The Problem of Luck and Event-Causal Libertarianism

HAJI - Moral Anchors and Control (1999a)

HAJI, I. The Problem of Luck and Event-Causal Libertarianism. Canadian

Journal of Philosophy, v. 29, i. 2, pp. 175-203, 1999a.

Introduction: Moral Anchors and Control

➔ Moral Anchors: “moral deontic normative statuses like those of being morally right,
wrong, or obligatory” (HAJI, 1999a, p. 175);
➔ K Principle: at t, one ought morally to do something, A, at time t* (where t may be
either t* or a time earlier than t*) only if one can, as of t, do A at t* (HAJI, 1999a, p.
177);
◆ Moderate K: “Agent, S, ought to do something, A, only if S has the
opportunity to do A, that is, nothing prevents or would prevent S from
successfully exercising the relevant abilities-whatever they are-to do A, S is
physically able to do A, and A's accomplishment is not 'strictly out of S's
control.'” (HAJI, 1999a, p. 182);
◆ Strong K: “Agent, S, ought to do something, A, only if S has the opportunity
to do A (for example, S is relevantly situated and has the cooperation of the
environment), is physically able to do A, has the relevant 'know-how' to do A,
is not ignorant of germane facts (this is meant to capture the 'know-that'
requirement), and A's accomplishment is not 'strictly out of S's control.'”
(HAJI, 1999a, p. 182).
➔ The outcome is strictly out of S’s control: if S does action A and A issues from S’s
values, best judgment, desires, beliefs, intentions, etc., is there a possible world in
which S does something other than A holding constant S’s past and the laws of
nature? “If there is, and there is nothing about S's states of mind, character,
deliberative capacities, physical abilities, etc., that explains this difference in
outcome, then the outcome is 'strictly out of one's control.'” (HAJI, 1999a, p. 181).

The Problem of Moral Luck in Kane’s Theory

➔ Al’s Story: Al has reasons to smoke and not smoke. Because he is pulled in both
directions, he exerts an indeterminate effort of will that terminates in the choice to
smoke. In a possible world with the same past and laws of nature, Al’s counterpart’s
(Al*’s) indeterminate effort of will terminates in the choice to refrain from smoking.
The actional elements culminating in choice in either case are type identical. This
leaves Kane’s Theory vulnerable to Mele’s problem of luck: “if one chooses to smoke
and the other chooses to refrain, and there is nothing about the agents' character,
deliberation, states of mind, upbringing, and the like that explains the difference in
 outcome, then it seems that the difference is just a matter of luck” (HAJI, 1999a, p.
192);
◆ “Whether he will smoke rather than not smoke or vice versa, it does seem that
what he does is strictly a matter of luck” (HAJI, 1999a, p. 193)
◆ According to Moderate K and Strong K, Al’s action is amoral.

HAJI - Indeterminism and Frankfurt-Type Examples (1999b)

HAJI, I. Indeterminism and Frankfurt-Type Examples. Philosophical

Explorations, v. 2, i. 1, pp. 42-58, 1999b.

➔ The Problem of Luck: “Imagine that Jones finds himself in a conflict situation in
which he ought morally to refrain from smoking but in which he has a strong desire
for the cigar. Assume that his decision to smoke is preceded by an indeterminate
effort of will: its outcome, at its inception (either the decision to indulge or refrain) is
undetermined. It seems, then, that Jones has no control over which outcome occurs
beforehand and, consequently, no control over which outcome occurs when it does.
This is assured by the effort's being indeterminate” (HAJI, 1999b, p. 47);
➔ Kane’s Response: “It does not follow that because you cannot determine or
guarantee which of a set of outcomes will occur beforehand, you do not have control
over which of them occurs, when it occurs” (HAJI, 1999b, p. 47);
➔ The Problem with Kane’s Response: “Reverting to Jones' conflict, Jones'
indeterminate effort results in his decision to smoke. But as the outcome of the effort
is undetermined, the effort could, given the same laws of nature and identical pasts,
just as surely have given rise to the decision to refrain. It is enigmatic, then, how
Jones has control over which option occurs when it does, or how Jones can bring
about whichever one of them he wills when he wills to do so” (HAJI, 1999b, p. 47);
➔ One Possible Answer: Jones has control over which option occurs when it occurs in
virtue of possession of the capacity to be ultimately responsible. He has reasons for
choosing as he did, has chosen for those reasons and has made those reasons the ones
he wanted to act on more than any other by choosing for them (HAJI, 1999b, pp.
47-48);
◆ Problem: “Suppose Jones, in his conflict situation, has reasons to smoke and
reasons to refrain. He deliberates for a bit and concludes that, whereas he
morally ought not to smoke, all things considered he has better reasons to
smoke. Still, as he is pulled in both directions, he exerts an (indeterminate)
effort of will to smoke, and he smokes. Suppose, further, holding the relevant
past that includes Jones' prior deliberations and his all things considered
judgment that he ought to smoke constant, we consider the nearest possible
world in which Jones' indeterminate effort of will terminates in the choice to
refrain from smoking. Here, it is unclear (to say the least) whether Jones
has chosen as he has for reasons (reasons to refrain from smoking), and
whether he has made these reasons the ones he wanted to act on more
 than others by choosing for them. In the absence of an explanation of how
Jones, in the nearest world in which he refrains from smoking, given his
prior cogitations, makes prevalent the reasons to refrain, Kane runs the
risk of violating the spirit of his own Free Agency Principle (...) For if Jones
deliberates about whether to smoke, concludes that he ought all things
considered to do so, exerts an indeterminate effort of will that, alas, culminates
in a choice to refrain, and Jones executes this choice, then it looks for all the
world as if recourse to something special will be required to explain how
Jones makes reasons for the choice to refrain prevail. In addition, as Alfred
Mele has commented, 'If...[one agent's] effort to resist temptation fails
where...[another's] succeeds, and there is nothing about the agents' powers,
capacities, states of mind, moral character, and the like that explains this
difference in outcome, then the difference really just is a matter of luck.' Luck
of this sort seems incompatible with moral responsibility” (HAJI, 1999b, p.
48).
➔ Another Line of Response: Jones has a kind of control over the choice - “it is
caused, in a normal or nondeviant way, by his intention to make up his mind, and by
certain of his beliefs and desires — his reasons — that rationalize” (HAJI, 1999b, p.
48). The same is true for Jones’ counterpart (JC). This is the same explanation for
choices over which agents have control in a deterministic world;
◆ “In sum, then, an explanation to the effect that though JC had the same sorts of
beliefs, desires, values, and judgments as Jones, engaged in the same sort of
prior reflections as did Jones, exerted the same kind of indeterminate effort of
will as did Jones, but still decided to refrain from smoking for reasons
(even though his counterpart, Jones, decided to smoke) is, really, no
reasons-explanation at all. It seems that in this sort of case, the difference in
outcome is merely a matter of the mediating effort of will's being
indeterminate” (HAJI, 1999b, p. 50).
➔ Can the difference in outcome be explained by the fact that Jones makes the reasons
to smoke the ones he wants to act on more by choosing them and that things are
reversed with JC? (HAJI, 1999b, p. 50);
◆ “Kane's task is to explain Jones' choice to smoke for a certain reason, say, Rl,
and JC's different choice to refrain for a different reason, say, R2, given that
the choice of each of our agent results from type-identical actional elements.
An explanation of how, if at all, JC makes R2 the reason he wants more to
act on than Rl prior to choosing to refrain would help us understand why
he refrains but Jones's doesn't. Perhaps this explanation would be along the
lines that JC's desire to refrain acquires greater motivational clout prior to
JC's choosing to refrain than does Jones' desire to refrain prior to Jones'
decision to smoke. But then it would not be the case, contrary to
assumption, that the actional elements that generate JC's choice are
type-identical to those that generate Jones' choice. Furthermore, if wanting
more is a matter of, say, motivational strength, Kane couldn't duly
explain why JC chooses to refrain (rather than smoke) by claiming that
 JC makes R2 the reason he wants to act on more than Rl by choosing for
R2, for to choose for R2 is tantamount to choose to refrain, and it is this
very choice that needs explaining. As Randy Clarke argues, something
that happens as a result of this choice can't with propriety be used to
explain why the choice occurred in the first place” (HAJI, 1999b, pp.
50-51).
➔ Constrain to Satisfy if the Action is not solely a matter of luck:
◆ Indeterministic Pair: like Jones and JC - “the actional elements that
culminate in choice in either case are type-identical; it’s the final choices that
primarily differentiate the two” (HAJI, 1999b, p. 51);
◆ “Luck Constraint: If the choice of each agent, S and S's counterpart, SC, in
each case, IP1 and IP2, of an Indeterminate Pair is not to be a matter solely of
the sort of luck that is incompatible with moral responsibility, there must be an
explanation of why S chooses to do one thing, A, in IP1 and SC chooses to do
another, A2, in IP2, that: (i) is not simply the explanation that it is
indeterminism per se, the mere chance that different alternatives can come
about, or that it is S's A-ing for one set of reasons and SC's Not-A-ing for a
different set of reasons that accounts for the different choices that each makes;
and (ii) makes it reasonable to understand how S does A for reasons different
than the ones for which SC does Not-A, given that the actional elements
culminating in the choice of each are type-identical.” (HAJI, 1999b, p. 51).

HAJI - Libertarianism and the Luck Objection: Comments on

Robert Kane’s Presentation (2000a)

HAJI, I. Libertarianism and the Luck Objection (Comments on Robert Kane’s

Presentation). The Journal of Ethics, v. 4, n. 4, pp. 329-337, 2000a.

The Problem of Luck

➔ “Suppose Jones has reasons to smoke and reasons to refrain from smoking. After
some deliberation, he concludes that, whereas he morally ought not to smoke, all
things considered he has better reasons to smoke. Still, as he is pulled in both
directions, he exerts an (indeterminate) effort of will to smoke, and he voluntarily and
intentionally smokes. Suppose, further, holding constant the relevant past that
includes Jones’s prior deliberations, his all things considered judgment that he ought
to smoke, and the strength of his effort of will to smoke, we consider the nearest
possible world in which Jones’s (or if we want, Jones’s counterpart Jones*’s)
indeterminate effort of will terminates in the choice to refrain from smoking, and
Jones* voluntarily and intentionally refrains from smoking. Here, it is questionable
whether Jones has made the reasons to refrain from smoking the ones he wanted
to act on more than others by choosing for them. In addition, as Al Mele has
 commented, 'If...[one agent's] effort to resist temptation fails where...[another's]
succeeds, and there is nothing about the agents' powers, capacities, states of mind,
moral character, and the like that explains this difference in outcome, then the
difference really just is a matter of luck.' Luck of this sort seems incompatible with
moral responsibility” (HAJI, 2000a, p. 330)

