Undetermined Choices, Luck and the Enhancement Problem

Erkenntnis 88 (7):2827-2846 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

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.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,225

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Libertarian Approaches in Response to the Luck Argument.Jamal Kadkhodapour & Asgar Dirbaz - 2020 - Journal of Philosophical Theological Research 22 (4):5-26.
The demand for contrastive explanations.Nadine Elzein - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (5):1325-1339.
Rolling Back the Luck Problem for Libertarianism.Zac Cogley - 2015 - Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics 3 (1):121-137.
Agency incompatibilism, luck, and intelligibility.Bradford Stockdale - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
Luckily, We Are Only Responsible for What We Could Have Avoided.Philip Swenson - 2019 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 43 (1):106-118.
On the Luck Objection to Libertarianism.David Widerker - 2015 - In Andrei Buckareff, Carlos Moya & Sergi Rosell (eds.), Agency, Freedom, and Moral Responsibility. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 94-115.
A new solution to the problem of luck.Ann Whittle - 2023 - Philosophical Issues 33 (1):314-327.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-10-20

Downloads
68 (#309,654)

6 months
19 (#152,900)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Nadine Elzein
University of Warwick

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Freedom of the will and the concept of a person.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1971 - Journal of Philosophy 68 (1):5-20.
An Essay on Free Will.Peter van Inwagen - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829-839.
The Significance of Free Will.Robert Kane - 1996 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.

View all 49 references / Add more references