Adopting the alternative approach motivated in Chapter 1, this chapter argues that free will is a natural kind, by relying on the influential idea that natural kinds are homeostatic property clusters (HPCs). The resulting HPC natural-kind view about free will answers the existence question positively: free will exists and we act freely. Moreover, it does so without directly addressing the compatibility question, although the view favors compatibilism over libertarianism. The chapter also rebuts a prominent objection to natural-kind views about free will, including the HPC view. Finally, the HPC view builds on Andrew Sims’s recent view that agents are a natural kind and it yields an appealing alternative to standard approaches as well as to recent revisionist approaches to free will and moral responsibility.
Delusion as a natural kind: problem of homeostatic property clusters