Since our moral and legal judgments are focused on our decisions and actions, one would expect information about the neural underpinnings of human decision-making and action-production to have a significant bearing on those judgments. However, despite the wealth of empirical data, and the public attention it has attracted in the past few decades, the results of neuroscientific research have had relatively little influence on legal practice. It is here argued that this is due, at least partly, to the discussion on (...) the relationship of the neurosciences and law mixing up a number of separate issues that have different relevance on our moral and legal judgments. The approach here is hierarchical; more and less feasible ways in which neuroscientific data could inform such judgments are separated from each other. The neurosciences and other physical views on human behavior and decision-making do have the potential to have an impact on our legal reasoning. However, this happens in various different ways, and too often appeal to any neural data is assumed to be automatically relevant to shaping our moral and legal judgments. Our physicalist intuitions easily favor neural-level explanations to mental-level ones. But even if you were to subscribe to some reductionist variant of physicalism, it would not follow that all neural data should be automatically relevant to our moral and legal reasoning. However, the neurosciences can give us indirect evidence for reductive physicalism, which can then lead us to challenge the very idea of free will. Such a development can, ultimately, also have repercussions on law and legal practice. (shrink)

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that agents cause actions to occur or not occur: Maddy’s decision to get a beer causes her to get up off her comfortable couch to get a beer, though she almost chose not to get up. Libertarian free will notoriously faces the luck objection, according to which agential states do not determine whether an action occurs or not, so it is beyond the control of the agent, hence lucky, whether an action occurs or (...) not: Maddy’s reasons for getting beer in equipoise with her reasons to remain in her comfortable seat do not determine that she will get up or stay seated, so it seems beyond her control, hence lucky, that she gets up. In this paper I consider a sub-set of the luck objection called the Physical Indeterminism Luck Objection, according to which indeterministic physical processes cause actions to occur or not, and agent’s lack control over these indeterministic physical processes, so agent’s lack control over, hence it is lucky, whether action occurs or not. After motivating the physical indeterminism luck objection, I consider responses from three recent event-causal libertarian models, and conclude that they fail to overcome the problem, though one promising avenue is opened up. (shrink)

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that the same agential states can cause different possible actions. Nonreductive physicalism is, roughly, the view that mental states cause actions to occur, while these actions also have sufficient physical causes. Though libertarian free will and nonreductive physicalism have overlapping subject matter, and while libertarian free will is currently trending at the same time as nonreductive physicalism is a dominant metaphysical posture, there are few sustained expositions of a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian (...) free will – indeed some tell against such an admixture. This paper concocts such a blend by articulating and defending, with some caveats, a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian free will. (shrink)

Dwayne Moore (2021) argues that libertarians about free will who are reductive physicalists cannot make proper sense of free will. In doing so, he presents what he calls “the physical indeterminism luck objection” to libertarian free will. He goes on to consider three different contemporary naturalistic approaches to libertarian free will (LFW) – those of Christopher Franklin, Mark Balaguer, and Robert Kane – and argues that if understood as reductive physicalist views they all fall prey to this objection. While it’s (...) not entirely clear that Kane is a reductive physicalist, it is clear that he would reject any kind of eliminative materialism or eliminative physicalism (Kane 1996, 147). Regardless, in this essay I argue that even if Kane’s view is a kind of reductive physicalist view, it is immune to the arguments made in Moore’s essay. (shrink)

This paper provides a brief review of some of the central elements of Robert Kane’s event-causal libertarian theory of free will. It then goes on to consider four of the central criticisms Derk Pereboom has made of Kane’s view and it shows how each of these criticisms can be reasonably answered. These criticisms are the no further power/control objection, the disappearing agent/luck objection, the randomizing manipulator objection, and the problem of responsibility for efforts of will.

There are several well-established theories of criminal punishment and of its justification. The quarantine model (advocated by Pereboom and Caruso) has recently emerged as one of the most prominent theories in the field, by denying the very idea of criminal justice. This theory claims that no one ought to be criminally punished because fundamentally people do not deserve any kind of punishment. On these grounds, the quarantine model proposes forms of incapacitation based on public safety considerations. In this article, we (...) briefly review a series of objections raised against the quarantine model and propose some new or revised arguments, which are aimed at showing its inconsistencies and weaknesses. These arguments are related to (a) the lack of a reliable way of determining who is dangerous and the consequent need to make judgments about confinement based on probabilities, and (b) the prospect that the quarantine model may encourage certain crimes. Given the arguments we present in this paper, the quarantine model proves to be less solid, humane, and desirable than its proponents claim. (shrink)

If indeterminism is to be necessary for moral responsibility, we must show that it doesn’t preclude responsibility (the Luck Problem) and that it might enhance it (the Enhancement Problem). A ‘strong luck claim’ motivates the Luck Problem: if an agent’s choice is undetermined, then her mental life will be causally irrelevant to her choice, whichever way she decides. A ‘weak luck claim’ motivates the Enhancement Problem: if an agent’s choice is undetermined, then even if her mental life is causally relevant (...) to her choice, whichever way she decides, we cannot explain how she _settles_ her choice. Only the weak luck claim is plausible. However, its plausibility depends on our accepting that we could only settle our choices if they are settled by additional exercises of agency. If we instead understand the process of settling decisions in procedural terms, we can begin to sketch a solution to the Enhancement Problem. (shrink)

Someone owes gratitude to God for something only if God benefits her and is morally responsible for doing so. These requirements concerning benefit and moral responsibility generate reasons to doubt that human beings owe gratitude to God for their own moral goodness. First, moral character must be generated by its possessor’s own free choices, and so God cannot benefit moral character in human beings. Second, owed gratitude requires being morally responsible for providing a benefit, which rules out owed gratitude to (...) God because God must do what is best. Both reasons are unpersuasive. I argue that God can benefit morally good character in human beings with and without their free choices. Subsequently, I argue against views of moral responsibility that preclude divine moral responsibility and argue that influential accounts of moral responsibility preserve it. Thus, these two requirements generate no problem for owed gratitude to God. (shrink)

According to the Free Will Explanation of a traditional view of hell, human freedom explains why some people are in hell. It also explains hell’s punishment and finality: persons in hell have freely developed moral vices that are their own punishment and that make repentance psychologically impossible. So, even though God continues to desire reconciliation with persons in hell, damned persons do not want reconciliation with God. But this moral vice explanation of hell’s finality is implausible. I argue that God (...) can and would make direct or indirect alterations in their character to give them new motivational reasons that re-enable their freedom to repent. Subsequently, I argue that it is probable that each damned person will be saved eventually, because there is a potential infinity of opportunities for free repentance. Thus, if the Free Will Explanation’s descriptions of hell and divine love are correct, it is highly probable that each person in hell escapes to heaven. (shrink)