Proximal and Ultimate Control

➔ Response: Jones and Jones* both exert the same degree of proximal control over their
decisions and have ultimate control. One does not need to suppose that luck subverts
responsibility in either case (HAJI, 2000a, p. 330);
➔ There is still a problem: tied to the lack of an explanation in terms of prior
reasons of the difference in choices that Jones and Jones* make (HAJI, 2000a, p.
332);
◆ Preliminary Version of the Problem: Van Inwagen’s Rollback Objection
(HAJI, 2000a, p. 332): why did Jones make one set of reasons prevail in half
of the reruns but make a competing set prevail in the other half given pertinent
type-identical conditions of the past? (HAJI, 2000a, p. 332);
● “Further, I believe that it is lack of a contrastive explanation in
terms of prior elements in an action's trajectory - why Jones
smoked rather than not - that fuels the intuition had by many that what
Jones does in each of the reruns is a matter of responsibility subverting
luck” (HAJI, 2000a, p. 332).
◆ This, however, does not imply that they lack proximal control over choices:
“the idea I'm proposing is that there can be (non-epistemic) factors that are
responsibility-subverting even though they do not detrimentally affect an
agent's proximal control over various actional elements, like decisions, of
hers” (HAJI, 2000a, pp. 332-333).
➔ Response: even lacking explanation in terms of prior reasons, the agent has plural
voluntary control over the actions and does them as a result of his actions (HAJI,
2000a, p. 333);
➔ The Case of the Randomized Thief: Van Inwagen’s case of the thief augmented by
Mele in the following way: “If the thief had a little randomizing device in his head -
perhaps even a randomizer that is "a natural part" of his brain ... that gives each of two
competing sets of reasons an initial 0.5 chance of prevailing in his present situation
and then randomly issues in the prevailing of one set of reasons, the divine reruns
would show the distribution that van Inwagen imagines they do. (Picture the device as
a tiny, genuinely random roulette wheel, half of whose slots are black and half red.
The ball's landing on black represents the prevailing of the thief's reasons for
refraining from stealing and its landing on red represents the other reasons
prevailing.) But in that case, if the thief is not morally responsible for what the device
does, it is hard to see how he can be morally responsible ... for refraining from
stealing in the actual world, or for stealing in the reruns in which he steal” (HAJI,
2000a, p. 334)
 ◆ Since he is not responsible for the device, it seems that what he does in each
rerun is a matter of luck (HAJI, 2000a, p. 334);
● This seems unaffected even if we add “doubling”.
◆ The control the agent lacks in each rerun is the control to see to it that, in that
rerun, he steals rather than that he does not and vice versa (HAJI, 2000a, p.
334).
➔ The Thief’s Case suggests a General Principle: “No Contrastive Control (NCC):
If it is the case that (a) if agent, S, does action, A, S will have proximal control over
doing A; (b) if S does B, S will have proximal control over doing B; (c) the
"antecedent actional elements" that would give rise to S's doing A if S were to do A
are type-identical to those that would give rise to S's doing B if S were to do B; and
(d) it is false that S has proximal or other antecedent control over seeing to it that S
does A rather than that S does B or vice versa, then (e) S is not morally responsible
for doing either A or B if S does either A or B” (HAJI, 2000a, p. 335).
◆ (a) and (b) are true;
◆ (c) is true by hypothesis;
◆ (d) is true because of the randomizing device;
◆ (e) appears reasonable regarding the thief’s case.
➔ Jones’s Case: it is different from the randomizing device. “In the actual world, Jones
makes the desire to smoke prevail by deciding; similarly, his counterpart, Jones*
makes the desire to refrain from smoking prevail in his world by deciding to refrain
from smoking in that world” (HAJI, 2000a, p. 335);
➔ Problem: given type-identical pasts, “why (or how), by choosing in a certain way,
Jones makes the desire to smoke prevail in the actual world, where as why (or how),
by choosing differently, Jones* makes the desire to refrain from smoking prevail in
his world”? (HAJI, 2000a, p. 335)
◆ “If, given identical pasts, one best judgment, or for that matter, any other
actional element like an indeterminate effort of will, gives rise to one choice,
but a type identical best judgment or effort of will gives rise to a different
choice, the best-judgment or effort of will seem to be playing a role analogous
to the one the randomizing device plays in the thief's brain. Notice that it
doesn't help to suppose that the effort and the indeterminism are fused. For if
they are, the effort is just like the randomizing device: its ‘product’ just like
that of the randomizing device which might be part of Jones's brain is not
under the proximal control of Jones. And just as the thief is not morally
responsible for what the device does, so Jones is not morally responsible for
the workings or ‘output’ of an indeterminate effort of will even though that
effort is Jones's effort” (HAJI, 2000a, p. 336).
◆ “Application of NCC to the Jones/Jones* case provides an alternate pathway
to the conclusion that Jones is not responsible for smoking. Conditions (a) and
(b) of this principle are satisfied on the stipulation that ‘A’ stands for Jones's
smoking, and ‘B’ for his not smoking; and (c) is, again, true by hypothesis. As
the case is relevantly analogous to the thief's, in particular, the indeterminate
effort of will that is Jones's effort is just Uke the randomizing device that is
 part of Jones's brain, (d) is true as well. Hence, the principle sanctions the
result that Jones is not morally responsible for smoking” (HAJI, 2000a, p.
337)

HAJI - Indeterminism, Explanation, and Luck (2000b)

HAJI, I. Indeterminism, Explanation, and Luck. The Journal of Ethics, v. 4, n. 3,

pp. 211-235, 2000b.

Haji’s Arguments

➔ First Argument: “Libertarian concerns of ultimate control provide support for the
view that choices of an agent that are undetermined in the fashion implied by Kanean
libertarianism are luck-infected” (HAJI, 2000b, p. 235);
➔ Second Argument: “Lack of a contrastive explanation of why an agent chose one
thing rather than another, or did one thing rather than another, in terms of prior
states of that agent also signals that what the agent eventually chose to do and did is
luck-infected” (HAJI, 2000b, p. 235);
◆ This luck is compatible with proximal control, but is
responsibility-undermining;
➔ Third Argument: CNC Manipulation.

Introduction

➔ “The Crux of the Objection”: “Suppose Jones, in his conflict situation, has reasons
to smoke and reasons to refrain. He deliberates for a bit and concludes that, whereas
he morally ought not to smoke, all things considered he has better reasons to smoke.
Still, as he is pulled in both directions, he exerts an (indeterminate) effort of will to
smoke, and he smokes. Suppose, further, holding the relevant past that includes Jones’
prior deliberations and his all things considered judgment that he ought to smoke
constant, we consider the nearest possible world in which Jones’ indeterminate effort
of will terminates in the choice to refrain from smoking. Here, it is unclear (to say the
least) whether Jones has chosen as he has for reasons (reasons to refrain from
smoking), and whether he has made these reasons the ones he wanted to act on more
than others by choosing for them. . . . In addition, as Alfred Mele has commented, “If
. . . [one agent’s] effort to resist temptation fails where . . . [another’s] succeeds, and
there is nothing about the agents’ powers, capacities, states of mind, moral character,
and the like that explains this difference in outcome, then the difference really just is a
matter of luck.” Luck of this sort seems incompatible with moral responsibility”
(HAJI, 2000b, pp. 216-217);
➔ Kane’s Response: doubling of effort;
 First Argument: On Libertarian’s Considerations of Ultimate Control

➔ Van Inwagen’s Case augmented by Mele: “An explanation of why the thief decided
to steal in half of the reruns but not in the others will appeal partly and centrally to the
randomizing device in his brain. As he lacks control over what the device does, it
seems that his choices and subsequent actions in each of the reruns are indeed a
matter of luck. Is Jones’s (or the businesswoman’s) case analogous to the thief’s case
in just those respects which reassure us that the thief is not morally responsible for
what he does in any of the reruns? It may be thought that a salient, germane
dissimilarity is the absence of a randomizing device in Jones’s scenario. In the thief’s
case, it is the randomizing device that is causally responsible for the thief’s decision.
As the output of this device is random, the verdict that the thief is not responsible for
what he does is perfectly sensible. But in Jones’s case, it is Jones and not any
randomizing device that makes one set of reasons prevail, or one desire the strongest,
at the time of choice. [...] The fact that it is Jones rather than any device who
makes some reason prevail, it might be urged, should make all the difference to
our verdicts of luck and responsibility in the cases of Jones and the randomizer”
(HAJI, 2000b, pp. 219-220)
◆ “Suppose, though, we now ask why (or how) does Jones make the desire to
smoke prevail rather than make the desire to refrain prevail, given
type-identical pasts? Or appealing to possible worlds, why (or how), by
choosing in a certain way, does Jones make the desire to smoke prevail in the
actual world, whereas why (or how), by choosing differently, does Jones*
make the desire to refrain from smoking prevail in his world, given
type-identical pasts?” (HAJI, 2000b, p. 220)
● “First, according to Kane, in the sort of conflict situation in which
Jones finds himself, Jones makes DS prevail by making a certain
choice. But if DS is strengthened as a result of making the
pertinent choice, the fact that Jones made this very choice can’t
duly be explained by DS’s being strengthened” (HAJI, 2000b, pp.
220-221).
◆ “The reason there can be no explanation of why Jones makes the desire to
smoke prevail rather than the desire to refrain prevail, in terms of antecedent
actional elements, then, in a nutshell is simply this: if pasts are held fixed, the
antecedent actional elements like desires, best judgments, efforts of will, and
intentions that would give rise to Jones’s choice to smoke, if Jones decided to
smoke, would be type-wise no different than those that would give rise to
Jones’s choice to refrain from smoking, if he decided to refrain. It would
seem, consequently, that the difference in outcome in the two cases would
merely be a function of the indeterminacy of the mediating efforts of will.
Given identical pasts, if one best judgment, or for that matter, any other
actional element like an indeterminate effort of will, gives rise to one choice,
but a type-identical best judgment or effort of will gives rise to a different
choice, the best-judgment or effort of will seem to be playing a role
 analogous to the one the randomizing device plays in the thief’s brain”
(HAJI, 2000b, p. 221)
◆ “It is open to Kane to rejoin that it does not follow that, because one cannot
control or determine which of a set of outcomes is going to occur before it
occurs, one cannot control which of them occurs when it occurs. He might add
that Jones exerts control over his future life “then and there” at the time of
choice by deciding [...] The explanation that the difference in choices is to be
attributed to the agents’ exercising control over their future lives then and
there by deciding is not illuminating. It’s analogous to saying that the agents
exert agent-causal power over their choices “then and there” by deciding
without giving an explication of what these special causal powers consist in.
This sort of explanation, moreover, merely prompts another query on the part
of the actional theorist: why did Jones decide there and then in one way but
Jones* in a different way, given identical pasts?” (HAJI, 2000b, p. 221)

Second Argument: On The Lack of Contrastive Explanations

➔ “I have proposed that it is lack of a contrastive explanation in terms of prior elements

in an action’s trajectory – why Jones smoked (or decided to smoke) rather than not –
that fuels the intuition had by many that whatever Jones chooses to do or does is a
matter of responsibility-undermining luck” (HAJI, 2000b, p. 223);
◆ “The absence of a contrastive explanation in terms of prior reasons or motives
in the Jones/Jones* case does not entail that when Jones or Jones* make the
choices that they do, they lack proximal control over their choices. So one idea
that I’m proposing is that there can be (non-epistemic) factors that are
responsibility-subverting because luck-tainted even though they do not
detrimentally affect an agent’s proximal control over various actional
elements, like decisions, of hers” (HAJI, 2000b, p. 223).
➔ “Indeed, I submit that the following principle is true: If it is the case that (a) if agent,
S, does action, A, S will have proximal control over doing A; (b) if S does B, S will
have proximal control over doing B; (c) the “antecedent actional elements” that would
give rise to S’s doing A if S were to do A are type-identical to those that would give
rise to S’s doing B if S were to do B; and (d) it is false that S has proximal or other
antecedent control over seeing to it that S does A rather than that S does B or vice
versa, then (e) S is not morally responsible for doing either A or B if S does either A
or B” (HAJI, 2000b, p. 223).
◆ Regarding Jones and Jones*:
● (a) and (b) are true;
● (c) is true by hypothesis;
● (d) is, also, true: “as the case is relevantly analogous to the thief’s, in
particular, the indeterminate feature of Jones’s effort of will is just like
the randomizing device that is part of Jones’s brain” (HAJI, 2000b, pp.
223-224);
 ○ To accept this, I need to accept features of the previous
argument;
➔ “Think of the matter in this way: if Jones, equipped with a set of values, reasons, and
motives does one thing under one set of circumstances on one occasion, but
something radically different, given those very same sorts of values, reasons, and
motives, on another occasion under identical circumstances, there is a genuine puzzle
as to what he morally stands for vis-a-vis the deed that he performs; Jones simply
fails, on the pertinent occasion, to manifest “what he would have himself to be.””
(HAJI, 2000b, p. 224)
➔ “This sort of luck need not, I have granted, subvert proximal control that the agent
may have exercised over her choice. Nevertheless, it is responsibility-undermining. It
is so because when there is no contrastive explanation of the agent’s deed in terms of
prior states, there is no measure of what the agent morally stands for with respect to
that deed; there is no moral self “objectified in action.” But then, with no appropriate
entry in her ledger of life, the agent cannot be morally responsible for her deed”
(HAJI, 2000b, p. 225)

HAJI - On the Value of Ultimate Responsibility (2000c)

HAJI, I. On the Value of Ultimate Responsibility. In: VAN DEN BELD, T.

