Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that the disagreement between compatibilists and incompatibilists about the compatibility of free will with determinism is merely verbal, since although one side of the dispute claims that free will is compatible with determinism while the other denies it, they actually ascribe a different meaning to the term "free will". One can therefore accept both the compatibilist thesis and the incompatibilist thesis, since the two are not contradictory. My method is to analyse the meaning of the phrase "being an ability to do otherwise" as a property of abilities and the meaning of the phrase "having an ability to do otherwise" as a property of agents. The result of this analysis allows me to make an unbiased comparison of the necessary conditions that compatibilists and incompatibilists expect to hold if agents are to have the ability to do otherwise. It is shown, as expected, that these conditions are not the same.