to not write the essay and accept any consequences that this may bring. For free will to be compatible with determinism it would be necessary for all previous events to play out in the same way and yet it still be possible for me to choose not to write this essay. The question of whether free will is compatible with determinism is a question of whether human beings have genuine choices in any given situation or whether our actions are inevitable. Free will is closely linked to ideas of personal responsibility and the idea that people are morally responsible for their actions. I will focus on two essays by Harry G. Frankfurt and one by Susan Wolf that follow this line of argument, but I will begin by looking at a classical compatibilist argument by Kai Nielson. Nielson is a soft determinist which means that he believes that determinism is true, but determinism is compatible with free will. This is in contrast with hard determinists and libertarians who both believe that free will is incompatible with determinism. However, hard determinists believe that determinism is true, and libertarians believe that it is false. Nielson’s main line of argument focuses on the fact that he believes that many incompatibilist arguments are making a false contrast between the idea of an action being free and it being causally determined. Nielson states that the idea of a causeless event does not make any sense. Therefore, every event and action are causally determined. Nielson believes that the correct concept to contrast with freedom is constraint and that just because it is theoretically possible to predict a man’s actions by knowing enough about his inclinations and past events does not mean that the man is compelled to act or constrained from acting in a certain way. The three conditions for freedom set out are: 1. He could have done otherwise if he had chosen to.
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