Moral Responsibility and Ontology. Springer Dordrecht, pp. 155-170, 2000c.

Haji’s Arguments

➔ “One serious perplexity with Kane's conception of ultimate control is that,

paradoxically, it generates the result that agents lack the sort of control required for
responsibility over undetermined outcomes of indeterminate efforts of will. For
suppose Al is in a conflict situation in which he ought morally to refrain from
smoking but in which he has a strong desire for the cigar. Assume that his decision to
light up is preceded by an indeterminate effort of will: its outcome, at its inception,
either the decision to indulge or refrain, is undetermined. It seems, then, that Al has
no control over which outcome occurs beforehand and, consequently, no control
over which outcome occurs when it does. This is assured by the effort's being
indeterminate” (HAJI, 2000c, p. 158)
➔ Kane’s Response: “It does not follow that because you cannot determine or guarantee
which of a set of outcomes will occur beforehand, you do not have control over which
of them occurs, when it occurs” (In HAJI, 2000c, p. 158)
◆ “This response, however, is elusive. Revert to Al's conflict. As the tale has
been spun, Al's indeterminate effort results in Al's decision to smoke. But as
the outcome of the effort is undetermined, the effort could, given the same
laws of nature and identical (or near identical) pasts, just as surely have given
rise to the decision to refrain. It is enigmatic, then, how Al has control over
 which option occurs when it does, or how Al can bring about whichever one
of them he wills when he wills to do so” (HAJI, 2000c, p. 159)
➔ “Perhaps Kane's position is that in virtue of possession of the capacity to be ultimately
responsible, Al does have control over whichever option occurs when it occurs
consistent with the natural laws and past remaining the same. For, he might say, when
Al overcomes temptation (or succumbs), Al will have had reasons for choosing as he
did, will have chosen for those reasons, and will have made those reasons the ones he
wanted to act on more than any others by choosing for them” (HAJI, 2000c, p. 159)
◆ “Suppose Al, in his conflict situation, has reasons to smoke and reasons to
refrain. He deliberates for a bit and concludes that, whereas he morally ought
not to smoke, all things considered he has better reasons to smoke. Still, as he
is pulled in both directions, he exerts an (indeterminate) effort of will to
smoke, and he smokes. Suppose, further, holding the relevant past that
includes Al's values, prior deliberations, strength of his desires to smoke and
to refrain, the all things considered judgment that he ought to smoke, and the
effort of will exerted constant, we consider the nearest possible world in which
Al's, or if we want, Al's counterpart's, Al *' s, indeterminate effort of will
terminates in the choice to refrain from smoking. Here, it is unclear (to say the
least) whether Al* has chosen as he has for reasons (reasons to refrain from
smoking), and whether he has made these reasons the ones he wanted to act on
more than others by choosing for them. (...) Kane couldn't duly explain why
AI* chooses to refrain (rather than smoke) by claiming that AI* makes
R2 the reason he wants to act on more than R1 by choosing for R2, for to
choose for R2 is tantamount to choose to refrain, and it is this very choice
that needs explaining. Something that happens as a result of this choice
can't be used to explain why the choice occurs in the first place” (HAJI,
2000c, pp. 159-160)

HAJI - Control Conundrums: Modest Libertarianism,

Responsibility, and Explanation (2001)

HAJI, I. Control Conundrums: Modest Libertarianism, Responsibility, and

Explanation. Pacific Philosophical Quaterly, v. 82, 178-200, 2001.

Introduction

➔ “This is because there are varieties of luck that can undermine responsibility
without undermining proximal control over one’s choices. If I am right about this,
then in addition to control (or freedom) and epistemic requirements of moral
responsibility, there is yet another distinct requirement that is intimately
affiliated with the absence of non-control undermining but
 responsibility-subverting luck. One of my fundamental aims in this essay is to
formulate and defend this requirement.” (HAJI, 2001, p. 179);
➔ The Core of the Luck Objection: “Suppose Jones has reasons for and against
smoking. After deliberation, he concludes that, whereas he morally ought not to
smoke, all things considered, he has better reasons to smoke. He then straightaway
decides to smoke in accordance with his best judgment and voluntarily and
intentionally smokes. As his undetermined decision to smoke is non-deterministically
caused by his best judgment and other actional events and states, even having made
this best judgment, he could have decided to do something else instead. So suppose,
holding constant the relevant past that includes Jones’s prior deliberations and his best
judgment that he ought to smoke, we consider the nearest possible world in which
Jones (or if we want, Jones’s counterpart, Jones*) straightaway decides to refrain from
smoking, and then voluntarily and intentionally refrains from smoking. Here, apart
from concerns about whether we can account for Jones*’s having non-akratically
refrained from smoking, it appears that it is a matter of luck that he decides as he
does. As Mele has commented, if one agent smokes and the other refrains, “and there
is nothing about the agents’ powers, capacities, states of mind, moral character, and
the like that explains this difference in outcome, then the difference really just is a
matter of luck.” Luck of this sort seems incompatible with moral responsibility.”
(HAJI, 2001, p. 188).
◆ One Interpretation: “It is a matter of luck that Jones decides as he does (1L).
To the extent that some choice or action is a matter of luck for an agent, it is
out of that agent’s control (2L). If 1L and 2L are true, then Jones’s deciding as
he does – his decision to smoke – is out of his control (3L). (4L) If Jones’s
deciding as he does is out of his control, then Jones is not morally responsible
for his decision. Therefore, Jones is not morally responsible for his decision”
(HAJI, 2001, p. 188).
● Response: this kind of luck does not subvert proximal control.
➔ “We still, though, seem to have a problem of responsibility-subverting luck on our
hands. The problem is intimately tied to the lack of an explanation in terms of prior
reasons of the difference in choices that Jones and his counterpart, Jones*, make”
(HAJI, 2001, p. 188);
◆ Thought Experiment: “God has a thousand times caused the world to revert
to precisely its state at the moment just before Jones decides to smoke, and
that on about half these occasions, Jones decides to smoke and acts
accordingly. We can go so far as supposing that in each of the reruns, Jones
was trying to do two competing tasks – he was trying to smoke and he was
trying to refrain – and that whatever he eventually did, it was done voluntarily,
intentionally, and for reasons. Yet, in half of the reruns he decides to smoke
and in the remaining half he decides to refrain. Suppose, watching a playback
of the recorded runs, Jones himself wonders: ‘I realize that I was trying to
perform two competing tasks in each of the reruns; still, given relevant
type-identical pasts, why did I decide one way in about half of them but
another way in the others?’” (HAJI, 2001, p. 189);
 ◆ “I believe that it is lack of a contrastive explanation in terms of prior elements
in an action’s trajectory – why Jones smoked rather than not – that fuels the
intuition had by many that what Jones does in each of the reruns is a matter of
responsibility-subverting luck. The absence of such an explanation does not
entail that when Jones or Jones* make the choices that they do, they lack
proximal control over their choices. So the idea I’m proposing and wish to
develop is that there can be (non-epistemic) factors that are
responsibility-subverting even though they do not detrimentally affect an
agent’s proximal control over various actional elements, like decisions, of
hers.” (HAJI, 2001, p. 189)
● Kane’s Response: “The absence of an explanation of the difference in
choice in terms of prior reasons does not have the tight connection to
issues of responsibility one might initially credit it with. For one thing,
the absence of such an explanation does not imply . . . that . . . [Jones
and Jones*] (1) did not choose at all, nor does it imply that they did not
both choose (2) as a result of their efforts, nor that they did not choose
(3) for reasons (different reasons of course) that (4) they most wanted
to choose for when they chose, nor that they did not choose for those
reasons (5) knowingly and (6) on purpose when they chose, and hence
(7) rationally, (8) voluntarily, and (9) intentionally. None of these
conditions is precluded by the absence of an explanation of the
difference of choice in terms of prior reasons. Yet these are precisely
the kinds of conditions we look for when deciding whether or not
persons are responsible” (KANE IN HAJI, 2001, p. 189)
○ The lack of the relevant sort of contrastive explanation is
perfectly compatible with all conditions of responsibility.
Therefore, how can it undermine the agent’s responsibility for
their choices? (HAJI, 2001, pp. 189-190).
➔ “In Jones’s ‘rerun scenario,’ the control Jones lacks in each rerun is antecedent
control – proximal or otherwise – to see to it that, in that rerun, he smokes rather
than that he does not and vice versa” (HAJI, 2001, p. 190).
◆ “With fixed pasts, the difference in outcome in Jones’s and Jones*’s cases
appears to be merely a function of the indeterminacy in the actional
pathways leading to choice. But it would seem that no agent could exert
proximal (or any other sort) of control over such indeterminacy to ensure a
particular outcome” (HAJI, 2001, p. 190)
◆ “Lack of such antecedent control, in turn, suggests a general principle that
rationalizes, in part, why Jones is not morally responsible for his choices and
subsequent actions in each of the reruns” (HAJI, 2001, p. 190)
● “No Contrastive Control (NCC): If it is the case that (a) if agent, S,
does action, A, S will have proximal control over doing A; (b) if S
does B, S will have proximal control over doing B; (c) the “antecedent
actional elements” that would give rise to S’s doing A if S were to do
A are type-identical to those that would give rise to S’s doing B if S
 were to do B; and (d) it is false that S has proximal or other antecedent
control over seeing to it that S does A rather than that S does B or vice
versa, then (e) S is not morally responsible for doing either A or B if S
does either A or B” (HAJI, 2001, p. 191);
○ “In Jones’s scenario, conditions (a) and (b) are both satisfied on
the stipulation that ‘A’ stands for Jones’s refraining from
smoking, and ‘B’ for his smoking. Consistent with libertarian
assumptions, (c) is true by hypothesis. At the time of smoking
or refraining from smoking, of course, in the reruns in which
Jones smokes, his reasons to smoke prevail in the sense that the
having of these reasons non-deterministically causes him to
smoke, whereas in the reruns in which he refrains from
smoking, his reasons to refrain from smoking prevail. Finally,
as explained above, (d) is also true. Thus the consequent (e)
appears reasonable” (HAJI, 2001, p. 191);
○ “The fundamental idea principle NCC seeks to bring to
attention is that there are non-epistemic factors that do not
undermine an agent’s proximal control over his or her
deliberations, best judgments, intentions, and so forth but
are, nonetheless, responsibility-subverting” (HAJI, 2001, p.
191);
◆ Conditions of Moral Responsibility: Epistemic +
Control or Freedom
● “My proposal is that if NCC is true, then there is
yet another condition which we can dub the
‘Contrastive Explanation Condition’ (CEC)”
(HAJI, 2001, p. 191).
○ “A preliminary formulation of this
condition is this: PCEC: Agent, S, is
responsible for decision or action, A,
only if there is an explanation (that need
not be deterministic) in terms of prior
reasons of why S does A rather than
something else (like refraining from
doing A or some other thing, B).” (HAJI,
2001, p. 191)

