 This alternative explanation of our commonsense belief about the contrast between fixed past and open future allows the compatibilist to say the kind of things that compatibilists have traditionally wanted to say: The ‘can’ of our freedom of will and freedom of action is the ‘can’ of causal and counterfactual dependence. Our future is open because it depends, causally and counterfactually, on our choices, which in turn depend, causally and counterfactually, on our deliberation and on the reasons we take ourselves to have. (At least in the normal case, where there is neither external constraint nor internal compulsion or other pathology.) If our reasons were different (in some appropriate way), we would choose otherwise, and if we chose otherwise, we would do otherwise. And our reasons can be different, at least in the sense that we, unlike simpler creatures and young children, have the ability to critically evaluate our reasons (beliefs, desires, values, principles, and so on) and that we have, and at least sometimes exercise, the ability to change our reasons (Bok 1998; Dennett 1984; Fischer 1994; Fischer &amp; Ravizza 1998; Frankfurt 1971, 1988; Lehrer 1976, 1980, 2004; Watson 1975, 1987, 2004; Wolf 1990; Smith 1997, 2004; Pettit &amp; Smith 1996; Nelkin 2011; Vihvelin 2004, 2013). All this is compatible with determinism. So the truth of determinism is compatible with the truth of our commonsense belief that we really do have a choice about the future, that we really can choose and do other than what we actually do.