A Person as the Epitome of All Forces—Helene Druskowitz’s Compatibilist Answer to the Free Will Dilemma

Our text is divided into two[aut]Skuhala Karasman, Ivana parts. In the first part an overview of the life and career of the Austrian philosopher of Croatian origin[aut]Druskowitz, Helene, Helene Druskowitz will be given. She was born near Vienna in 1856. In 1878, she received her doctoral title from the University Zurich. She was the first womanWomen from a Germanic country to receive a doctoral title in the regular way. After her return to Austria, she tried to make her career as a free-lance writer and public speaker. During this time, she made some influential acquaintances (F. Nietzsche, M. von Salis-Marschlins, M. von Ebner-Eschenbach, F. C. Meyer and others). However, due to her unorthodox lifestyle and mental problems she was put in various institutionsInstitution and sanatoria in which she spent the rest of her life, from 1891 till 1918. In the second part of our text her book from 1887, Wie ist Verantwortung und Zurechnung ohne Annahme der Willensfreiheit möglich? will be analized. In this book Druskowitz defends a compatibilist position: she reconciles naturalist determinismDeterminism with the defense of responsibilityResponsibility. Her argument is based on a combination of a revised position of Schopenhauer supplemented by a moral interpretation of evolutionism. Persons are self-conscious representatives of a particular combination of naturalNatural forces which makes humans both a part of the naturalNatural world (and thus determined) but, since they are a special part of nature, and aware of it, they bear moralResponsibility responsibility.