Refining PCEC

➔ To explain why an agent chose p rather than q, it must be the case that (HAJI,
2001, p. 192):
◆ (i) there is some event, e, that is the cause of p;
◆ (ii) e bears an explanatorily relevant relation, R, to p; that is, e is
explanatorily relevant to p’s occurrence; and
◆ (iii) had q occurred, nothing in the actual history of p’s occurring would
have borne the same explanatorily relevant relation, R to q, that e bore to
p.
● “A causal contrastive explanation of why p rather than q requires that
there be a cause of p that lacks a corresponding event in the history of
q” (HAJI, 2001, p. 192)
◆ Sue’s Example: “suppose Sue has reasons for and against going for a
bike-ride. After reflection, she judges, in light of her reasons, that it would be
better to go for a ride. On the basis of this judgment, and the reasons for which
she made this judgment, she chooses to go for the ride and does so. Assume
that, even given her judgment that going for a ride would be better, it remained
causally open to Sue to choose not to go; this judgment simply rendered it
highly probable that she would choose to go for the ride. It is, consequently,
false that, given her judgment, it had to happen that she choose to go. We can
now ask: why did she choose to ride her bike rather than not? Assuming that
people generally choose what they judge to be better, the difference
condition as adapted by Clarke, applied to this case, implies that (i) there is
some event – Sue’s judging that going for a ride is better – that is a cause of
her choosing to go for a ride; (ii) this judgment bears an explanatorily
relevant relation to her actual choice (it causes and rationalizes her actual
choice); and (iii) had she made the alternative choice, nothing in the actual
history would have borne the same explanatorily relevant relation to that
choice as her judgment does to her actual choice. Simply put, the judgment
that she actually made caused and bears an explanatorily relevant relation to
her actual choice that no actual occurrence would have borne to her choosing
not to go, had she made that alternative choice. This causal difference, it
seems, rationally explains the contrast in question. Sue’s case, thus, renders it
highly probable that, at least in some cases, causal contrastive explanations are
possible for choices not determined by prior events” (HAJI, 2001, pp.
192-193)
◆ “Let’s now revert to the Jones/Jones* case and ask whether it is possible to
give a contrastive explanation of why Jones* did not smoke rather than smoke.
There is a complication regarding the event that, if there is one, supposedly
causes and rationalizes his not smoking (or, in a variation of the case, his
choice not to smoke). Two candidates for this event, it might be proposed, are,
(e1), Jones*’s reasons to refrain or, (e2), Jones*’s making his reasons to refrain
prevail by choosing to refrain” (HAJI, 2001, p. 193)
● “If e1 is the relevant event, the difference condition implies that no
contrastive explanation is possible as the case will fail to satisfy clause
(iii) of that condition. For had Jones* smoked, some event in the actual
history – his having reasons to smoke – would have borne the same
explanatorily relevant relation to that outcome that e1 bears to Jones*’s
 refraining to smoke (or his choice to refrain to smoke)” (HAJI, 2001,
p. 193);
● “In contrast, if e2 is the relevant event, clause (iii) of the difference
condition would be satisfied. For had Jones* smoked, nothing in the
actual history of his not smoking would have borne the same
explanatorily relevant relation – Jones*’s making his reasons to smoke
prevail by choosing to smoke – that e2 bears to his not smoking [...]
However, there is a problem with identifying the relevant event with
e2. If we want an illuminating contrastive explanation of why
Jones* did not smoke rather than smoke that appeals to something
like e2, we would want to know why Jones* made his reasons to
refrain from smoking rather than his reasons to smoke prevail.
But it appears that there is no contrastive explanation of this fact. I
think that this is so because of the following. Suppose, for example,
that Jones* judges that his reasons to refrain from smoking are better
than his reasons to smoke, and that he has a strong standing disposition
to be motivated by the reasons that he has judged, in light of other
reasons of his, to be better. We may, it might be urged, consequently
have an answer to the second contrastive question as well. But then it
would follow that Jones, who is Jones*’s counterpart and who acts on
antecedent actional springs type-identical to those on which Jones*
acts, also judges that his reasons to refrain from smoking are better. As
Jones, unlike Jones*, intentionally and supposedly freely smokes, his
act of smoking would be irrational as it is an act that is contrary to a
better judgment of his. Presumably, though, modest libertarians would
not want to be saddled with the burden that in cases like the
Jones/Jones* one, free choice or action on the part of each is
guaranteed only if one of the two acts irrationally. The libertarian’s
view is that whichever choice Jones makes, it is one that is freely made
and rational” (HAJI, 2001, pp. 193-194)
● “There is another, related motivation for refining PCEC. In the case in
which the bike-rider, Sue, makes the judgment that riding would be
best and chooses, therefore, to ride the bike, there is a contrastive
explanation of her choice even if it is also possible that she choose to
refrain from riding under exactly the same antecedent conditions. But
suppose that all the conditions are the same, including Sue’s making
the judgment that riding would be best, and Sue chooses to refrain
from riding the bike. In that case there seems to be no contrastive
explanation of her choice. [...] If contrastive explanation is required for
responsibility, then Sue would not be responsible for the choice to
refrain from riding. Thus, while more than one choice – choosing to
ride or choosing not to ride – is possible given antecedent
conditions, only one of those choices (her choice to ride if she made
that choice) could be one for which Sue is responsible. This does not
 provide the sort of dual responsibility that libertarians want” (HAJI,
2001, p. 194).
➔ Amending PCEC: “CEC: Agent, S, is responsible for choice or action, A, only if:
(a) in cases in which there is a contrastive rational explanation of S’s choice or action
A that appeals essentially to the notion of S’s making one set rather than another of
S’s reasons prevail, there be a contrastive rational explanation (that need not be
deterministic) of S’s making that one set rather than another of S’s reasons
prevail; or (b) in cases in which it is false that there is a contrastive rational
explanation of S’s choice or action A that appeals essentially to the notion of S’s
making one set rather than an alternative of S’s reasons prevail, there be a
contrastive rational explanation (that need not be deterministic) in terms of prior
reasons of why S does A rather than something else (like refraining from doing A
or some other thing, B).” (HAJI, 2001, pp. 194-195)

Supporting NCC

➔ CEC is motivated largely by NCC (HAJI, 2001, p. 195);

➔ Blameworthiness: “Blameworthiness for a deed consists in a person’s being
deserving of being judged in a certain way, the judgment recording the moral worth of
the person with respect to that deed” (HAJI, 2001, p. 195)
◆ “Pivotal to blameworthiness is the constituent that one is to blame for some
action, A, only if one has a belief (even a dispositional one) that A is wrong or
morally amiss; one has this belief irrespective of whether or not one cares
about morality (one may, for instance endorse prudential norms); one performs
A despite the belief that it is morally wrong or amiss; and one believes (at
least dispositionally) that one is performing A. Augmenting this epistemic or
cognitive core are other conditions like being in appropriate control of the
action one takes to be morally untoward” (HAJI, 2001, p. 195).
◆ “We are responsible for our conduct because that conduct is ourselves
objectified in actions” (DEWEY IN HAJI, 2001, p. 196)
➔ “Suppose, as I have proposed, responsibility gauges the moral worth of an agent with
respect to some episode in her life – a person discloses what she stands for when she
is morally responsible for some deed. Then, given type-identical pasts, when Jones
does one thing in half or so of the reruns but something else in the others, there is no
saying what Jones stands for. It’s not as though, for instance, Jones acted akratically
on half the occasions but with self-control on the others. If this were the case,
appraisals of the moral worth of Jones with respect to what he did on each occasion
would surely be possible. Nor is the problem just epistemic, stemming merely from
not knowing whether a positive or negative mark gets recorded in Jones’s ledger of
life on account of his deeds. Rather, there is no fact of the matter as to what mark gets
entered, or more aptly, should get entered into his ledger” (HAJI, 2001, p. 196);
➔ Kane’s Response: Jones stands for different things (HAJI, 2001, p. 196);
◆ “In response, the current concern about luck revolves on a distinct variety of
moral appraisal of the agent. The “stands for” locution is used to signal
 assessments pertaining to what agents reveal about themselves in relation to
specific deeds that they perform, where what is revealed is something moral.
Specifically, the sort of appraisal in question is an appraisal of an agent’s
moral worth vis-à-vis a particular episode in that agent’s life, and not an
appraisal of the moral statuses of the various options open to the agent, or
some sort of normative appraisal of the different commitments of the agent.
Nor is the “stand for” locution used merely as an indication of the fact that the
agent endorses different commitments. In the conflict situation in which Jones
finds himself, it is clear to Jones what he ought morally to do and what he
ought all things considered to do; and that he cannot, in his dilemmatic
situation, jointly fulfill these clashing demands. But prior to making a choice,
under his circumstances, there is no appropriate judgment of whether Jones
will augment or diminish his moral worth with respect to the choice that he
will make. So it is somewhat misleading to claim that Jones “stands for”
different things before making a choice. Prior to choice, he “stands for”
different things only in the undisputed sense that he is torn between two
conflicting options. With this in mind, the kernel of my worry about luck can
be brought out in this manner: if Jones, with one set of moral values, reasons,
and motives, and fully cognizant of what morality demands of him, does one
thing under one set of circumstances on one occasion, but something radically
opposed, given those very same sorts of values, reasons, and motives, and
knowledge of what morality demands of him, on another occasion under
identical circumstances, there is a genuine puzzle as to what judgment
regarding his moral worth in connection with the choice he makes is
appropriate. Is his moral worth augmented in relation to the choice that he
makes, or is it diminished, and what would be the basis for determining
whether it is the one or the other, given opposed choices under type-identical
conditions? Jones simply fails, on the pertinent occasion, to manifest what he
would have himself to be; it is as if the “evaluative agent,” the agent who is
the proper subject of responsibility appraisals, disappears from the picture. It’s
no surprise, then, that there is bewilderment on Jones’s part when he puzzles
about why he decided one way in half the reruns and a different way in the
others” (HAJI, 2001, p. 197)
➔ “The Luck Objection is rooted in the idea that, when there is no contrastive
explanation, deterministic or indeterministic, in terms of prior reasons of why the
agent made one choice rather than another (or why the agent made one rather than
some alternative set of reasons prevail), disclosure of what the agent stands for
vis-à-vis what she did is not possible; and with no appropriate entry in her ledger of
life, she cannot be morally responsible for her deed” (HAJI, 2001, p. 199)
HAJI - Reason, Responsibility, and Free Will: Reply to My Critics
(2012)

HAJI, I. Reason, Responsibility, and Free Will: Reply to My Critics. The

Journal of Ethics, v. 16, pp. 175-209, 2012.

Introduction

➔ “An event indeterministically causes another if and only if the former causes the
latter, and it is consistent with the laws of nature and the past that the former event
occurs and not have caused the latter” (HAJI, 2012, p. 195);
➔ “Modest libertarian theories differ from compatibilist ones in that they imply that
even the immediate causal antecedents of a directly free action do not determine that
action: given these antecedents, and the natural laws, there is some chance that that
action not occur” (HAJI, 2012, p. 195)
◆ “The resulting libertarianism specifies that an agent’s control — ‘proximal’ or
‘active’ control—in making a decision consists in apt agent-involving events
causing nondeviantly that decision” (HAJI, 2012, p. 195)

The Problem of Luck

➔ “Suppose Peg is mulling over whether to keep a promise to visit Al. She judges that,
all things considered, she ought to keep the promise, though reasons of self-interest
tempt her to refrain. She decides to keep the promise, and her having certain reasons
to do so, including her making the all things considered judgment that she ought, on
this occasion, to keep the promise,…[indeterministically] causes her to make this
decision. On an action-centered libertarian view, since Peg’s decision to keep the
promise is…[indeterministically] caused, there was a chance that her deliberative
process would terminate in a decision not to keep the promise. Had Peg made this
other decision, it would have been…[indeterministically] caused by her having
reasons of self-interest. Everything prior to the decision that Peg actually makes,
including every feature of Peg, might have been just the same, and yet she could have
made the alternative decision instead. To underscore this point, consider the nearest
possible world with the same past as the past in Peg’s world. This world will have a
past in which Peg’s prior deliberations have resulted in the best judgment that the
promise ought to be honored but Peg (or if we want, one of Peg’s counterparts, Peg*)
decides not to keep the promise. In so deciding, Peg* acquires an intention not to keep
the promise. The acquisition of this intention—the making of the decision to
refrain from keeping the promise—is seemingly not explained by anything. At
least, Peg*’s prior deliberations do not explain why she makes this decision. This
is because these deliberations exactly mirror those of Peg’s but Peg’s
 deliberations…[indeterministically] give rise to the opposed decision to keep the
promise. As Alfred Mele has commented, if one agent does one thing and another
refrains from doing that thing, ‘‘and there is nothing about the agents’ powers,
capacities, states of mind, moral character, and the like that explains this difference in
outcome, then the difference really just is a matter of luck.’ Luck of this sort seems
incompatible with free action or moral responsibility. (Haji 2005, pp. 323–324)”
(HAJI, 2012, p. 196)
◆ Peg lacks antecedent proximal control: “With fixed pasts, the difference in
outcome in Peg’s and Peg*’s cases appears to be merely a function of the
indeterminacy in actional pathways leading to choice. I have claimed,
however, that it would seem that no agent could exert active or any other
sort of control over such indeterminacy to ensure a particular outcome.
Amplifying somewhat, if t1 is the time at which Peg makes whatever decision
she makes at t1 if she is still alive at t1 (it is not indeterministic, for instance,
whether Peg will suffer a fatal stroke at t1), unlike her otherwise similar
deterministic counterpart Peggy, Peg does not have the ability or power to
ensure that at t1 she decides in accordance with her decisive best judgment
about what to do. She may judge that it is best for her to keep the promise,
may muster all the powers of self-control that would ordinarily suffice for her
deciding in accordance with this best judgment, but still fail to so decide. In
Peg’s case, her prior actional antecedents seem not to contribute
sufficiently to control”(HAJI, 2012, p. 197)

