ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the debate between compatibilists and incompatibilists who are metaphysical libertarians. But the debate between compatibilists and free will skeptics is different. Both groups agree that indeterminism, no matter where it is located in the choices or actions, is incompatible with free will. Incompatibilists believe that free will and determinism are incompatible because the latter conflicts with two conditions required for the former: the ability to do otherwise and ultimate self-causation. Compatibilists’ “randomness” objection is powerful, but it is not decisive. Incompatibilists agree with compatibilists that free will is, at bottom, self-determinism. Compatibilists argue that metaphysical libertarians’ attempt to reconcile indeterminism and self-determinism fails to resolve their randomness objection. Metaphysical libertarians respond to compatibilists’ renewed randomness objection by arguing that even if free will requires a reason-based decision, it does not also require a contrastive reason, a “meta-reason” for making this reason-based decision rather than another reason-based decision.
