Incompatibilists

Incompatibilists are philosophers who hold that free will and determinism are logically incompatible. They argue that if the universe operates according to fixed laws and every event is ultimately caused by prior states, then agents cannot possess the kind of freedom required for genuine moral responsibility.

Within incompatibilism, two main positions are often distinguished. Hard determinism asserts that determinism is true and therefore free will does not exist; moral responsibility in the libertarian sense is illusionary, and people still may be held to account under revised notions of responsibility. Libertarianism, by contrast, argues that free will does exist and that determinism is false (or at least not universally applicable) to at least some human actions; libertarians maintain that agents can exercise control that is not wholly determined by prior causes, often appealing to agent-causation or other indeterministic elements in decision making.

A central issue for incompatibilists is the principle of alternative possibilities—the idea that a person must be able to act otherwise if their actions are to be considered free. Many incompatibilists insist that without genuine alternatives or non-determined control, actions cannot be truly free. Critics of incompatibilism, however, contend that freedom can be compatible with determinism (compatibilism) by reframing what counts as freedom and responsibility, for example by focusing on the agent’s reasons, control, or character rather than on ultimate sourcehood.

The incompatibilist position thus frames a core divide in the philosophy of free will and moral responsibility, with ongoing debates about the nature of freedom, the status of determinism, and how or whether blame and praise can be justified.