Franklin and the Ensurance Formulation of the Luck Argument

➔ “If an agent performs an undetermined action u at t, then she could not have ensured
or guaranteed that she u-ed rather than w-ed at t; indeterminism prevents agents from
having the power to guarantee a particular outcome: agents try their best, but they
cannot ensure what they will do” (HAJI, 2012, p. 197);
◆ Argument:
● (1) Undetermined actions are not ensured;
● (2) If an action is not ensured, then the action is a matter of luck .
◆ “He adds that according to Haji ‘an agent can ensure that he performs an
action u only if he has antecedent control over u’ (Franklin 2011, p. 2010)”
(HAJI, 2012, p. 197)
● Franklin: ‘‘An agent S has antecedent control over an action u at t2 just
in case S has the power at t1 to w at t1 and if he w-ed at t1, then w
would deterministically bring about u at t2’’ (HAJI, 2012, p. 197);
● It is not possible to exercise antecedent control over undetermined
actions;
◆ Premise 1: ‘‘undetermined actions are unensured because we cannot, qua
undetermined actions, exercise antecedent control over them’’ (HAJI, 2012, p.
197)
◆ Problem: 1 is true, but 2 is implausible.
 Haji’s Formulation of the Argument

➔ Central Idea: “Assume that an agent is self-controlled insofar as she is not akratic.
In a deterministic world, suppose that on the basis of her reasons this agent forms the
all things considered best judgment that she ought, at t0, to decide to A at t1. Then
barring unusual circumstances, such as unexpected death, and in the absence of any
information that may influence her verdict about what is all things considered best for
her, she can ensure at t0 or at some time prior to t1 that, at t1, she decides in
accordance with her best judgment. Her being able to ensure that she so decides
simply amounts to her being able to so decide provided nothing goes awry in the
causal trajectory of her decision” (HAJI, 2012, p. 198);
➔ Why is this ensurance power important?
◆ Preliminaries:
● An agent is perfectly self-controlled if (HAJI, 2012, p. 199)
○ (1) this agent does not succumb to akratic or other irrational
influences;
○ (2) barring unusual circumstances, such as sudden death or
the occurrence of events over which she lacks any control and
which would prevent her from deciding in accordance with her
best (or better) judgment, and in the absence of new
information, further deliberation, etc., she decides, at least in
deterministic worlds, in accordance with such a judgment.
● Smoothness: “the etiology or causal trajectory, or a segment of such
a trajectory, of an action, mental or otherwise, is smooth provided it is
free of responsibility-undermining factors, such as, for instance, the
influence of manipulation of the sort that vitiates responsibility”
(HAJI, 2012, p. 199).
◆ “Imagine that perfectly self-controlled Peggy judges that of her two salient
options, A and B, it is best for her to A rather than to B. Assuming that the
causal pathway to her decision to A is smooth, she enjoys a certain power in
her deterministic world. This is the power to ensure that she decides in
accordance with her best judgment, and, again, the ensuring power amounts
to this: If she exercises this power and the causal trajectory to her decision to
A that ‘commences,’ roughly, with her deliberations about whether to A or to
B is smooth, she will decide to A in accordance with her best judgment.
Provided this segment of the trajectory is smooth, if as a self-controlled agent,
Peggy fails to decide in accordance with her best judgment and decides to B
rather than to A, she would not be morally responsible for so deciding. For, if
she is perfectly self-controlled and she decides to B, something, somewhere
along the causal pathway to her decision, has gone very wrong” (HAJI, 2012,
p. 199);
◆ What about non perfectly self-controlled agents?
● “Suppose that Percy, who sometimes succumbs to akratic influences,
judges that of her two options, C and D, it is best for her to D. Suppose
 the causal pathway or its segment that ‘commences,’ roughly, with her
deliberations about whether to C or D, to her subsequent decision to D
is smooth: she musters sufficient self-control in deciding to D, she is
not the victim of secretive manipulation, she is not deliberating under
the influence of mind-altering drugs, etc. Like Peggy, in her
deterministic world Percy possesses the power to ensure that she
decides in accordance with her best judgment. Provided nothing is
askew in the segment of the causal pathway to her D-ing, this
power can be exercised to achieve Percy’s proximal goal: deciding
to D. If on this occasion, had Percy decided to C in the absence of
akratic influences or new information that sways her reasoning,
unsolicited manipulation, and the like, she would presumably not be
morally responsible for deciding to C” (HAJI, 2012, pp. 199-200).
◆ “We may summarize the general, relevant point about antecedent causal
control in this way: Perfectly self-controlled agents, and agents who,
though not perfectly self-controlled, but who exhibit self-control on
various occasions of choice can exercise the power to ensure that they
decide in accordance with their best judgments in deterministic worlds.
Should they fail to so decide, then in the absence of germane explanatory
factors for this failure, they would not be morally responsible for the
pertinent decisions they make. These factors should illuminate what it is
about the etiology of the decisions in question that render their agents not
responsible for these decisions.” (HAJI, 2012, p. 200).
◆ Going back to Peg/Peg*:
● Suppose Peg is Perfectly Self-Controlled:
○ “Judging that it is best for her to A, she decides in accordance
with her best judgment. The segment of the causal pathway
from her deliberations about whether to A to her decision to A
is smooth. The modest libertarian claims that, given exactly the
same past up to or just prior to Peg’s decision to A, and the
same laws, if this decision is free, Peg was able to make some
other decision or refrain from making any decision. So,
consider the scenario in which holding fixed the relevant past
and laws, one of Peg’s counterpart, Peg* (really, Peg) decides
to B. If this decision is not free, then the libertarian has lost the
battle because Peg* would not, in this scenario, be morally
responsible for deciding to B. Assume, then, that Peg*’s
decision to B is a free, intentional mental action. Reflect on
what may be suggested are three broad possibilities concerning
Peg*’s deciding to B” (HAJI, 2012, p. 200):
◆ “First, Peg*’s reasons to B causally generate her
continent decision to B. This option, however, is
inconsistent with the assumption that the past is fixed.
Recall, Peg judged that it is best for her to A, so Peg*
 must have judged similarly. If Peg* decides to B, then
her so deciding is akratic” (HAJI, 2012, p. 200)
◆ “Second, Peg*’s decision to B is akratic. One concern
with this option is that it violates the assumption that
Peg is perfectly self-controlled. Even if this concern is
set aside, there is a problem understanding the etiology
of Peg*’s deciding to B. To explain, in customary
accounts of akratic action, when an agent performs a
strict akratic action, there is a misalignment between the
motivational strength of the desire from which her act
causally derives (the motivationally strongest desire)
and her best judgment. If we accept these typical
accounts, Peg*’s best judgment that she ought to keep
the promise should stand opposed to her stronger desire
to break the promise. With Peg*’s libertarian
supposedly free decision, however, we see no such
misalignment because Peg* shares the relevant past
with Peg. Given her past, Peg*’s desire to keep the
promise does not differ in motivational strength
from this desire of Peg’s. Regarding Peg, however,
we may assume that her desire to keep the promise
has greater motivational clout than her competing
desire and, moreover, there is no misalignment
between this stronger desire and her judgment that
it is better for her to keep the promise. So we have a
pretty obvious problem: how are we to explain
Peg*’s akratic decision? As I have argued elsewhere
(Haji 2005, Sect. 2), I doubt whether there is any
plausible way to do so” (HAJI, 2012, pp. 200-201)
◆ “On the third option, if Peg* decides to B in opposition
to her consciously held best (or better) judgment, she
has suffered a breakdown in agency. If so, she is not
morally responsible for deciding to B” (HAJI, 2012, p.
201)
◆ “In sum, the event causal libertarian says that,
consistent with the past and the laws being what they
are, at t Peg can either freely decide to keep the
promise, or at t she can decide to break the promise, and
whatever decision she makes at t, there is an action
explanation of that decision. Roughly, apt reasons, it is
claimed, indeterministically cause the decision that the
agent makes. It seems that this view is not quite on
target, as Peg*’s scenario illustrates. Active control is a
function of agent-involving springs of action
 appropriately causing one’s actions. It appears that an
agent who decides akratically exercises less active
control in deciding as she does than an otherwise
similar agent who decides continently. So it would be
too quick to claim, without further explanation, that
indeterministic Peg*, who decides akratically, exercises
the same degree of active control in making the decision
that she does as deterministic Peggy would in making a
type- or near type-identical decision when Peggy is
perfectly self-controlled” (HAJI, 2012, p. 201).
➔ “Still, one might wonder about what precisely is the connection between lack of an
action explanation of Peg*’s akratic action and responsibility-level control. I take
action explanations to be causal. Kane, an event causal libertarian, explains that an
agent’s decision is free only if that agent exercised plural voluntary control in making
that decision. Plural voluntary control presupposes that the agent had genuine
alternatives; consistent with the past and the laws remaining fixed, the agent (like
Peg*) could have made an alternative decision. Assuming that the agent had these
genuine options, she had plural voluntary control over these options only if she was
able to bring about whichever of the options she willed (or desired) when she willed
to do so, for the reasons she willed to do so, on purpose, rather than accidentally or by
mistake, without being coerced or compelled in doing so or in willing to do so, or
otherwise controlled in doing or in willing to do so by other agents or mechanisms
(Kane 2005, p. 138). If Peg*, then, has plural voluntary control over her akratic
decision, her reason states must suitably and indeterministically cause that decision.
If, however, there is no apt causal explanation of her akratic decision in terms of her
prior reasons, then we have reason to doubt that she exercises such control in making
this decision” (HAJI, 2012, pp. 201-202)
➔ “To collect results, in Peg/Peg*-like cases, we begin with the assumption that in
accordance with her best judgment Peg continently A-s at a certain time, t, in the
actual world. In relevant non-actual worlds with the same past and the laws as the
actual world, Peg (Peg*, if we want) B-s at at this time. (We may take Peg’s A-ing
and Peg*’s B-ing to be Peg’s deciding to A and Peg*’s deciding to B respectively.) In
such cases, Peg* lacks the power to ensure that she decides in accordance with
her best or better judgment although, having formed this judgment, she does not
persist in deliberation, no new information or considerations come to her mind
prior to her deciding to B, etc., and there are no reasons to believe that the
segment of the causal etiology of her deciding to B from the time she forms the
best judgment that she ought to A to her decision to B is not smooth.
Abbreviating, Peg* lacks antecedent proximal control in deciding as she does
despite the assumption that the relevant segment of the causal etiology of her
deciding to B is smooth. If, having formed the best judgment that she ought to A,
Peg* does not deliberate any further, no new considerations or information come to
her mind prior to her deciding to B, etc., and she lacks proximal antecedent control
despite smoothness of the relevant segment of the causal etiology of her deciding as
 she does, then it does not seem that her reason states appropriately cause her
decision to B. Each of the pertinent options—Peg* decides to B continently, she
decides to B akratically, or she suffers a breakdown of agency—are untenable (given
that the past and the laws are fixed). If Peg*’s prior reason states do not
appropriately cause her decision to B, however, then she lacks responsibility- or
freedom-level control in deciding as she does. Recall, this control is largely causal.
Provided we think that an agent’s active control in making a decision consists in apt
agent-involving events causing nondeviantly that decision, we have grounds to
challenge the claim that Peg* exercises active control in making the decision that she
does. Therefore, Peg* lacks the sort of causal control in deciding as she does that
modest libertarianism requires of one to perform free actions. I believe the luck
objection can be modified to show that indeterminism may well threaten the truth of
judgments of objective and Davidsonian reasons, something I hope to pursue in other
work” (HAJI, 2012, p. 202)

HAJI - Alternative Possibilities, Luck, and Moral Responsibility

(2003)

HAJI, I. Alternative Possibilities, Luck, and Moral Responsibility. The Journal

of Ethics, v. 7, n. 3, pp. 253-275, 2003.

