Hardly any attempt to come to grips with the classical problem of free will and determinism directly addresses the metaphysical vision driving the concerns of those who believe that a significant sort of free will cannot exist in a deterministic world (incompatibilists). According to this vision, the world, as its history unfolds, is governed by certain sorts of necessary truths. Most philosophers who believe that free will is possible in a deterministic world ignore this root position, often regarding it as sufficient in establishing free will to cite considerations about morality or human ag ... More

Hardly any attempt to come to grips with the classical problem of free will and determinism directly addresses the metaphysical vision driving the concerns of those who believe that a significant sort of free will cannot exist in a deterministic world (incompatibilists). According to this vision, the world, as its history unfolds, is governed by certain sorts of necessary truths. Most philosophers who believe that free will is possible in a deterministic world ignore this root position, often regarding it as sufficient in establishing free will to cite considerations about morality or human agency. This book offers an original defense of Humean Compatibilism. A Humean Compatibilist bases her belief in the compatibility of free will and determinism on the regularity theory of laws, that is, Hume’s denial of necessary connections in nature. The author offers a new, original version of the regularity theory and defends it against necessitarians and governance theorists. A conception of compatibilism, based upon the existence of autonomous psychological laws, is presented. The incompatibilist’s consequence argument is rejected because the premise that affirms the unalterability of all laws is shown to fail for psychological laws. The failure of efforts to bypass this result, either through a defense of the reducibility of all laws to fundamental physical laws or a defense of the supervenience of psychological states on basic physical states, is demonstrated. A conception of free will as self-determination (or autonomy) plus the power of genuine choice is shown to be possible in a deterministic world.