Bad Luck Once Again

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (3):749-754 (2008)
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Abstract

In a recent article in this journal, Storrs McCall and E.J. Lowe sketch an account of indeterminist free will designed to avoid the luck objection that has been wielded to such effect against event‐causal libertarianism. They argue that if decision‐making is an indeterministic process and not an event or series of events, the luck objection will fail. I argue that they are wrong: the luck objection is equally successful against their account as against existing event‐causal libertarianisms. Like the event‐causal libertarianism their account is meant to supplant, the process view cannot offer a reasons explanation of the agent’s choice itself; that choice is explained by nothing except chance. The agent therefore fails to exercise freedom‐level control over it.

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Neil Levy
Macquarie University

Citations of this work

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The Public Health-Quarantine Model.Gregg D. Caruso - 2022 - In Dana Kay Nelkin & Derk Pereboom (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press.
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The Indeterministic Weightings Model of Libertarian Free Will.John Lemos - 2021 - Journal of Philosophical Theological Research 23 (3):137-156.

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References found in this work

The Significance of Free Will.Robert Kane - 1996 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will.Timothy O'Connor - 2000 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
Libertarian Accounts of Free Will.Randolph Clarke - 2003 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
Free will remains a mystery.Peter Van Inwagen - 2000 - Philosophical Perspectives 14:1-20.
Deontic Morality and Control.Ishtiyaque Haji - 2002 - Cambridge University Press.

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