Introduction

➔ Crux of the Luck Objection: “Suppose Peg is deliberating about whether or not to
keep a promise. She judges that, all things considered, she ought to keep the promise,
though she is tempted to act on reasons of self-interest to refrain. She decides to keep
the promise, and her decision is nondeterministically caused by her having certain
reasons for doing so, including her making the all things considered judgment that,
assume, coincides with her moral judgment about what to do on this occasion.
Presupposing an action-centered libertarian view, since Peg’s decision to keep the
promise is nondeterministically caused, there was a chance that her deliberative
process would terminate in a decision not to keep the promise, a decision
nondeterministically caused by her having reasons of self-interest. Everything prior to
the decision, including everything about Peg, might have been exactly the same, and
yet she could have made the alternative decision instead. To underscore this point,
consider the nearest possible world with the same past as the past in Peg’s world, a
past that includes all Peg’s prior deliberations and the best judgment that she ought to
keep the promise, in which Peg (or if we want, one of Peg’s counterparts, Peg*)
decides not to keep the promise. In deciding not to keep the promise, Peg* acquires an
intention not to keep the promise and the acquisition of this intention – the making of
the decision to refrain from keeping the promise – is seemingly not explained by
anything. At least, the making of this decision is not explained by Peg*’s prior
 deliberations, as these deliberations exactly mirror those of Peg’s which
nondeterministically give rise to the decision to keep the promise. As Mele has
commented, if one agent does one thing and another refrains from doing that thing,
“and there is nothing about the agents’ powers, capacities, states of mind, moral
character, and the like that explains this difference in outcome, then the difference
really just is a matter of luck.” Luck of this sort seems incompatible with free action
or moral responsibility and it afflicts Peg’s situation, it appears, largely (but not
exclusively) because of the availability of genuine alternatives” (HAJI, 2003, pp.
264-265).
◆ “First, I am not denying, unlike some, that causal contrastive rational
explanations are possible for putatively free choices nondeterministically
caused by prior events. I do, though, believe that on a natural reading of
Peg*’s case, there is no explanation of why Peg* decides not to keep her
promise rather than decides to keep it, and that in cases relevantly like
hers, lack of this sort of explanation does have a significant impact on
freedom- or responsibility-subverting luck” (HAJI, 2003, p. 266);
◆ Second, “the sort of luck we find in Peg’s case may not diminish the proximal
control that Peg exercises in performing the germane mental action. But this
is perfectly consistent with the view that luck undermines free action or
moral responsibility (in what follows, I focus on the latter)” (HAJI, 2003,
p. 266);
➔ Luck may undermine moral responsibility without diminishing proximal
control: “To develop these points, let w1 be the (actual) world in which Peg decides
to keep her promise, and let w2 be the possible world that does not diverge from w1
until the decision not to keep her promise is made by Peg*. What does Peg* do
differently as a result of the doing of which she decides as she does in w2? Of the
two alternatives (decide to keep the promise, or to refrain) Clarke is apparently
willing to grant that it is not up to Peg* which of the two is actualized. When Peg*
exercises proximal control in deciding as she does, it is the mere chance of
deciding differently that distinguishes her from an otherwise identical
deterministic counterpart. Given the commitments of action-centered event-causal
libertarianism, the past is fixed. Peg* engages in exactly the same sort of reasoning as
does Peg. Yet, she (but not Peg) acts akratically: she supposedly acts freely and
intentionally contrary to a consciously held decisive best judgment to keep her
promise. How is her akratic action to be explained?” (HAJI, 2003, p. 267)
◆ Nothing about Peg*’s deliberations can explain why she, in contrast to Peg,
acquired the intention to decide to break the promise - because the pasts are
fixed (HAJI, 2003, p. 267)
◆ “It seems, then, that there is no explanation, in terms of prior reasons, of
what it is that Peg* does in w2 (but Peg fails to do in w1) in virtue of
which Peg* refrains from keeping the promise in w2 but Peg keeps the
promise in w1. In addition, this position can be maintained together with
affirming that Peg* exercises the same degree and kind of proximal control
that a deterministic counterpart exercises in making the germane
 decision, and that Peg*’s deciding as she does is a matter of freedom- or
responsibility-subverting luck. I revert to why such luck is inimical to
responsibility shortly. Prior to doing so, there are, it seems, considerations that
support the view that indeterminism, in cases like Peg, may diminish the
agent’s proximal control in deciding as she does” (HAJI, 2003, pp. 267-268).
➔ Indeterminism may Diminish the Agent’s Proximal Control: “In view of the
stipulation that w1 does not diverge from w2, at least as far as facts about Peg are
concerned, up until the time of the making of the pertinent promising-involving
decision by Peg, if there is a factor (or set of factors) that explains why Peg*
makes the decision that she does rather than the one that Peg makes, this
‘differentiating factor’ must, it appears, be or involve the indeterminacy or
chanciness constitutive of nondeterministic causation. But clearly Peg* has no
control, proximal or otherwise, over this factor” (HAJI, 2003, p. 268)
◆ “Indeed, Peg*’s scenario is relevantly similar to the very one introduced by
Clarke to distinguish between cases in which indeterminism occurs after the
performance of a basic action and those in which indeterminism occurs in the
production of such an action. Clarke remarks (correctly) that once you hurl the
ball, you have no control over wind speed, etc., that may causally influence
the ball’s trajectory. It is true that, in this case, you have no proximal control
over the chanciness that occurs subsequent to your exercising active control
over throwing the ball. In Peg*’s case, though chanciness occurs in the
production of Peg*’s decision she, just as surely, has no control over such
chanciness. The ball’s hitting the target is not, of course, unlike Peg*’s
deciding as she does, a basic action. But nevertheless, it is a causal outcome of
a basic action and there is indeterminism between its immediate causal
antecedents and its occurrence. Similarly, we can think of Peg’s deciding as
an “outcome” of prior events – her having reasons, for instance – and
there is indeterminism between this “outcome” that is a mental action and
these prior causal antecedents of it. If indeterminism in the ball-throwing
case inhibits your success at ringing about a result you were aiming to
bring about, and thus, as Clarke concludes, diminishes your control over
the result, we should, it seems, analogously conclude that the
indeterminism in Peg*’s case also diminishes the proximal control that
Peg* has in deciding as she does. It is worth reminding ourselves of a simple
moral. We can grant that any action, such as Peg*’s deciding as she does,
is (in part) an exercise of a measure of direct active control by its agent
but such control need not suffice for responsibility if there are
responsibility-undermining factors, such as suitable clandestine brain
manipulation, that aptly precede or influence it. Indeterminacy of the sort
exemplified in Peg*’s case appears to be just this sort of factor” (HAJI,
2003, pp. 268-269)
➔ “Quite apart from this concern regarding diminution of proximal control, the absence
of an explanation of what Peg* does differently than Peg, as a result of the doing
of which she (unlike Peg) decides as she does in w2, signals the presence of
 responsibility-subverting luck for the following reason. Appraisals of
responsibility are first and foremost appraisals of the agent; they disclose the moral
worth of an agent with respect to some episode in her life. For example, when
praiseworthy, a person’s moral standing or record has been enhanced in relation to
some germane episode; when blameworthy her moral standing or record has been
blemished. How can Peg*’s decision to break the promise in w2 reflect poorly on
her as a person if it is the factor of indeterminacy that causally influences her
making of that decision, in the absence of this factor (it seems) she would not
have decided akratically – she would have decided just as Peg did, and she lacks
proximal control over the occurrence or non-occurrence of this factor?” (HAJI,
2003, p. 269)

HAJI -Libertarianism, Luck, and Action Explanation (2005)

HAJI, I. Libertarianism, Luck, and Action Explanation. Journal of

Philosophical Research, v. 30, pp. 321-340, 2005.

➔ The Core of the Luck Objection: “Suppose Peg is mulling over whether to keep a
promise to visit Al. She judges that, all things considered, she ought to keep the
promise, though reasons of self-interest tempt her to refrain. She decides to keep the
promise, and her having certain reasons to do so, including her making the
all-things-considered judgment that she ought, on this occasion, to keep the promise,
nondeterministically causes her to make this decision. On an action-centered
libertarian view, since Peg’s decision to keep the promise is nondeterministically
caused, there was a chance that her deliberative process would terminate in a decision
not to keep the promise. Had Peg made this other decision, it would have been
nondeterministically caused by her having reasons of self-interest. Everything prior to
the decision that Peg actually makes, including every feature of Peg, might have been
just the same, and yet she could have made the alternative decision instead. To
underscore this point, consider the nearest possible world with the same past as the
past in Peg’s world. This world will have a past in which Peg’s prior deliberations
have resulted in the best judgment that the promise ought to be honored but Peg (or if
we want, one of Peg’s counterparts, Peg*) decides not to keep the promise. In so
deciding, Peg* acquires an intention not to keep the promise. The acquisition of this
intention—the making of the decision to refrain from keeping the promise—is
seemingly not explained by anything. At least, Peg*’s prior deliberations do not
explain why she makes this decision. This is because these deliberations exactly
mirror those of Peg’s but Peg’s deliberations nondeterministically give rise to the
opposed decision to keep the promise. As Alfred Mele has commented, if one agent
does one thing and another refrains from doing that thing, “and there is nothing
about the agents’ powers, capacities, states of mind, moral character, and the like
 that explains this difference in outcome, then the difference really just is a matter
of luck.” Luck of this sort seems incompatible with free action or moral responsibility
and it afflicts Peg’s situation, it appears, largely but not exclusively because of the
availability of genuine alternatives” (HAJI, 2005, pp. 323-324).
➔ Kane: indeterminism functions as a hindrance; it comes from the agent’s own will; the
agent has plural voluntary control (HAJI, 2005, p. 324)
➔ “Rather, I propose that the luck objection is defensible even assuming that the
relevant sort of indeterminsitic choice does not diminish freedom-level control to the
extent to which responsibility is threatened. What may well animate the luck
objection is a concern over action explanation” (HAJI, 2005, p. 325)
◆ “To bring out this concern, let W1 be the actual world in which Peg decides to
keep her promise and let W2 be some possible world that does not diverge
from W1 until the decision not to keep her promise is made by Peg*. What
does Peg* do differently as a result of the doing of which she decides as
she does in W2? Of the two alternatives (decide to keep the promise, or to
refrain), it is apparently not up to Peg* which of the two is actualized.
When Peg* exercises proximal control in deciding as she does, it is the
mere chance of deciding differently that distinguishes her from an
otherwise identical deterministic counterpart. Given the commitments of
action-centered event-causal libertarianism, the past is fixed. Peg* engages in
exactly the same sort of reasoning as does Peg. Yet, she (but not Peg) acts
akratically: she supposedly acts freely and intentionally contrary to a
consciously held decisive best judgment to keep her promise” (HAJI, 2005, p.
325).
● How can we explain the akratic action?
○ “Nothing about Peg*’s deliberations can explain why she,
unlike Peg, acquired the intention to decide to break the
promise” (HAJI, 2005, p. 325)
○ “It seems, then, that there is no explanation, in terms of prior
reasons, of just what Peg* does in W2 but Peg fails to do in W1
in virtue of which Peg* refrains from keeping the promise in
W2 but Peg keeps the promise in W1. In addition, this position
can be maintained in tandem with affirming that Peg* exercises
the same degree and kind of proximal control that a
deterministic counterpart exercises in making the germane
decision, and that Peg’s deciding as she does is a matter of
freedom- or responsibility-subverting luck” (HAJI, 2005, p.
325)
➔ “In particular, as previously noted, one would like to know what Peg* does
differently as a result of which she, but not Peg, chooses akratically” (HAJI, 2005,
p. 326)
➔ “Responding to the final concern, both explanatory and causal notions are
pertinent to ascriptions of responsibility. A full defense of this claim extends far
beyond the purview of this piece. A vital plank in the story, though, should shed light
 on the centrality of reasons explanation to responsibility. Assume that Peg acts
(partly) on the basis of the belief that she ought morally to keep her promise; this
belief, in conjunction with other conative and cognitive elements of hers,
rationalizes her choice. In the absence of acting in the light of this belief, there
are strong reasons for the view that she would not be morally praiseworthy for
her choice. Turning, now, to Peg*’s scenario, does Peg*’s choice issue (partly) from
this belief or does, for instance, the belief that she is doing moral wrong, suitably
figure in the causal production of her decision? Without illumination on this point,
an appropriate judgment concerning responsibility is not forthcoming” (HAJI, 2005,
p. 326)
➔ Kane’s Response: misalignment between the strength of the desire and the best
judgment.
◆ “Kane’s novel response is that this worry fails to take account of the fact that
the misalignment in question does not occur prior to choice but at the moment
of choice. The desire to go to the meeting, he suggests, does not become the
strongest desire for BW* until she makes it so at the moment of choice.
“Akratic misalignment,” he writes, “does not preexist the choice; it is created
by the akratic agents themselves when they choose.”” (HAJI, 2005, p. 327)
● “In any case, if such misalignments do occur at the moment of choice,
how do agents produce these misalignments when they choose? Why
or how, for instance, does BW* make the desire to go to the meeting
strongest at the moment of choice? Presumably, BW* must have done
something—performed some action, say, A, or a set of actions—to
make this so. Whatever A consists in, what precisely is its causal
explanation? One cannot, for example, appeal to the fact that BW*’s
selectively focusing on various things resulted in her doing A which, in
turn, was the proximal cause of her akratic misalignment. For if BW*
engaged in selective focusing prior to her decision not to help the
victim, BW must have so engaged as well, given a fixed past. But we
have stipulated that BW did nothing of this sort” (HAJI, 2005, p. 327)
○ “But we are, then, once again saddled with this concern: what
does BW* do but BW fail to do, in virtue of which BW*, but
not BW, makes the effort of will to go to the meeting rather
than the effort of will to help prevail?” (HAJI, 2005, p. 328)
◆ “There is a general concern with Kane’s position on the
creation of akratic misalignment at the time of choice:
we cannot appeal to any causal elements prior to
BW*’s doing A to explain why BW* A-s. This is
because prior to doing A (again, whatever A is), BW*
does not engage in behavior any different than the
behavior in which BW engages, and as our tale is spun,
BW does not do A.” (HAJI, 2005, p. 328)
➔ “If there is no discrepancy between the worlds of BW and BW* (or between those of
Peg and Peg*) or there are no other relevant dissimilarities to account for the
 difference in their behavior, then this difference is just a matter of luck. Even though
each agent and her pertinent counterpart exercises freedom-level proximal control in
deciding as she does and in the subsequent execution of the germane decision, luck of
this sort seems to undercut responsibility. Why exactly does it do so?” (HAJI, 2005, p.
328)
◆ Appraisals of responsibility are first and foremost appraisals of the agent: “If
nothing in her relevant past—her germane reasoning, for instance—is
altered, and she (or her counterpart, BW*) now fails to help, then it seems
that failing to help cannot reflect poorly on her. There is nothing that she
has done differently as a result of the doing of which it would be true to the
facts that she is now blameworthy or at least that she is not now praiseworthy.
Surely, if she were now, for instance, blameworthy for not helping, it would
have to be so in virtue of the fact that something about her in relation to her
not helping is different—different than what it would have been in relation to
her helping. But nothing about her now is relevantly different. It would
seem, then, that she is not now blameworthy. Consequently, the initial
assumption that BW is praiseworthy for helping need not be granted either”
(HAJI, 2005, p. 328)

