Incompatibilism: Do We Have Free Will?

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Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” This quote regarding taking responsibility for our actions in the society is based on the premise that we all have free will. According to Timothy O'Connor, free will is defined as the “capacity for rational agents to choose a course of action among various alternatives”, having alternative choices of action implies free will. On the opposite side, determinism is “a general philosophical thesis stating that all events and state of affairs are ‘causally necessitated’ by preceding events and states of affairs” (Chung & Hyland 172). Therefore, hard determinists believe free will is only an illusion. In order to answer the question of whether we should be responsible for our actions, it is necessary for us to answer the question of whether we have free will or not.
Incompatibilists are people who believe free will and determinism are incompatible, cannot coexist, and only one of them is true. Incompatibilists who believe determinism only are called “hard determinists”, and those who believe in free will only are called “libertarians”. According to hard determinists, our choices have been conditioned and controlled since birth, our actions are causally determined, and we have no control over what we do. A …show more content…
He was forced to quit school at a very young age to start working, because his father was laid off, and his mother was unemployed. Oftentimes, Michael watched his father beat up his mother, and the latter did nothing but endured his father’s long-term domestic violence. One day, Michael, who was eager to save his mother, murdered his father. Perhaps, the answer as to whether Michael should be held responsible for his action of murdering his father lies within the meaning of free
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