Libertarianism rests on two pillars. The first pillar is the denial of the claim that human beings are exhaustively deterministic systems. In contrast to the situation for cars, there are alternative futures available to us. The second pillar is the assertion that we forge these futures through autonomous acts of choice. These acts are radically free in virtue of standing outside the vast web of causation bind the macroscopic cosmos together. This sort of high-octane freedom, which philosophers call contra-causal freedom, is needed (it is claimed) to account for the ostensible fact that we are morally responsible for our actions. It’s only because humans choose freely that are beings who are deserving of praise or blame. For libertarianism to be plausible, both of these claims have got to stand up to careful scrutiny.