Free will · Quiz question 21/35
The Open Future and the Consequence Argument
Keep reading or close the tab — are you deciding right now, or was it already settled? Libertarian free will and the Consequence Argument.
Right now you could keep looking at this screen — or close the tab.
Which one you pick isn't already settled. I decide it, right now.
The view that defends "the future is open and I decide it right now" is called libertarianism about free will. The most cited argument that determinism conflicts with this is Peter van Inwagen's Consequence Argument (1983). On the other side, compatibilists since Hume have argued freedom survives determinism.
In his 1884 lecture "The Dilemma of Determinism," William James defended indeterminism — real, open possibilities in the world. His famous point: regret only makes sense if something else could have happened.
Van Inwagen's Consequence Argument backs that intuition: if determinism is true, your actions are the necessary result of the distant past and the laws of nature, neither of which is up to you — so your actions aren't up to you. Robert Kane added a theory of "self-forming actions": in moments where our values clash, undetermined brain processes are in play, and through those choices we shape who we are.
Critics raise the "luck problem": if something undetermined settles your choice, that's luck, not control.
Undetermined options are really open, and the agent settles which one happens.
Key names: Kane, Chisholm, Jean-Paul Sartre, Descartes"Already settled" and "I decide" aren't rivals — the settling process just is your deliberation.
Key names: Daniel Dennett, David Hume, Harry FrankfurtOpen or closed, ultimate self-determination is impossible.
Key names: Spinoza, Galen StrawsonIn the 2020 PhilPapers Survey, about 19% chose libertarianism and about 59% compatibilism.