As a result of this argument, determinists are inclined to argue that agents cannot be held accountable for moral actions as they do not have the choice to do otherwise. This produces considerable opposition to the perception of determinism. To not have moral accountability for one's actions would certainly have a negative effect on how agents behave. In many ways it is necessary for the concept of free will to be recognised in order to be able to hold agents accountable for their actions. Without this, the conviction of praise and punishment becomes redundant as the agent did not have the ability to do otherwise. Intellects have also argued that anyone who deliberates on what to do is expressing free will because they are thinking about how to act. However, this is easily refutable as determinists would contend that the thought processes are predetermined by events in the past and therefore the action the agent decides in the end was not determined by chance but through causation. Another argument that opposes determinism comes from physics, 'the uncertainty principle'. The German physicist Werner Heisenberg wrote "the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and conversely" (Heisenberg 1927: 175). The application of this principle to the question posed shows that to predetermine the future would cause uncertainty and is therefore theoretically impossible. It suggests that certain properties in nature cannot be known exactly which demonstrates there is a realistic randomness in the universe. The doctrine of determinism is not compatible with any event of randomness (probability) otherwise the future is not predetermined, so it would appear that if this was the case, determinism is inaccurate in its application.
Another position many philosophers take is the claim of compatibilism. As the name suggests, compatibilism is compatible with determinism, but states free will coexists.