The abilities we have, the choices we make, and the stains we sustain

The thesis of causal determinism is evidently philosophically frightening. If the causal order proceeds forward as mercilessly and immutably as determinism implies--if, that is, all present matters are set by matters in the remote past--then it is difficult to see how any agents could be free or morally responsible for their actions. I will here argue that deterministic freedom and deterministic moral responsibility are both impossible.; I will begin by arguing that the philosophical literature on the issue of deterministic freedom involves an illicit conflation of the demonstrably distinct notions of having a choice about something and having the ability to falsify that thing. It has widely been assumed that for an agent to have a choice about some truth, p, is (simply) for the agent to have had the ability to make p false. I will argue that these are not equivalent and that the standard argument for the impossibility of deterministic freedom is stronger than typically thought.; Regarding the possibility of deterministic moral responsibility, I will argue that Harry Frankfurt's (1969) response to the principle of alternate possibilities, (PAP), does not make compatibilism about determinism and moral responsibility any more tenable than otherwise. I will argue on the basis of the aforementioned distinction between choice and ability that even if Frankfurt's criticism of (PAP) shows it to be false, that criticism does not give us reason to doubt the analogous principle involving the notion of choice in place of the notion of ability. I will also argue (on independent grounds) that even if Frankfurt's rejection of (PAP) is well grounded, a simple (and, even, simplistic) weakening of it makes it immune to his criticism and also allows for an argument to advanced on the basis of only one additional (and highly plausible) premise.; As a result of these considerations, it seems that deterministic freedom and deterministic moral responsibility are both impossible--the philosophical fear of determinism is well founded.