Is Incompatibilism Intuitive?

Incompatibilists believe free will is impossible if determinism is true, and they often claim that this view is supported by ordinary intuitions. We challenge the claim that incompatibilism is intuitive to most laypersons and discuss the significance of this chal-lenge to the free will debate. After explaining why incompatibilists should want their view to accord with pretheoretical intuitions, we suggest that determining whether incompatibilism is in fact intuitive calls for empirical testing. We then present the results of our studies, which put significant pressure on the claim that incompatibilism is intui-tive. Finally, we consider and respond to several potential objections to our approach. Incompatibilists believe that the freedom associated with moral responsibility is impossible if determinism is true, and they often claim that this is the natural view to take given that it is purportedly supported by ordinary intui-tions. In this paper, we challenge the claim that incompatibilism is intuitive to most laypersons, and we discuss the significance of this challenge to the free will debate. In doing so, we first argue that it is particularly important for incompatibilists that their view of free will is intuitive given that it i