ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with many contemporary compatibilist views currently in circulation defy easy categorization. One variable affecting contemporary compatibilism concerns whether free will and or moral responsibility are essentially historical. Until recently, the default assumption had been that compatibilism is a nonhistorical thesis. Some contemporary philosophers have thus advanced compatibilist theses by attending to the normative burdens of justifying our practices of holding morally responsible, especially blaming and punishing. In Daniel Dennett's view, there is no such thing as basic desert, and thus no free will of the sort that is required for basic desert responsibility. In Freedom within Reason, Susan Wolf develops a position in the free will debate that she called the Reason View. According to the Reason View, moral responsibility requires the ability to act in accord with Reason. According to Alfred Mele, what a compatibilist should say about Ernie is that he acts freely and is morally responsible for his action.
