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This chapter turns to an assessment of event-causal and agent-causal accounts of libertarian free will, in the light of the account of luck developed in Chapter 2. It shows that the standard luck object — according to which the actions of libertarian agents are too lucky to count as genuinely free — is powerful against event-causal libertarianism as represented by Robert Kane's theory. It then turns to agent-causal libertarianism. Proponents of this kind of libertarianism hold that the exercise of the agent-causal power is intrinsically an exercise of control; the chapter argues that the power cannot be exercised for reasons, and that because this is true, the control claim fails. Finally, ways of amending libertarian accounts of free will to protect it against luck are suggested.

The Anselmian holds that freedom and responsibility require that the agent confront open options and choose a se. But the torn condition preceding the choice may be determined by something beyond the agent’s control. Thus Anselm’s is an “internalist” rather than an “externalist” theory, focusing on the structure of choice, rather than the history of the chooser. Alfred Mele criticizes internalism, arguing that the structure of choice is insufficient to ground freedom. Mele asks for intuitions on examples comparing agents with and without the sorts of history he takes to be required. The chapter rejects Mele’s intuitions through developing these examples further, emphasizing conversion. History, however, is important in distinguishing “basic” responsibility from fuller autonomy. The chapter concludes by addressing two unpleasant consequences of Anselm’s internalism: An agent who is basically responsible may nonetheless have very limited autonomy and it is impossible for an earthly judge to assess desert accurately.

The possibility of akrasia or weakness of will, i.e., the phenomenon of agents acting against their best judgement or reasons, presents a problem for internalism. This chapter reviews and rejects a number of accounts of weakness of will by Donald Davidson, Christine Korsgaard, Alfred Mele, Gary Watson and others. It ends by providing an account weakness of will which is consistent with internalism, as acting against the best reasons that are dispositionally stored in the agent’s mind, but which fail to be causally operative by failing to become occurrent.

Chapter 7 deals with three preliminary issues in addressing the “luck” problem, a perennial difficulty confronting libertarians: If nothing preceding a choice explains why the agent made it, isn’t his choice just lucky? The first section discusses the rhetoric describing libertarian choices, arguing that images suggesting gambling and chancy probabilities are inaccurate. The second section argues that talking of assigning probabilities to libertarian choices, as Mark Balaguer does, is misguided. Whether we understand probabilities as propensities or as relative frequencies, libertarian free choices are not amenable to probability assignments. The third section argues that Alfred Mele’s attempt to strengthen the luck problem by casting it in the language of possible worlds—as a question of cross-world differences—fails to add anything. On actualist representationalism Mele’s argument seems to restate the libertarian position. On possibilist realism an agent’s choice is externally non-causally (ENC) necessitated, and so is not free.

The first part of his essay introduces the luck objection to libertarian views and critically examines Kane’s response to it. Kane’s response rests, most centrally, on the claim that agents make “efforts of will” when acting freely and responsibly so that, whichever way they act, they voluntarily and rationally do something that they were trying to do. The chapter responds to Kane’s proposal by arguing that people can act freely and responsibly only if these efforts themselves are freely made. The second part of this chapter Kane’s event-causal libertarian view with his own event-causal libertarian view that does not appeal to efforts of will. The chapter then defends both views against the objection that neither view provides people with any more control over their actions than they would have if their actions were causally determined.

Anselm assumes, without argument, that you cannot be free if God causes your choices. Chapter 1 defends this intuition, and incompatibilism in general, using a manipulator or controller argument, such as Derk Pereboom’s: If some controller causes your choice you are not free, and natural causes are relevantly like a controller. This argument is strengthened if the controller is God. The defender of naturalistic compatibilism argues that natural causes are relevantly different from a controller, but the divine controller argument undermines these differences. The compatibilist, such as Alfred Mele, responds with the “tollens” argument: Correctly described, even a choice caused by a controller can be free, so a naturally determined choice can be free. An examination of Mele’s premise here strengthens Anselm’s original, incompatibilist intuition. The chapter concludes with a Pascalian wager: If the scales of evidence are balanced, the spectre of moral laxness provides good reason to adopt libertarianism.

