The consequence argument is a widely discussed argument for incompatibilism, the position that free will cannot coexist with determinism, given its most influential formulation by the philosopher Peter van Inwagen in 1975. The argument holds that if determinism is true, then every one of a person's actions is the necessary consequence of the laws of nature together with events that occurred before that person was even born, and since no one has any control over the laws of nature or over the distant past, no one has control over what follows necessarily from them either. Because a person's present actions, on this reasoning, follow just as necessarily from the laws and the past as any other consequence of determinism, the argument concludes that if determinism is true, no one has ever been able to do otherwise than they actually did, directly challenging compatibilist attempts to reconcile free will with a deterministic universe.
Facts
Classification
Position Kind Sources
1. Arguments for Incompatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyArguments for Incompatibilism (SEP), introduction
We believe that we have free will and this belief is so firmly entrenched in our daily lives that it is almost impossible to take seriously the thought that it might be mistaken.
Arguments for Incompatibilism (SEP), on van Inwagen 1983
In An Essay on Free Will (1983), van Inwagen presents three formal arguments which, he says, are intended as three versions of the same basic argument
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