TY - JOUR
T1 - Luck and history-sensitive compatibilism
AU - Levy, Neil
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2008. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2009/4
Y1 - 2009/4
N2 - Libertarianism seems vulnerable to a serious problem concerning present luck, because it requires indeterminism somewhere in the causal chain leading to directly free action. Compatibilism, in contrast, is thought to be free of this problem, as not requiring indeterminism in the causal chain. I argue that this view is false: compatibilism is subject to a problem of present luck. This is less of a problem for compatibilism than for libertarianism. However, its effects are just as devastating for one kind of compatibilism, the kind of compatibilism which is history-sensitive, and therefore must take the problem of constitutive luck seriously. The problem of present luck confronting compatibilism is sufficient to undermine the history-sensitive compatibilist's response to remote - constitutive - luck.
AB - Libertarianism seems vulnerable to a serious problem concerning present luck, because it requires indeterminism somewhere in the causal chain leading to directly free action. Compatibilism, in contrast, is thought to be free of this problem, as not requiring indeterminism in the causal chain. I argue that this view is false: compatibilism is subject to a problem of present luck. This is less of a problem for compatibilism than for libertarianism. However, its effects are just as devastating for one kind of compatibilism, the kind of compatibilism which is history-sensitive, and therefore must take the problem of constitutive luck seriously. The problem of present luck confronting compatibilism is sufficient to undermine the history-sensitive compatibilist's response to remote - constitutive - luck.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=62649112936&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2008.568.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2008.568.x
M3 - Review article
C2 - 19649158
AN - SCOPUS:62649112936
SN - 0031-8094
VL - 59
SP - 237
EP - 251
JO - The Philosophical Quarterly
JF - The Philosophical Quarterly
IS - 235
ER -