I have argued that compatibilism cannot resist in a principled way the temptation to prepunish people, and that it thus emerges as a much more radical view than is typically presented and perceived; and is at odds with fundamental moral intuitions. Stephen Kearns has replied, and in the present paper I examine his arguments.

I argue that compatibilism cannot resist in a principled way the temptation to prepunish people. Compatibilism thus emerges as a much more radical view than it is typically presented and perceived, and is seen to be at odds with fundamental moral intuitions. The traditional compatibilist stance, according to which determinism does not really change anything, morally, is thereby 'shown' to be false.

Why is it that we think today so very differently about distributive and retributive justice? Why is the notion of desert so neglected in our thinking about distributive justice, while it remains fundamental in almost every account of retributive justice? I wish to take up this relatively neglected issue, and put forth two proposals of my own, based upon the way control functions in the two spheres.

I argue that the free will problem is essentially about respect for persons, and draw out some compatibilist and incompatibilist implications.

The compatibility question lies at the center of the free will problem. Compatibilists think that determinism is compatible with moral responsibility and the concomitant notions, while incompatibilists think that it is not. The topic of this paper is a particular form of charge against compatibilism: that it is 'shallow'. This is not the typical sort of argument against compatibilism: most of the debate has attempted to discredit compatibilism completely. The 'argument from shallowness' maintains that the compatibilists do have a case. However, this case is only partial, and shallow. This limited aim proves itself more powerful against compatibilists than previous all-or-nothing attempts.

In my book 'Free Will and Illusion' (OUP, 2000) I argued for two radical proposals. The first, "fundamental dualism", is that if there is no libertarian free will we need to combine the partial but valid insights of both compatibilism and hard determinism. The second, "illusionism", is that we could not live adequately with a complete awareness of the truth about human freedom: illusion lies at the center of the human condition. In a symposium on my book, Yuval Eylon and Daniel Statman proposed objections to my proposals. After summarizing my arguments, I reply to these objections.

I summarize the main points of my book 'Free Will and Illusion' (Oxford University Press, 2000). In part I of the book I examine the metaphysical and ethical structure of the free-will problem, examining the solutions that have traditionally been offered and formulating my own position. This lays the groundwork for examining the role of illusion, in part II. In the book I offer two radical proposals for understanding the implications of living in a world without libertarian free will (such as a deterministic world): first, the attempt to combine the two central rival alternatives, compatibilism and hard determinism. The partial but valid insights of both positions need to be integrated into a hybrid view, which I call "fundamental dualism." Secondly, I examine in some detail the complex role of illusion in our lives, insofar as they are affected by the issue of free will. (edited)

In the last twenty years much philosophical progress has been made in understanding what can be named the "mystery of modesty": how can an epistemically adequate self-evaluation by the admirable and accomplished nevertheless be both genuinely modest and a virtue? If the admirable and accomplished know their value, how then can they be modest about it? If they do not know their value, how can this be a virtue? Various proposals have been formulated, but after reviewing them I conclude that they do not seem to be successful. I argue, nevertheless, that we can make sense of the virtue of modesty, if only we pay adequate attention to the implications of the problem of free will. This, if properly interpreted, is the key to the mystery of modesty.

I have argued that discussions of distributive justice, and in particular choice-based egalitarian ones, need to take much more seriously than they do the dreaded free will problem. Sung-Hak Kang challenges my views. His two main claims are, first, that putting metaphysical issues such as the free will problem as posterior to ethics are mistaken. Second, that a realistic, moderate egalitarianism has better prospects with John Rawls's "nonmetaphysical" orientation than with any free will-dependent one. I reply.

This article asks whether justice is binary, whether matters are either-or with respect to it. This question has been inexplicably neglected, and the elementary conceptual work has not been done. We consider this question through exploring the implications of free-will-related justice. We see that there are actually two questions of very different scope here, and that two distinct notions of binarity need to be distinguished. In the process, the plausibility of considering justice as a binary notion is evaluated.

In "On the Alleged Shallowness of Compatibilism: A Critical Study of Saul Smilansky: 'Free Will and Illusion'" ('Iyyun' vol. 51, 2002; 63-79) James Lenman mounts a strong attack on the notion of 'ultimate injustice', a mainstay of common dissatisfaction with compatibilism. I survey two broad ways in which we can understand justice. Under the first, the notion of ultimate injustice is indeed questionable, but under the second it makes good sense. Then I show that in the free will issue it is the second type of justice, that allows and indeed affirms ultimate injustice, which is most salient.

This paper presents, in outline, a novel position on the issue of free will and compares this position to other more familiar positions. The position I defend consists of two proposals, summarizing the main claims that I make in my book 'Free Will and Illusion' (Oxford University Press, 2000). The first proposal is a 'fundamental dualism' according to which we have to be both compatibilists and hard determinists, and must attempt to combine the assumptions of both positions. The second proposal, 'illusionism', claims that illusion on free will is morally necessary.