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Thomas Hobbs was the first great compatible EST. And he argued for compatible ism in something like this kind of way.

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He wants to focus on what we mean by free.

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What do we mean by somebody being free? Well, liberty or freedom signifies properly the absence of opposition by opposition.

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I mean, external impediments of motion. A free man.

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His he does in those things which by his strength and which he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to.

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And you can see that's a very common sensical definition of freedom, the kind of notion that might match up to how we use the word in ordinary life.

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I freely chose it. Nothing hindered me from doing what I wanted to do.

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And you can see that if you just define freedom in that way, it's entirely compatible with determinism not being hindered to do what I choose to do.

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In no way is interrupted by the fact that I am causally determined.

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The fact that my I am causally determined to choose, as I do to reason as I do, doesn't in any way mean that I can't do what I choose.

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So we end up with a compatibly position. Now, an argument that's very commonly used to support compatible ism.

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People like hobs, but also people like air use this. In fact, it's very standard argument in the compatibly tradition.

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We can call the contrastive argument.

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Now, what the contrastive argument is doing is aiming to argue that the incompatible IST is making a fundamental mistake.

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They're drawing the wrong contrast. What is the contrast between things that are free and unfree?

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Well, the libertarian says it's the contrast between acts that are caused and those that run caused.

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But instead, the compatibles wants to say the relevant contrast is between acts that are coerced, compelled or constrained.

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And those that are free of such influences. So the suggestion is that when we distinguish in ordinary life between free acts and unfree acts,

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we do not do it on the basis of whether they were caused or uncaused.

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We do it on the basis of whether someone was holding a gun to my head or pushing me or whatever it might be.

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Compelling me or constraining me in certain ways to do one thing rather than another.

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So if I'm not coerced, compelled or constrained, then I'm free.

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Now, the contrastive argument seems quite persuasive, I think, because it aims to link Freewheel very closely with moral responsibility.

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And it does seem plausible that I can be absolved of responsibility for something I do or don't do in these conditions.

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Well, suppose I didn't do it at all. In that case, I'm clearly not responsible for it.

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Suppose I was compelled to do it. I had to do it.

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He had a gun to my head. And then I can be absolved of responsibility or suppose he pushed me.

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And suppose I was coerced. In short, in all of these cases, we're inclined to say I didn't do it freely.

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So Air uses the contrastive argument. Here's a brief quotation.

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It is not, I think, causality that freedom is to be contrasted with constraint.

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So a very clear statement of the contrastive argument. Now, some commentators on here on Hume think that he uses the contrastive argument as well.

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But in fact, he doesn't think that's a mistaken interpretation of you.

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If you read stuff on Hume, you will often find people mentioning liberty of indifference and liberty of spontaneity.

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These are terms which are used in the treaties of human nature, which is not the text that you read on this course.

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And I think that's a good thing. But that misleads some people.

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They think that Hume is drawing a traditional contrast. In other words, employing the contrastive argument.

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But in fact. Humans notion of liberty is rather a different one.

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So here is a quotation from the enquiry, which is the text that you are expected to read.

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And it's one of the classic contributions to the free will debate by Liberty.

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Then we can only mean a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations of the will.

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That is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may if we choose to move, we also may.

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Now, this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains.

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Now, no, she's Hume is not saying anything about things like coercion or compulsion.

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He's simply saying freedom involves doing what we choose to do or what we will to

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do a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations of the will.

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And he consistently goes on to say that this belongs to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains.

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So if I'm a prisoner and in chains. Then and only then.

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I lacquers, actually, I don't even like it there. Do you think about it?

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I could will to rattle my chains, in which case I am acting according to the determination's of the will.

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So this is a very minimalist notion of liberty or freedom.

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Very minimal, Melissa, indeed. So let's distinguish three different concepts of freedom.

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First of all, contra causal means, non causal libertarian freewill,

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the kind of freewill that the Libertarians claim we have and claim is terrifically important.

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In that sense, freewill is opposed to determinism.

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Second concept, intentional agency, and this is what humans getting at that in virtue of which a person is an agent in respect of what he or she does.

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So if I do something willing, willing to do it.

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I decide to do it. I do it because my well leads me to do it.

