Friday Question: A Puzzle about Free Will

For this week's Friday question, let's consider (in a basic, straightforward way) a problem that arises for those wishing to endorse an 'incompatibilist' approach the problem of free will. The problem of free will is an age-old problem in philosophy that is framed around two independently plausible but apparently conflicting positions. On the one hand, it appears that determinism is true: every event (E) is caused by some antecedent cause (or causes) which make it such that that E couldn't not have occurred. Determinism stands in an obvious tension with the doctrine of free will, which maintains that--any time we act--we could have acted otherwise. There are two prominent approaches to the tension between these two doctrines. One approach, incompatibilism, supposes that the two doctrines are mutually incompatible, which means that at least one of the two independently plausible positions must be abandoned. The other approach to the problem is called compatibilism: the view that these two doctrines only appear incompatible with each other.

These descriptions of the two positions are rather rough, but they will do for the purposes of bringing to attention a curious puzzle that arises for proponents of an incompatibilist approach to the problem. The problem is that, as one might be inclined to see it, the way to vindicate free will on an incompatibilist program is to argue that (despite the apparent plausibility of determinism) determinism is actually false. Suppose for the sake of argument that one has successfully defended such an argument, and then reasons as follows:

1. Incompatibilism is true.
2. Determinism is false (ex hypothesi)
3. Therefore, the doctrine of free will is true.

A problem with this sort of argument is that the falsity of determinism doesn't vouchsafe free will. The falsity of determinism only gets you the following: that indeterminism is true. So in order to secure the doctrine of free will by arguing for the falsity of determinism, one would have to defend the following inference:

I: Indeterminism is true, therefore the doctrine of free will is true.

Problematically, though, a presupposition of acting with free will is that one controls one's own actions. One hardly acts freely if one's actions are, say, 'random' or 'spontaneously generated' as would be the case if indeterminism were true. So, it seems that (despite what might have been initially supposed), if indeterminism is true, we don't have free will.

However, this result implies an awkward position for the incompatibilist.

1. Incompatibilism is true.
2. Either determinism or indeterminism is true.
3. If determinism is true, the doctrine of free will is false (from 1)
4. If indeterminism is true, the doctrine of free will is false (given that we lack free will without control over our actions).
5. Therefore, the doctrine of free will is false.

Against this dilemma, is there any way to defend an incompatibilist approach to the problem of free will and nonetheless avoid the conclusion that we don't have free will?