Abstract

In the last half-century increased awareness of modal issues has been brought to bear on the free will debate. It has been argued that the context dependence of possibility claims can be exploited to mount a defence of compatibilism, the idea being that the kind of possibility to do otherwise ruled out by determinism is distinct from the kind of possibility to do otherwise needed for free will. The potency of this idea, however, is still under-appreciated. It is often confused with conditional analyses of alternative possibilities, and many assume that the forms of possibility the compatibilist points to are somehow less “categorical” than the incompatibilist’s preferred all-in possibility. Moreover, Christian List’s questionable agent-level compatibilism has recently become the main representative of the idea. In fact what is needed—so it is argued here—is to combine increased modal awareness with the traditional compatibilist picture of the relevant freedom being freedom from external compulsion.