Compatibilism

The view that free will and moral responsibility can exist even if determinism is true.

Also: compatibilist, soft determinism

What it means

Compatibilists hold that being determined by prior causes does not rule out acting freely. Classical compatibilists such as Thomas Hobbes and David Hume took freedom to be the ability to do what you want without external obstacles, so a person who chooses tea over coffee for their own reasons acts freely even if the choice was caused. Incompatibilists reply with the Consequence Argument: if our actions follow from the past and the laws of nature, which we cannot control, they are not up to us. Harry Frankfurt argued that responsibility does not require being able to do otherwise, and P. F. Strawson grounded responsibility in reactive attitudes such as resentment and gratitude.

The questions it belongs to

• 1.7 Free Will and DeterminismCould you have done otherwise?

Thinkers

• Thomas Hobbes
• David Hume
• Harry Frankfurt
• P. F. Strawson

Traditions

• Modern European
• Analytic

To read

• A Treatise of Human Nature — David Hume
• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding — David Hume
• An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals — David Hume

Sources and further reading

• Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Free Will (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Written by the Coordinates of Thought editors and checked against the sources above on 29 October 2026. Not peer-reviewed. How we write and check.

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