MELE - Review of The Significance of Free Will (1998)

MELE, A. Review of The Significance of Free Will. The Journal of Philosophy,

v. 95, i. 11, pp. 581-584, 1998.

➔ “Consider the following story. John believes that he ought to arrive on time for a
meeting that begins at noon in his building, but he is tempted to arrive late, as a
modest protest. Although he tries very hard and very intelligently to resist his
temptation, and although he has a reasonable chance of succeeding, his indeterminate
effort fails: a minute before noon (at t) he decides to go to the meeting late. At a
nearby world with the same laws and a very similar past relative to t as similar as can
be regarding John (or his counterpart), given the relevant indeterminacy John* (that
is, John or his counterpart) believes that he ought to arrive on time for the meeting, is
tempted to arrive late (for the same reason), and tries very hard and very intelligently
to resist his temptation. John*'s indeterminate effort succeeds. He masters his
temptation, decides a minute before noon to show up on time for the meeting, and
does so” (MELE, 1998, pp. 582-583)
◆ “John's effort to resist temptation fails whereas John*'s succeeds. If there is
nothing about the agents' powers, capacities, states of mind, moral
character, and the like that explains this difference in outcome, then the
difference is just a matter of luck. If John and John* do not differ in the
control they exert over their respective efforts, or differ in control only in ways
 that are themselves a matter of luck, John's succumbing to temptation whereas
Johnt successfully resists is a matter of luck. That their efforts are
indeterminate explains why the efforts might have different outcomes, but
this obviously does not explain (even in an indeterministic way) why John
failed whereas John* succeeded. If it were not for John's having worse luck
than John*, John would have been in John*'s shoes: he would successfully
have resisted temptation. Given that John tried very hard and intelligently to
resist temptation and that his failing where John* succeeded is just a
matter of John's being unluckier than John*, it is difficult to see why John
should be thought to have exerted freedom-level control in making the
decision to go to the meeting late or to be morally responsible for making that
decision” (MELE, 1998, p. 583)

MELE - Kane, Luck, and The Significance of Free Will (1999a)

MELE, A. Kane, Luck, and The Significance of Free Will. Philosophical

Explorations, v. 2, i. 2, pp. 96-104, 1999a.

➔ “It can be said, in a rough and ready way, that the sphere of luck (i.e., good or bad
luck) for an agent is the sphere of things having the following two features: the agent
lacks complete control over them; even so, they affect his or her life” (MELE,
1999a, p. 97);
➔ “Consider Ann. She has promised to call her colleague Beth at 8:00 this morning to
brief her for an important business meeting. Ann believes that she ought to call at
8:00. However, Beth recently broke a promise to Ann, and Ann is still seething about
that. She is tempted to call Beth late in retribution and takes pleasure in the thought of
Beth's worrying that she will not call and Beth's feeling anxious about not being
prepared for the meeting. Ann tries very hard and very intelligently to resist her
temptation, right up to 8:00; and she has a reasonable chance of succeeding. But her
indeterminate effort fails, and she decides at 8:00 not to call Beth for at least several
minutes. Is Ann ultimately responsible for her effort's failing and for her decision not
to call at 8:00? Consider a nearby world with the same laws and a very similar past -
as similar as can be regarding Ann (or her counterpart), given that she sometimes
makes indeterminate efforts of will, including the present effort. Here too the agent -
call her Ann* - believes that she ought to call her colleague at 8:00 and is tempted to
call late, for the same reason. Here too she tries very hard and very intelligently to
resist her temptation, and her effort is indeterminate. But in this world she succeeds.
Ann* masters her temptation, decides at 8:00 to make the call straightaway, and does
so (using her phone's speed dial function, of course)” (MELE, 1999a, p. 98)
◆ “If Ann's and Ann*'s cases are to be basic instances of ultimate responsibility,
then, on Kane's view, the strength and intelligence of their efforts to resist
temptation cannot be part of something that causally determines the efforts'
 success or failure. Now, perhaps it can be said that the harder, or more
intelligently, people try to resist temptation, the more likely they are to
succeed, other things being equal. It might also be said that even if it was not
causally determined that a certain agent's effort to resist temptation in the
service of a moral judgment succeeded, an agent who tried hard and
intelligently to resist - thereby increasing the probability that she would
choose to do what she judged best - and succeeded in so doing deserves moral
credit for her successful resistance and for the associated moral choice and is
responsible for the success of the effort and for the choice. But what should be
said, then, about a very similar agent who also tries very hard and very
intelligently to resist a very similar temptation, but unluckily fails to resist it?
On Kane's view, given that the agents' efforts are "indeterminate," it cannot
properly be said that the latter agent (Ann, for example) tried exactly as hard
and as intelligently as the former (Ann*, for example). But given that the
difference in outcome in the two cases — successful resistance and a
subjectively morally proper choice in one and unsuccessful resistance and
a subjectively morally improper choice in the other — is not to be
explained by a difference in the amount of effort or in the intelligence of
the effort, this alleged implication of the efforts' being indeterminate
seems insignificant. The unsuccessful agent has worse luck than her
successful counterpart. And if it were not for Ann's having worse luck than
Ann*, Ann would have been in Ann*'s shoes: she would successfully have
resisted temptation” (MELE, 1999a, p. 99)
◆ “If Ann's effort to resist temptation fails where Ann*'s effort succeeds,
and there is nothing about the agents' powers, capacities, states of mind,
moral character, and the like that explains this difference in outcome,
then the difference really is just a matter of luck. That their efforts are
indeterminate explains why the outcomes of the efforts might not be the same,
but this obviously does not explain (even nondeterministically or
probabilistically) why Ann failed whereas Ann* succeeded” (MELE, 1999a, p.
99)
◆ “I have not claimed that it is just a matter of luck that Ann* (the
counterfactual agent) decided to call at 8:00. After all, her effort to resist
the temptation to call late might have significantly increased the probability
that she would decide to call on time. If she had made no effort to resist
temptation, the chance that she would decide to call on time might have been
minuscule. What is just a matter of luck is that Ann*'s effort to resist
temptation culminated in this decision whereas Ann's effort to resist
temptation terminated in a decision to call late: Ann simply had worse luck
than Ann*, and if it were not for this, Ann would successfully have resisted
temptation. Put differently, what is just a matter of luck is that Ann's effort
to resist temptation had the outcome it did rather than having the
outcome Ann*'s effort had - that is, a decision to call late rather than a
decision to call on time. Here, other things being equal, luck seems to play
 too great a role in the success or failure of Ann's attempt to resist
temptation for Ann to have freedom-level control over the outcome of her
attempt and to be morally responsible for that outcome. A difference in
luck, and that difference alone, apparently, is what separates an
unsuccessful effort to resist temptation from a successful one in this case.
Ann's effort failed, but if Ann had had Ann*'s luck, her effort would have
succeeded” (MELE, 1999a, pp. 99-100)
● “Can one consistently maintain (1) that it is not just a matter of luck
that Ann* (the counterfactual agent) chooses to call on time and (2)
that it is just a matter of luck that Ann's effort to resist temptation has
the outcome it has rather than having the outcome Ann*'s effort to
resist temptation has? The salient difference between Ann's effort and
Ann*'s effort is that the former fails whereas the latter succeeds.
Nothing about the efforts explains why Ann*s succeeds and Ann's
fails. Therefore, no difference in the control that the agents had or
exerted over their efforts explains this difference in outcome. So
the difference in outcome is just a matter of agential luck. Even so,
for the reasons I have offered, it is not just a matter of luck that
Ann* chooses to call on time. Bear in mind that Ann and Ann* made
"an effort to resist temptation," to use Kane's expression (p. 128), and a
successful effort to resist the temptation to call late is one that
culminates in a choice to call on time. It is not as though Ann and
Ann* were simply making an effort to decide what to do without
aiming in that effort at a specific outcome - namely, the resistance of
temptation” (MELE, 1999a, p. 100)
◆ “What I have been suggesting is that given the place luck has in the failure of
Ann's effort to resist temptation, and, hence, in her choosing to call late, it is
highly implausible that Ann has freedom-level control over the outcome of
that effort - that is, her choice to call late - and bears moral responsibility for
that outcome” (MELE, 1999a, pp. 100-101)

MELE - Ultimate Responsibility and Dumb Luck (1999b)

MELE, A. Ultimate Responsibility and Dumb Luck. Social Philosophy and

Policy, v. 16, i. 2, pp. 274-293, 1999b.