It should be relatively uncontentious that we often give reasons explanations of human behavior that are teleological in form, and when a behavior is done on purpose, we can say that the agent performed the behavior in order to achieve that purpose. Those who defend a causal theory of action and agency must claim that such teleological explanations are really a form of causal explanation in disguise, and thus that teleological explanations are reducible to causal explanations. However, attempts at a causal analysis of teleology are subject to a certain kind of counterexample in cases of deviant causal chains. This chapter argues that recent attempts (by Alfred Mele, Markus Schlosser, and Jesús Aguilar) at solving this problem on behalf of the causalist fail, that prospects for a resolution look dim, and that this is bad news for the causalist.

Against the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) Frankfurt proposes counterexamples (FSCs): Manipulator (M) wants agent (S) to choose B. If M foresees that S chooses A, M makes him choose B. If M foresees that S chooses B on his own, M does nothing. S lacks options, but isn’t he free? The “dilemma defense” raises problems concerning foresight, but “blockage” (Mele and Robb) and “buffered” (Hunt) FSCs attempt to circumvent this defense. This chapter introduces a timeline and four theses, including the grounding principle. Anselmian FSCs are impossible since no one foresees what an agent will choose absent the agent’s choice. But an agent who chooses A (logically) cannot be made to choose B instead. Blockage cases fail, too, and buffered cases deny the “torn condition.” One possibility in which a divine manipulator might control the outcome of an agent’s a se choice—Rewind—is considered, but rejected.

Our case for the soul stands or falls with human agency: Do we act, or are we only acted upon? William James, deeply troubled by epiphenomenalism, which made thought no more consequential to action than the whistle on a steam engine, responded (after working things out) that unless thought made some practical difference there’d be no more selective advantage in awareness than evolution imparts to the reflexes of an oyster. Jaegwon Kim has revived the epiphenomenalist claim, arguing that free will violates “causal closure,” by introducing energies into the world unregulated by natural law. But we argue that living beings have ample energies to pursue their interests. The familiar conflict of causal determinism with voluntarism is bogus, since the free will worth having is not indeterminist. It involves self-determination. The readiness potential that Benjamin Libet recorded, we suspect, marks not a pre-choice determination but, as its name implies, a preparedness to act. Much that we do is a matter of habit or routine. But these are often consciously, freely, painstakingly acquired. We may, at times, assign choices to random outcomes. But we remain free agents. We use our brains and are not well described as merely being used by them.

This chapter responds to several objections that have been raised against the teleological account of action explanation. The first is from Al Mele, originally put forward as an objection to George Wilson’s closely related teleological account. The objection involves a hypothetical case that, according to Mele, should not count as goal-directed behavior but which would count on the teleological view. The next two objections are from Carl Ginet. His first concerns epistemology: he argues that there is some degree of privileged first person access that we each have concerning our own reasons but that the teleological view neglects this sort of transparency. Ginet’s second objection is metaphysical: he argues that the teleological view leaves unanswered the question of what constitutes the truthmaker for teleological explanations. Finally, one might raise a broader objection to the account, namely that irreducible teleology is mysterious and violates plausible constraints on simplicity and parsimony.

This chapter argues that it is helpful for action theorists to be more explicit about what their larger motivations are, and to keep their theorizing consciously in contact with broader philosophical goals. Action theorists, particularly Wittgenstein, have often presupposed the existence of the question regarding what it is for something to count as an action. Wittgenstein posed the question “what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?” Alfred Mele, on the other hand, states that “one hopes that a full-blown philosophy of action will solve part of the mind-body problem and shed light on issues of free will, moral responsibility, and practical rationality.” Debates about action tend to lose focus unless they are consciously answerable to some specific motivation or motivations for philosophical interest in action.