u/Lizard_Brian

• In general compatibalist and incompatibalists do not disagree about physical facts about the world. They're willing to assume determinism.
• Their main disagreement is semantic or conceptual. When a compatibalist and an incompatibalist observe some action they agree about what is happening on the physical level, but they differ in how they want to label or organize that information. They differ in how they want to use the words "free will".
• The compatibalist and incompatibalist both want to move from their definition/conception of "free will" to a normative conclusion about responsibility and moral desert.
• Generally there doesn't seem to be a way to make normative conclusions from descriptive statements.

I see there being 3 layers to this debate given some event where someone takes an action:

1. Physical: Facts about atoms, causation, laws of physics, brain states, whether someone had a gun, etc.
2. Semantic/Conceptual: Which words you want to use and when to use them when describing the action. Two people can look at the same event and say I want to use free will to mean this part of the event, and someone else could say I want to use free will to mean this other part, but they are both observing the same event and they agree about the physical layer.
3. Normative: This is the part where people conclude things like, therefore we shouldn't blame people for their actions or that person deserves to be punished.

I say there's no way to go from the first two layers to the third other than just asserting it. This is a specific case of the more general is-ought problem. Descriptive accounts ("bananas are yellow") don't appear to lead us objectively to normative conclusions ("we should eat bananas").

Specifically, if the incompatibalist says "free will" is when your action is uncaused, and the compatibalist says "free will" is when your action is uncoerced neither side is making a falsifiable claim! They're just saying how they are using the words "free will". The part that's implied in what they're saying is "...and that's the part that really matters for my normative conclusion about responsibility and moral desert".

I think this last move is misguided. The physical facts and the conceptualization of "free will" is all descriptive. They can't lead us to normative conclusions like people deserve blame.

Specifically the compatibalist can say "fine, free will is when actions are uncaused, but i don't care about that I care about coercion and so I think we should blame people for their actions". The incompatibalist can say "fine, free will is when actions are uncoerced, but I care about being uncaused and so I think we shouldn't blame people for their actions."

Now both sides are at a stalemate and the debate can no longer progress or be resolved. And this is necessarily true because of the explanatory gap between what is and what we ought to do.

Compatibalism and Incompatibalism agree about determinism. Do they agree about all aspects of the physical world? Let's imagine you have a compatibalist and incompatibalist. You point to any part of the world and they will agree about the physical facts. Then where is the disagreement about free will hiding? I believe this shows that compatibalism vs incompatibalism has no objective answer, and it is a subjective debate. It is either a semantic debate about what part of the physical world should fall under the definition of "free will" or it is a debate about whether and how we should ascribe responsibility to people's actions. In either case the answer is subjective, it's whatever people decide they want the answer to be.