A compatibilist holds that all events in nature are causally determined but that human beings can initiate new series of events and have responsibility for the outcomes of their actions. Thus, moral ideas of praise and blame make sense if people are able to act according to some causality arising from their will or for reasons of their own choosing.
Finally, it should be noted that with the development of quantum mechanics some thinkers allow for indeterminacy at the atomic level. This may allow for a notion of freedom in the sense that an action is not caused, but it may not be able to account for personal responsibility if the action is not determined in some way by the person.
Whether or not human beings are in fact free, most people think and act as if they are. Such acts of freedom have been conceptualized in two basic ways: negative and positive.
Negative Freedom
Negative freedom may be taken as an absence of obstacles to the fulfillment of one's desires or wishes. The view of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) is representative of this approach.
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