguments, his Consequence argument. This argument is, we think, the strongest argument to date for incompatibilism, the thesis that free will and causal determinism are incompatible. Unfortunately, as van Inwagen saw and as we will discuss below, an argument quite similar to van Inwagen’s Consequence argument, the Mind argument, seems to show that free will is also incompatible with causal indeterminism. If both van Inwagen’s argument and the Mind argument are sound then there is no such thing as free will and libertarianism is false.