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This chapter critically examines recent work on free will and moral responsibility by Randolph Clarke, Robert Kane, and Timothy O’Connor, in an attempt to clarify issues about control and luck that are central to the debate between libertarians (agent causationists and others) and their critics. It is argued that present luck, that is, luck at the time of action, poses an as yet unresolved problem for libertarianism.

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.

This chapter examines the role of empirical science in elucidating free will and argues that empirical research can address the dispute between libertarianism and the positions of hard determinism and compatibilism, but not the dispute between compatibilism and incompatibilism. It views the problem of free will as the problem of whether we control our actions. It also considers quantum indeterminacy, along with Robert Kane’s notion of naturalized libertarianism and introspection.

There has been much discussion in recent years of aspects of Molinism. In particular, philosophers have given considerable attention to issues surrounding the conditionals involved in middle knowledge. In contrast, relatively little has been said about the dialectical role of Molinism. This essay focuses primarily on seeking to articulate the dialectical niche of Molinism—its natural habitat, as it were. Fischer argues that Molinism does not provide an answer to the argument for the incompatibility of God's omniscience and human freedom (in the sense of freedom to do otherwise). Thus, Molinism is not on a par with the approaches suggested by Aristotle, Boethius, and Aquinas, and Ockham. Rather, its role (an important one) is to provide an account of God's providence.

According to incompatibilists, free will and moral accountability exist only in nondeterministic worlds. But which ones? Where exactly must indeterminism be located, and what role must it play to make room for the possibility of freedom and accountability? This chapter evaluates three possible libertarian answers—non-action-centered accounts, nonbasic action-centered accounts, and basic action-centered accounts—and argues that libertarians should embrace a basic action-centered account that locates indeterminism at the moment of basic action (e.g., choice). Central to this chapter is showing that the source of the major problems with Kane’s event-causal libertarian theory can be traced to his problematic conception of the role and location of indeterminism and that we can avoid these problems by embracing the alternative conception developed in minimal event-causal libertarianism.

In order to allow for contrast with Anselm’s theory, this chapter begins by outlining the two main contemporary libertarian positions: event-causation as represented by Robert Kane and agent-causation as represented by Timothy O’Connor and Randolph Clark. Then the chapter describes Anselm’s motivation for constructing his parsimonious agent-causal theory, noting the similarity to Kane’s motivation. Explaining Anselm’s motivation provides an example of the suggested methodology of emphasizing the worldview in which his theory is rooted. Then the chapter begins to set out the elements which Anselm will use to develop his theory of free choice by examining the three meanings he gives for the term voluntas (will); there is will as instrument, will as affectio (motivation or desire depending on the context) and will as use. This sets the stage for presenting his theory in Chapter 3.

This chapter replies to the criticisms made in the previous chapters, developing his libertarianism and incompatibilism in new ways. The chapter discusses the criticisms of its view under three headings: the compatibility question (are free will and moral responsibility compatible with determinism?), the intelligibility question (can we make sense of a libertarian free will without reducing freely willed actions to mere matters of chance or luck?), and the significance question (why do we, or should we, want free will—especially a libertarian free will?). The chapter focuses in particular on efforts of will, luck, causation, and the significance of free will.

The immediate post-Famine period was marked by profound optimism about the potential of Irish agricultural development. For some improvers, agricultural practice offered a fertile ground upon which to plant the seeds of modernisation to facilitate fuller Irish integration into an international capitalist market economy. This chapter suggests that post-Famine agriculturists promoted new understandings of how to productively harness biological agro-material found on Irish farms during and after the Famine. It examines post-Famine scientific readings of the biology and physiology of crops, plants and animals and their subsequent promotion as an aid to Irish food production. In the 1850s, agricultural science was institutionalised via a state-supported network of agricultural schools and model farms aimed at all social classes. Ultimately, however, small farmers exhibited resistance and apathy towards these educational schemes for an assortment of social, political and practical reasons, a factor that restricted the socio-economic effectiveness of agricultural schools. By exploring these themes, this chapter reveals further connections made between food and national improvement while demonstrating that food production, as with consumption, evolved into a site of deep contestation between different Irish social groups and, sometimes, between colonising and colonised powers.

