DENNETT ON THE BASIC ARGUMENT JOHN MARTIN FISCHER Abstract: I argue that Dennett does not adequately support his rejection of the ‘‘Basic Argument’’ for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the sort of free will that involves genuine access to alternative possibilities (sometimes referred to as the ‘‘Consequence Argument’’). In addition, I seek to highlight the plausibility and importance of the incompatibilist’s interpretation of this sort of free will. Keywords: Basic Argument for Incompatibilism, could have done otherwise, Dennett, Taylor, van Inwagen. In recent work, Daniel Dennett has offered a critique of what might be called the ‘‘Basic Argument’’ for the incompatibility of causal determin- ism and the sort of free will that involves genuine access to alternative possibilities (Taylor and Dennett 2001; Dennett 2003). In previous work, Dennett has declined directly to confront this argument, but now he says: Christopher Taylor has greatly clarified my thinking on this topic and shown me how to launch a deeper and more radical campaign in support of my earlier claims to this effect, and our coauthored paper (Taylor and Dennett 2001) provides more technical detail than is needed here. Here I will attempt a gentler version of our argument, highlighting the main points so that non-philoso- phers can at least see what the points of contention are, and how we propose to settle them, while leaving out almost all the logical formulae. Philosophers should consult the full-dress version, of course, to see if we have actually tied off the loose ends, and closed the loopholes that are passed by without mention in this telling. (Dennett 2003, 64) In this article, I take up Dennett’s challenge to look more carefully at the argument. Since the (marginally) more technical formulation of the critique appears in the jointly written paper, I take as my target the views of Dennett and Taylor. Although there have been many different formulations of what is essentially the same argument for incompatibilism, Taylor and Dennett focus on van Inwagen’s ‘‘Consequence Argument.’’ Van Inwagen himself gives various different formulations of the Consequence Argument (van Inwagen 1983). Taylor and Dennett do not consider the arguments as r Metaphilosophy LLC and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA METAPHILOSOPHY Vol. 36, No. 4, July 2005 0026-1068 r Metaphilosophy LLC and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005