Defending conditional analysis of the ability to do otherwise

Abstract

I’m taking a compatiblist position between free will and determinism. I’m mainly discussing “could have done otherwise” (abbreviated as CHDO throughout my thesis) in the free will debate. My thesis is that conditional interpretation of CHDO with an antecedent of desire is a convincing analysis that makes CHDO and determinism compatible with each other. I will support this thesis by discussing why the antecedent of desire is a better candidate than other antecedents and replying to some of the criticism against this version of conditional analysis. One conception of conditional analysis of CHDO is that it is a watered-down version of modal interpretation of CHDO. I will consider some arguments which give us some new interesting perspective on the conditional interpretation of CHDO. I believe that these arguements have successfully shifted the burden of proof to the incompatiblists and further increase the convincing power of the conditional analysis of CHDO with an antecedent of desire.