This chapter distinguishes between compatibilism and incompatibilism about free will and causal determinism. It then explains the libertarian view of free will and moral responsibility. The chapter motivates this view of free will and outlines the particular libertarian view of Robert Kane. The chapter explains the distinguishing features of Kane’s view, focusing especially on self-forming actions. The second half of this chapter summarizes the key claims of each of the essays that follow. In particular, it distinguishes between three prominent libertarian views: the event-causal account, the agent-causal account, and the non-causal account. It then explains the luck objection to libertarianism, which is widely held to be the strongest objection to the view. It discusses the incompatibilist background of libertarianism and looks at the nature of omissions. Finally, it considers the significance of free will.

Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL), a program originally for male probationers, was the 1991 brainchild of Judge Robert Kane and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth professor Robert Waxler. Kane and Waxler were interested in the thinking behind the choices people made. Their idea was simple but profound: literature could be a road to insight, and insight could pave the way to change. Literature discussion groups that put probationers on the same playing field as judges and probation officers had been unheard of in our criminal justice system. The belief that everyone's opinion about the story mattered, and that no one had the final say, democratized the conversation. Joining with Judge Joseph Dever from the Lynn District Court and with probation officers from both Lynn and Lowell, the author helped began the first program for incarcerated women in 1992. She compiled the first CLTL syllabus with books all by women authors. CLTL allows participants an opportunity to rethink their lives, rewrite their tales, adding a new chapter to whatever came before.

This chapter raises an epistemic problem for Kane’s event-causal libertarianism and Fischer and Ravizza’s semicompatibilism. On both views, we are responsible for our actions if certain conditions are met. But whether these conditions are met depends on empirical facts about which we can currently have no reasonably justified belief one way or the other. That is to say, on both of these views, given the state of our scientific knowledge (now and for the foreseeable future), we can really have no idea whether or not people are responsible. The chapter argues that this would make it unfair to hold people responsible, and thus that these views of free will become, for all practical purposes, instances of free will skepticism. The chapter suggests that this problem also arises for other views, both libertarian and compatibilist, but that it is much less of a problem for the teleological account.

This chapter explores scientific interest in the Irish potato diet in pre-Famine Ireland and how scientific ideas were used in broader debates on Irish dietary conditions and national dietary reform. This theme is explored through an examination of the ideas that underpinned famine relief activities between 1845 and 1847; a period when a new nutritional consciousness emerged in Ireland. This chapter also explores the surfacing of public resistance to nutritional science, a discipline that became popularly dismissed during the Famine as a woefully inadequate tool being used by a state disinterested in forming an adequate response to widespread starvation. Overall, this chapter explores the mid-century production of empirical knowledge on the potato, the complex ways in which it was applied for the purpose of improving and the layers of resistance that formed to medico-scientific ideas during the Famine.

This chapter discusses the source of moral responsibility by examining specifically the notion of “ultimate control” or “self-creation”, which is in contrast with the assumption of causal determinism. It examines the claims of Galen Strawson, Saul Smilansky, and Robert Kane that moral responsibility requires individuals to become the “source” of their behavior. The chapter describes how their views may depend on an inappropriate and unduly demanding picture, and presents the argument of Derk Pereboom in defense of Frankfurt-type examples. It also raises some questions and proposes some challenges for these views.

This chapter discusses the repercussions of giving up the belief in moral responsibility and how this can negatively affect human life. Giving up the belief in moral responsibility entails also giving up the belief that blame and punishment can be justly deserved. The arguments in this chapter all make the case that this is a great benefit. However, a strong sense that loss of ultimate responsibility is a grave loss remains even after considering the advantages of the rejection of justly deserved blame and punishment. Robert Kane and Saul Smilansky, two of the most profound proponents of moral responsibility, respond to this “loss” by ignoring it and considering what other loss comes about in denying ultimate responsibility that supports just deserts. Both philosophers concur that the loss to which they refer is a significant one.

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.