Concept

Compatibilism

Overview

Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. The opposing belief, that the thesis of determinism is logically incompatible with the classical thesis of free will, is known as "incompatibilism".

Compatibilists often believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics. In other words, that causal determinism does not exclude the truth of possible future outcomes. Because free will is often seen as a necessary prerequisite for moral responsibility, compatibilism is commonly used to support compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.

Similarly, political liberty is a non-metaphysical concept. Statements of political liberty, such as the United States Bill of Rights, assume moral liberty: the ability to choose to do otherwise than what one does.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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Now, if no other determining principle can serve as a law for the will except that universal legislative form, such a will must be conceived as quite independent of the natural law of phenomena in their mutual relation, namely, the law of causality; such independence is called freedom in the strictest, that is, in the transcendental, sense; consequently, a will which can have its law in nothing but the mere…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason
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It is especially remarkable that the practical conception of freedom is based upon the transcendental idea, and that the question of the possibility of the former is difficult only as it involves the consideration of the truth of the latter. Freedom, in the practical sense, is the independence of the will of coercion by sensuous impulses. A will is sensuous, in so far as it is pathologically affected (by sensuous…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
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Suppose, for example, that a philosopher believes in what is called free-will. That a common man alongside of him should also share that belief, possessing it by a sort of inborn intuition, does not endear the man to the philosopher at all--he may even be ashamed to be associated with such a man.
William James, A Pluralistic Universe
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Philosophers who discussed Compatibilism

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Autonomy

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Part of Outline of philosophy.

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