I am interested in this topic, but I do sometimes find the compatiblism argument difficult to distill down to its essence without still leaving a sense of unfulfillment.
From my understanding, compatibilism boils down to accepting that everything may be pre-determined, but people are still free to make choices as long as they are uncoerced.
The argument from that quote above is a little bit subtler and aligns with my thinking. I don't believe we have free will in any sense, either everything is pre-determined, or it is random, and I can't even think of a definition of free will that would make sense (just like the compatiblism one does not to me). But clearly there is a feedback loop going on, and so it is inherently in the species best interest to hold people accountable for their actions, because the act of holding them accountable forms part of the inputs that lead people to make choices. Not doing this is not a great survivability trait overall. Doing so, we survive a bit more.
But I'm not sure that is strictly necessary to call oneself a compatibilist.
From my understanding, compatibilism boils down to accepting that everything may be pre-determined, but people are still free to make choices as long as they are uncoerced.
The argument from that quote above is a little bit subtler and aligns with my thinking. I don't believe we have free will in any sense, either everything is pre-determined, or it is random, and I can't even think of a definition of free will that would make sense (just like the compatiblism one does not to me). But clearly there is a feedback loop going on, and so it is inherently in the species best interest to hold people accountable for their actions, because the act of holding them accountable forms part of the inputs that lead people to make choices. Not doing this is not a great survivability trait overall. Doing so, we survive a bit more.
But I'm not sure that is strictly necessary to call oneself a compatibilist.