2. His actions are voluntary in the sense that the kleptomaniacs are not. 3. Nobody compelled him to choose as he did. 16 If all these conditions are met, then an action is free, and Nielson believes that this is compatible with determinism. The problem with this argument is the first condition: Nielson talks of people being free from constraints to perform actions but makes no mention of what causes these actions to be performed. Determinism is the theory that every event is necessitated by previous events. If people could have chosen to act otherwise, then the action performed was not necessitated by prior events; it was merely made possible by them. Part of the causal chain of events that lead to an action being performed includes a person choosing to perform the action in question. If the person making the choice had instead made a different choice, then the causal chain leading to the action is different and this would explain what had caused the eventual action. For example, it feels possible that I could choose not to submit essay in before the deadline, but I am going to (or did by the time this is read). For me to choose not to submit would have needed a different sequence of events leading up to this point for me to have made that choice. I may have crossed paths with a more rebellious group of friends and learned not to respect deadlines. However, that never happened, therefore the essay was bound to be submitted. The ability to choose to do otherwise is entirely unprovable and determinism is a theory that attempts to explain the world without leaving space for free will.
16 Kai Nielson, ‘The Compatibility of Freedom and Determinism’, in Free Will (Malden: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 39-46
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