ABSTRACT
The arguments for incompatibilism spell out the reasoning behind the pervasive incompatibilist intuitions among ordinary persons exposed to the issue. The compatibilist position does have a number of attractions. At issue is the compatibility or incompatibility of free will and determinism, rather than responsibility and determinism. Free will might be inconsistent with event-causal indeterminism in the production of action while at the same time being inconsistent with the thesis of causal determinism. The compatibilist, then, needs a positive argument in favor of the compatibility thesis. It is a positive argument in that it seeks to show the contrary of one's own position to involve an absurdity. A compatibilist argument is based upon the notion of control and upon the contention that neither the past nor the natural laws can be a controller. Compatibilism for many has been motivated by a certain kind of analysis of the ability to do otherwise: a conditional analysis.
