Incompatibilism

Incompatibilism is the idea that it is not possible for us to have a meaningfully free will if all our actions are determined by natural forces. It is based on a particular definition of "free will"—that an action is "free" only if it is independent of prior physical cause. Thus they conclude that if everything has a physical cause, then nothing is free, and therefore that free will and determinism are incompatible. Incompatibilism is opposed to compatibilism, which defines an action as "free" if it is not forced upon a person by an outside force of compulsion, a reasoning that concludes that actions which have physical causes, but without compulsion outside the actor, are "free," and concludes that "free will" and "determinism" can coexist.