Compatibilism, History and Frankenstein-Style Examples

Paul Russell

This paper is primarily a critical discussion of recent and influential work by John M. Fischer and Mark Ravizza. I am especially concerned with the suggestion that compatibilists can answer incompatibilist objections and counter-examples relating to "implantation" problems by way of distinguishing the normal and abnormal "histories" involved in the process of reason-responsive mechanism acquisition. My discussion contrasts the position of compatibilism on this matter with that of libertarian accounts, and argues that what really motivates incompatibilist objections to compatibilist accounts of reason-responsiveness are worries about control over how such capacities are actually exercised. Appealing to the history of mechanism acquisition, I maintain, will not answer these basic incompatibilist concerns