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Then I am an intentional agent.

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Third concept and notice that this is a different concept and that is the absence of unwelcome restrictions affecting my choice of action.

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So this is where we get coercion, compulsion. Political influence is the kind of influence that one resents.

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And that is surely the most common use of freedom, the word freedom in ordinary language.

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We think we're free if there are no unwelcome constraints on what we do.

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But what humans saying is the key to morality is the second notion, intentional agency.

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So let's look at an example to focus our thoughts on this.

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Suppose I work in a bank, someone takes my family hostage.

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It comes to the bank.

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Has photographs of my family locked up with brutal thugs around them, maybe gives me a mobile phone on which I can speak to my wife and she confirms.

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Yes, they are being held, etc. They're clearly desperate gangsters.

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And I am told and I am convinced that it's true that unless I open the safe, my family is going to get killed.

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What do I do? I'm clearly acting under very significant coercion, but I do have a choice.

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I could choose not to open the safe. In fact, I would choose undoubtedly to open the safe.

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But one can imagine a different situation. Suppose the safe contains a nuclear weapon.

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In that case, I think most of us would say it's a very tough situation.

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But sadly, the family has to die. I think most of us would judge that in that situation where it was something like that.

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But if it is me a money, I open the safe. So notice what I'm choosing to do.

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I'm choosing to open the safe, given that situation. Now, that's a different choice from the case where somebody comes in, they're not armed,

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they haven't got my family hostage, and they say, open the safe or I'll beat you up.

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That's a very different choice. And I think in that case, my decision would be quite different.

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So although we describe the action now opening the safe in the same way, it's a different action.

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And it's subject to different moral sense, euro or otherwise.

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I want to say in the case where I open the safe because my family is threatened, I am morally responsible for what I do.

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But I'm not guilty because what I did was the right thing. It was the right thing to open the safe.

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In those circumstances, it was the right thing to save my family.

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I would not judge a bank employee worse for doing that.

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I would think of him as an object of pity rather than blame for having been put in that awful situation.

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So in that situation where we do not hold that person responsible for what they do, or at least we do not blame them.

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Notice you don't have to say it's because it wasn't a responsible act.

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You can simply say it wasn't a blameworthy and. So, again, let's contrast four different situations in which I could leave a lecture.

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First of all, I don't know, because of some student prank or whatever.

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People come into the lecture. They bind me hand and foot and they carry me out.

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I'm not trying to put ideas into your head.

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Well, in that case, I'm like Hume's prisoner and didn't change my leaving the lecture is something entirely beyond my power.

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Second case, somebody comes into the lecture waving a gun, tells me to leave the lecture straight away or they'll shoot me.

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Obviously, Ali. Third case.

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I come stand here. See you all there.

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And suddenly I feel frightened. Have a panic and I run out.

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Can't control myself. Fourth case, I feel the lecturer isn't going terribly well.

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So I pretend that I'm ill. Got to leave.

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Excuse me. So four different ways to leave a lecture.

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Now, notice that one's assessment of these is completely different.

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In the first case where I'm bound and carried out of the lecture, my leaving the lecture is not an action of mine.

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You can say that I leave the lecture, but in a sense, I don't leave the lecture. It's something done to me, not something I do.

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I'm not an intentional agent, so I'm not to blame. In the second case where I'm threatened with a gun.

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I leave my own choice. I do have the choice to stand here and risk getting shot.

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But I take the choice to walk out. I'm not blameworthy for doing so.

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None of you would say a Milliken's awful, he abandoned the lecture.

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You would say Paul Milliken fancy being threatened with a gun. It's the right thing to leave.

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So you don't have to absolve me of responsibility. You don't have to say I'm not responsible.

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You can simply say, yes, you are responsible and you did the right thing.

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The third case, that's the one where I have the blind panic. I have arguably done something wrong.

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I've abandoned the lecture that I should have been giving. That there are mitigating circumstances.

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The mitigation is that I had a blind panic. So you might say that I'm not blameworthy.

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But it's not because I haven't done something wrong, it's because there are mitigating factors.

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Notice that that is a different case from the second one. The fourth case is where I deliberately calculate to leave the lecture.