Some philosophers have recently argued that luck at the time of decision is a problem for compatibilists and libertarians alike. But conceptual ambiguity regarding deterministic luck at the time of decision – henceforth C-luck – has obscured recognition of the problem C-luck poses to compatibilism. This paper clarifies C-luck and distinguishes it from present luck, showing that the former arises from contingent factors at the time of decision instead of presupposed free will requirements. We then argue that empirical findings confirm (...) the existence of C-luck thereby raising a fundamental challenge to compatibilist accounts of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Compatibilists about free will maintain that free will is compatible with determinism, and incompatibilists disagree. Incompatibilist believers in free will have been challenged to solve a problem that luck poses for them—the problem of present luck. This article articulates that challenge and then explores a novel compatibilist view recently proposed by Christian List. It is argued that List’s view, unlike standard compatibilist views, faces a very similar problem about luck.

Many contemporary compatibilists about free will and determinism are agnostic about whether determinism is true, yet do not doubt that we have free will. They are thus committed to the thesis that free will is compatible with both determinism and indeterminism. This paper explores the prospects for this version of compatibilism, including its response to the argument that indeterminism would introduce an element of randomness or chance or luck that is inimical to free will and moral responsibility.

Hobart’s classic 1934 paper “Free Will as Involving Determination and Inconceivable Without It” has been widely cited as an example of an argument for the view that free will requires the truth of determinism. In this paper, I argue that this reading of Hobart’s paper is mistaken and that we should instead read Hobart as arguing that an agent exercises their free will only if the proximate causes of the agent’s action deterministically cause their action. After arguing that Hobart’s view, (...) rightly understood, escapes the problems typically raised for Hobart’s compatibilism, I also argue that Hobart’s view is problematic for different reasons. Nevertheless, I argue that there is a crucial insight to be gleaned from Hobart’s paper—one that provides compatibilists with a new recipe for challenging libertarian accounts of free will. (shrink)

Many philosophers think there is a luck problem confronting libertarian models of free will. If free actions are undetermined, then it seems to be a matter of chance or luck that they occur—so the objection goes. Agent-causal libertarians have responded to this objection by asserting that free actions, in their essence, involve a direct causal relation between agents and the events they cause. So, free actions are not lucky after all. Not everyone, however, is convinced by this response. Al Mele (...) and Peter van Inwagen, for instance, argue that luckiness remains even if agent-causation exists. One way to answer their arguments, I suggest, is by appealing to considerations in metaphysical grounding and the associated idea of explanatory priority. Mele’s argument loses force if facts about which possible world is actual are partly grounded in facts about free choices themselves. And van Inwagen’s challenge can be met if facts about free actions are explanatorily prior to any objective probabilities associated with those actions. (shrink)