Examples Of Incompatibilism

Whenever we make choices, we believe that we have free will and choose what we can do throughout our daily lives. We all have multiple actions to make and those choices can be a great choice or something we regret making. Throughout my life, I have made great and bad choices. When I look back and regret the bad choices I have made, I wish I could go back in time and change my actions, so I could’ve made my present time better. But choices are not only from the past but for the future as well. I like to plan out for my future, so I can become the person that I want to become. As my daily life continues, I believe that I have control over the actions I’ll be making and it’s up to me what I choose or try to do.

There are two types of groups that believe if free will and determinism are in conflict or not. Incompatibilists are those who believe that if determinism is true then no one has free will. Those who reject the Incompatibilists view are the Compatibilists, who believe that free will does occur with determinism. Incompatibilists like Peter Van Inwagen, support a
powerful argument called the Consequence Argument. The argument can be used with any human action at any time. Incompatibilists can conclude that if determinism is true and free will requires humans to do differently than people don’t have access to free will. Without a doubt the first two permeable of the Consequence Argument are deniable. Van Inwagen states that “it’s not up to us what went on before we were born.” This gives us the introduction of the Consequence Argument which means we can’t do anything to change the past or change the laws of nature. Next, Van Inwagen says “if determinism is true, then our acts are the consequence of the laws of nature and events in the remote past.” This is where Incompatibilists believe that determinism is true, and the Consequence Argument proposes that there is nothing people can do to change the fact that our present choices are the required consequences of the past or laws of nature. The conclusion of the Consequence Argument says that we can’t do anything now to change the fact that our present actions happen meaning that people don’t have free will.
To back up the Conclusion Argument, Van Inwagen uses the Rule Alpha- “there is nothing anyone can do to change what must be the case (or what is necessarily so).
The Rule Alpha is undeniable because we cannot change what is necessarily so. He uses an example where 2+2=4, where no one can change that because it’s because we have logically learned it and it’s the way it’s supposed to be. He uses a second rule called the Rule Beta. According to Van Inwagen, “if we can’t do anything to prevent X from occurring and Y is necessarily going to occur if X does, how could we do anything to prevent Y from occurring?” This rule is also known as the “Transfer of Powerlessness Principle.” It means that we are powerless to change X and if Y is going to happen when X is also going to happen. Which makes powerless to change Y as well. For the Rule Beta, I disagree because I believe there’s a way that people can do
it.

The Consequence Argument is enlightened by many people and its considered to be a powerful argument. But, I reject with some of the details that Van Inwagen proposed in the argument. The first two premises of the Consequence Argument, it states that “There is nothing we can now do to change the past and the laws of nature.” I’m very convinced with this permeable because nobody in this world has the ability to change the past or the laws of nature because we can’t go back in time to change the past or change the laws of nature. But, I accept we do have the power, ability or can do something to change, but it’s up to us if we want to do it or not. This is backed up by the hypothetical way which was suggested by the classical compatibilists who reject the Consequence Argument. People have the ability or power to do something if they wanted to or not,