Four views on free will

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Libertarianism 9
Part 2 The second prong of the modern attack on libertarian free will
goes a step further. Recall that the first prong says that libertarian free will
is unnecessary because we can have all the freedoms worth wanting, even if
determinism should be true. The second prong goes further, arguing that
libertarian free will itself is impossible or unintelligible and has no place in the
modern scientific picture of the world. Such an ultimate freedom is not
something we could have anyway, say its critics. Those who take this line
note that defenders of libertarian free will have often invoked obscure and
mysterious forms of agency or causation to defend the libertarian view. In
order to explain how free actions can escape the clutches of physical causes
and laws of nature (so that free actions will not be determined by physical
laws), libertarians have posited transempirical power centers, immaterial
egos, noumenal selves outside of space and time, unmoved movers, uncaused
causes and other unusual forms of agency or causation – thereby inviting
charges of obscurity or mystery against their view. Even some of the greatest
modern defenders of libertarianism, such as Immanuel Kant, have argued
that we need to believe in libertarian free will to make sense of morality and
genuine responsibility, but we can never completely understand such a free
will in theoretical and scientific terms.
The problem that provokes this widespread skepticism about the existence
of libertarian free will has to do with an ancient dilemma: If free will is not
compatible with determinism, as libertarians contend, free will does not seem
to be compatible with indeterminism either (the opposite of determinism).
Events that are undetermined, such as quantum jumps in atoms, happen
merely by chance. So if free actions were undetermined, as libertarians claim,
it seems that they too would happen by chance. But how can chance events
be free and responsible actions? Suppose a choice was the result of a quantum
jump or other undetermined event in a person’s brain. Would this amount to
a free and responsible choice? Undetermined effects in the brain or body
would be unpredictable and impulsive – like the sudden emergence of a
thought or the uncontrolled jerking of an arm – quite the opposite of what
we take free and responsible actions to be. It seems that undetermined events
in the brain or body would occur spontaneously and would be more likely to
undermine our freedom rather than enhance it.
This two-pronged modern attack on the traditional libertarian view of free
will has had a powerful impact on modern thought. To answer it, libertarians
must show (i) that free will really is incompatible with determinism (call this
“The Compatibility Problem”). But they must also show (ii) that a libertarian
free will requiring indeterminism can be made intelligible and how, if at all,
such a free will can be reconciled with modern scientific views of the cosmos
and of human beings (call this “The Intelligibility Problem”). I will be

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