➔ “The sphere of luck (good or bad) for a person may be understood as the sphere of
things having the following two properties: the person does not control them; even so,
they affect his or her life” (MELE, 1999b, p. 274)
➔ “Basic instances of action for which an agent is ultimately responsible are causally
undetermined actions for which the agent is ultimately responsible. Nonbasic
instances are causally determined actions, the agent's ultimate responsibility for which
 depends upon relevant past basic instances (in the same agent)” (MELE, 1999b, p.
276)
➔ Rollback Objection:
◆ “But then, one wonders, why isn't the thief's deciding to refrain from
stealing in the actual world a matter of dumb luck, in which case he seems
not to be morally responsible for deciding as he does?” (MELE, 1999b, p.
276);
◆ Augmenting the Objection: “Suppose we grant this; even then, it looks like
what the thief does is a matter of luck. It seems to be just a matter of luck that
DB causes a refraining rather than that the other desire/belief pair causes a
stealing. If the thief had a little randomizing device in his head—perhaps even
a randomizer that is a "natural part" of his brain—that gives each of two
competing sets of reasons an initial 0.5 chance of prevailing in his present
situation, and then randomly issues in the prevailing of one set of reasons, the
divine "reruns" would show the distribution that van Inwagen imagines they
do.13 (Picture the device as a tiny, genuinely random roulette wheel, half of
whose slots are black and half red. The ball's landing on black represents the
prevailing of the thief's reasons for refraining from stealing, and its landing on
red represents the other reasons' prevailing.) But in that case, if the thief is
not morally responsible for what the device does, it is hard to see how he
can be morally responsible (or deserve moral credit or blame) for
refraining from stealing in the actual world, or for stealing in the
"reruns" in which he steals. At least, it is hard to see how his moral
responsibility for refraining or for stealing can extend beyond his moral
responsibility for his having the reasons he has at the time. And if his
responsibility for having those reasons is supposed to derive from earlier
undetermined actions of his (including decidings) in which a randomizer of
the kind described plays a central role, the same problem arises at the relevant
earlier times” (MELE, 1999b, p. 277).
➔ John: “Consider my friend John. He believes that he ought to arrive on time for a
committee meeting today but he is tempted to arrive late, as a modest protest. John
tries very hard to resist his temptation, and he has a reasonable chance of succeeding.
The committee meeting begins at noon in his building, and he tries to master the
temptation right up to noon. His effort fails, however, and he decides to go to the
meeting late, thereby making his modest protest. Is John ultimately responsible for the
failure of his effort and for his decision to go to the meeting late? Move to a nearby
world with the same laws and with a very similar past—as similar as can be regarding
John (or his counterpart), given that he sometimes makes indeterminate efforts of will,
including the present effort. Here, too, the agent—call him John2—believes that he
ought to arrive on time for the meeting and is tempted to arrive late, for the same
reason. Here, too, he tries very hard to resist his temptation, and his effort is
indeterminate. But in this world he succeeds. He masters his temptation, decides a
minute before noon to show up on time for the meeting, and does so. If John failed
where John2 succeeded because the latter tried harder, or more intelligently, than the
 former to resist temptation, then we might be inclined to regard John as morally
responsible for his failure and John2 as morally responsible for his success. But this is
not the line Kane pursues. Obviously, if John's and John2's cases are to be basic
instances of ultimate responsibility, then, for Kane, the strength and intelligence of
their efforts to resist temptation cannot be any part of something that causally
determines the efforts' success or failure” (MELE, 1999b, p. 279)
◆ “On Kane's view, given that the agents' efforts are "indeterminate," it cannot
properly be said that the latter agent (John, perhaps) tried exactly as hard and
as intelligently as the former (John2, perhaps). But given that the difference in
outcome in the two cases—successful resistance and a subjectively morally
proper choice in one, and unsuccessful resistance and a subjectively morally
improper choice in the other—is not to be explained by a difference in the
amount of effort or in the intelligence of the effort, this alleged implication of
the efforts' being indeterminate seems to cut no ice. It looks for all the world
as if the unsuccessful agent had bad luck, in which case the successful agent
had, at least, better luck than his counterpart. If it were not for John's having
worse luck than John2, John would have been in John2's shoes: he would have
successfully resisted temptation. Kane's appeal to the indeterminacy of an
effort makes it more difficult to formulate crisply the "objection from luck" to
libertarianism. But the spirit of the objection survives. If John's effort to
resist temptation fails where John2's effort succeeds, and there is nothing
about the agents' powers, capacities, states of mind, moral character, and
the like that explains this difference in outcome, then the difference really
is just a matter of luck. That their efforts are indeterminate explains why
the outcomes of the efforts might not be the same, but this obviously does
not explain (even nondeterministically or probabilistically) why John
failed whereas John2 succeeded” (MELE, 1999b, p. 280)
◆ “John and John2 may coherently be imagined not to differ in the control
they exert over their respective efforts, or to differ in control only in ways
that are themselves a matter of luck. But then John's succumbing to
temptation, whereas John2 successfully resists temptation, appears to be a
matter of luck. Again, if John had had John2's luck, he would successfully
have resisted temptation.” (MELE, 1999b, p. 281)

MELE - Libertarianism, Luck, and Control (2005)

MELE, A. Libertarianism, Luck, and Control. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly,

v. 86, i. 3, pp. 381-407, 2005.

➔ Diana and the Randomizing Agent: “I am not privy to the details of Diana’s design,
but readers who need assistance in understanding her worry may consider the
following possibility. As soon as any agent of hers judges it best to A , objective
 probabilities for the various decisions open to the agent are set, and the probability of
a decision to A is very high. Larger probabilities get a correspondingly larger segment
of a tiny indeterministic neural roulette wheel in the agent’s head than do smaller
probabilities. A tiny neural ball bounces along the wheel; its landing in a particular
segment is the agent’s making the corresponding decision. When the ball lands in the
segment for a decision to A , its doing so is not just a matter of luck. After all, the
design is such that the probability of that happening is very high. But the ball’s
landing there is partly a matter of luck. And the difference at issue at t between a
world in which the ball lands there at t and a world with the same past and laws of
nature in which it lands in a segment for another decision at t is just a matter of luck.
Diana can think of nothing that stops her worry from generalizing to all cases of
deciding, whether or not the agent makes a judgment about what it is best to do. In the
actual world, Joe decides at t to A . In another world with the same laws of nature and
the same past, he decides at t not to A. If there is nothing about Joe’s powers,
capacities, states of mind, moral character, and the like in either world that
accounts for this difference, then the difference seems to be just a matter of luck.
And given that neither world diverges from the other in any respect before t, there is
no difference at all in Joe in these two worlds that can account for the difference in his
decisions. To be sure, something about Joe may explain why it is possible for him
to decide to A in the actual world and decide not to A in another world with the
same laws and past. That he is an indeterministic decision maker may explain
this. That is entirely consistent with the difference in his decisions being just a
matter of luck” (MELE, 2005, pp. 383-384)
➔ “As Clarke observes, Kane’s point does not get him far, for the presumption of those
who judge that the assassin freely killed the prime minister is that he freely tried to
kill him: if we are told that perhaps the assassination attempt was not free, all bets are
off. Kane does not claim that in cases of dual efforts to choose, the choices made are
products of freely made efforts. Nor has he put himself in a position to claim this, for
he has not offered an account of what it is for an effort to choose to A to be freely
made. Thus, there is a salient disanalogy between cases like that of Kane’s assassin
and Kane’s dual trying cases: there is no presumption that the dual efforts to choose
are freely made. And if the agent’s efforts to choose in a dual trying scenario –
unlike the assassin’s effort to kill the prime minister – are not freely made, it is
hard to see why the choice in which such an effort culminates should be deemed
free” (MELE, 2005, p. 385; cf. MELE, 2006, pp. 51-52)
◆ “If the efforts to choose still are not freely made, why should a corresponding
choice count as free?” (MELE, 2005, p. 385)
 LEVY - Hard Luck (2011)

LEVY, N. Hard Luck: How Luck Undermines Free Will & Moral
Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

➔ The objection is to Kane’s theory;

➔ He first talk about Mele’s objection and that it focuses on cross-world differences
(LEVY, 2011, pp. 46-47): the agent’s decision is not just a matter of luck, but the
cross-world difference is entirely a matter of luck (LEVY, 2011, p. 47);
➔ Levy’s Argument:
◆ The Decision is Chancy Luck: “An event or state of affairs occurring in the
actual world is chancy lucky for an agent if (i) that event or state of affairs is
significant for that agent, (ii) the agent lacks direct control over that event or
state of affairs, and (iii) that event or state of affairs fails to occur in many
nearby worlds; the proportion of nearby worlds that is large enough for the
event to be chancy lucky is inverse to the significance of the event for the
agent” (LEVY, 2011, p. 50)
◆ This kind of luck is Responsibility-Undermining:
➔ The Decision is Chancy Luck:
◆ (i): the choice is significant
◆ (ii) → Lack of Direct Control;
● The agent has indirect ways of influencing her future actions, but they
are indirect and merely influence: they are not ways of exercising
direct control (LEVY, 2011, p. 50);
● It is causally open that the agent decides one way or the other
regardless of how she exercises her direct control through her
deliberative process (LEVY, 2011, p. 50);
○ I don’t know if this is true with only one effort of the will.
● Van Inwagen’s Rollback: what brings about that the agent Ys or Zs?
“Nothing about her, her reasons, desires, volitions, or tryings. She does
not control which alternative she settles for. The indeterministic causal
process settles that. Thus, she experiences a diminution of control in
addition to that to which compatibilist agents are subject” (LEVY,
2011, p. 51)
○ The agent fails to exercise control over her choice to Y rather
than Z (LEVY, 2011, p. 51).
◆ (iii) → Event fails to occur in many nearby worlds: true if we suppose that
the objective probabilities of the live options are around the 50 per cent mark
(LEVY, 2011, p. 52).
➔ Is this kind of luck responsibility-undermining?
◆ Direct Significance of the Choice: “Consider Mike once more. In world W
Mike returns the wallet intact; in Wn he keeps the wallet. Is it really plausible
that Mike-W deserves praise for his action while Mike-Wn deserves blame,
 given that (by hypothesis) Mike-W and Mike-Wn did not differ in their
psychological states or volitions prior to deciding to perform their respective
actions (recall that so deciding is a deterministic cause of the action) and that
Mike-W is lucky to have acted as he did, while Mike-Wn is unlucky?”
(LEVY, 2011, p. 53);
● Blaming only makes sense if the agent controlled whether she selected
the immoral action or the moral. “Since the agent did not exercise
control over this contrastive fact, blame and praise are unwarranted. If
an agent is lucky to have performed a morally significant action,
and had he not luckily performed that action he would have
performed an action (or been responsible for an omission) with a
very different moral valence, then he does not deserve credit or
blame for that action. Hence, the luck in question here is
responsibility-undermining” (LEVY, 2011, p. 54)
◆ Indirect Significance → Character-Forming: “Mike’s choice will have a
tendency to ‘harden his heart’. Hence, his choice (alone or together with
similar choices) has far-reaching ramifications for him. First, it changes the
weight, for him, of moral considerations. From now on, the moral reasons will
have to be (relatively) more weighty for him to experience moral/self-interest
conflict than previously. Second, Mike’s choice will cause
him—deterministically— to perform morally wrongful actions more often
than before” (LEVY, 2011, p. 54);
● Does an undetermined action have only a small effect on the state of
the agent’s character?
○ If there is only a small effect, “we cannot explain how choices
make an agent better or worse” (LEVY, 2011, p. 56);
○ If there is a bigger effect, luck has indirect significance (LEVY,
2011, p. 56)
● “Mike-W is lucky to be on a path—barring bad luck—toward
goodness, whereas Mike-Wn finds himself in precisely the reverse
situation. They do not deserve to be on different paths; they have done
nothing to render themselves differentially responsible for the states of
their characters. Instead, they are lucky to be on their respective paths.
Hence, we should not hold them responsible for them” (LEVY, 2011,
p. 57)