ABSTRACT
Because many Western philosophers are unaware of the dialectical complexity of the issues connected with extant accounts of free will in Buddhist philosophy, this chapter explains and critiques those accounts, and applies previously underappreciated Buddhist ideas to the discussion. I reject Buddhist quietism because the Buddha was not quiet about inevitablism. He endorses ‘wiggly causation’, a Buddhist conception of causal reliability as neither rigid nor random. I critique arguments precluding Buddhist discussion of free will as based on genetic fallacies that also ignore free will discussion within Indian philosophy. I reject Buddhist hard determinism as oxymoronic, and argue that the Buddha's argument against identifying the self as aggregates (because they cannot be controlled at will) does not establish a literalist no-self view, but implies control as a criterion for self, noting that the Buddha says the enlightened can control their thoughts, volitions, etc. I review the Pudgalavādin view that the literalist no-self view errs on the side of nihilism, and use Nāgārjuna’s interdependence analysis to ground an interdependent-self view. I formulate an ‘open-question-begging test’ to identify an ‘esoteric-question-begging fallacy’ involving premises more esoteric than the conclusions they would support. I note minor problems with non-skeptical views, and accept elements that may be united under Buddhist Soft Compatibilism, such as Siderits’s and Aronson’s uses of the two-truths distinction regarding the metaphysical versus empirical self, McRae’s analysis of lojong (mind-training), and Meyers’s analyses of meditation adepts’ abilities, that resolve tensions between advice to practitioners to view themselves as agents but non-practitioners impersonally.
