Introduction to Philosophy: Overhead

Definitions of Freedom:
Compatibilist Accounts

Compatibilist can accept:

P did A freely = P did A and P was free not to do A.

But for an account of "free not to do" the compatibilist proposes:

Negative Account:

P was free not to do A = P's doing A was not compelled by external factors.

(Stace's Gandhi example IP3 383bf)

Alternatively,

Conditional Account

P was free not to do A = If P had chosen not to do A, P would not have done A.

(Cf. Stace IP3 384b)

Richard Lee, rlee@uark.edu, last modified: 6 October 2004