Hard Luck - Levy, N.

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

Objetivo do Livro

➔ “O livro é uma tentativa de expor de forma relativamente sistemática porque eu creio

que ninguém é responsável - nunca - por nada” (LEVY, 2011, p. vii);
◆ “A visão que ninguém é nunca responsável por nada, por sua vez, implica que
ninguém nunca age livremente, ao menos em um relato amplamente aceito em
que consiste a liberdade” (Ibidem, p. vii).
➔ “Este livro argumenta que não existe algo como livre-arbítrio, se por ‘livre-arbítrio’
nós entendermos a habilidade de agentes de agir de tal maneira que eles são
moralmente responsáveis pelas suas ações” (Ibidem, p. 1);
◆ Livre-Arbítrio: “o poder de agir com base no qual nós merecemos sermos
considerados dignos de louvor ou censura” (Ibidem, p. 1)
◆ Por que ele defende esta visão?
● Não é por conta de determinismo: “eu não acredito que determinismo é
uma ameaça ao livre-arbítrio” (Ibidem, p. 1);
● Não é por conta de indeterminismo (Ibidem, pp. 1-2);
● “Não é a ontologia que exclui o livre-arbítrio, é a sorte” (Ibidem, p.
2).
○ Hard Luck: “não há livre arbítrio porque a sorte o impede”
(Ibidem, p. 2).
◆ Compatibilismo Desapontado:
● “Eu não acredito que há, ou possa haver, um compatibilismo
adequado” (Ibidem, p. 2);
● “Qualquer plausibilidade que o libertarianismo tenha é parasitária no
compatibilismo e - mais uma vez - não há compatibilismo satisfatório”
(Ibidem, p. 2)

Capítulo 1 - Responsabilidade Moral

➔ Resumo:
◆ O Capítulo “expõe a concepção de responsabilidade moral” assumida no livro
(Ibidem, p. vii);
◆ “Aborda a questão sobre se negar a responsabilidade moral implica que o
argumento cético deve carregar um farto argumentativo especialmente
pesado” (Ibidem, p. vii).
➔ “O livro é uma tentativa de expor de forma relativamente sistemática porque eu creio
que ninguém é responsável - nunca - por nada” (LEVY, 2011, p. vii);
➔ Responsabilidade Moral:
◆ O que implica dizer que um agente pode ser moralmente responsável?
 ● Há um link constitutivo entre responsabilidade moral e merecimento:
mas o link entre merecer sofrer ou ser recompensado é indireto
(Ibidem, p. 3);
● Dizer que um agente pode ser moralmente responsável por atos
injustos implica dizer que “tais agentes não mais merecem a
(completa) proteção de um direito que eles teriam direito a ter: um
direito contra ter seus interesses descontados em cálculos
consequencialistas” (Ibidem, p. 3);
○ Assim, por exemplo, a ruindade do sofrimento desses agentes
“conta menos no cálculo consequencialista, porque ele recai
sobre um agente culpável do que ele contaria caso o agente não
fosse culpável” (Ibidem, p. 3);
◆ O tanto que ele deve contar é uma função entre o grau
da responsabilidade moral, a ruindade da ação e a teoria
da punição adotada (Ibidem, p. 4).
○ “O direito contra ter seus interesses descontados em cálculos
consequencialistas pertence a todos indivíduos igualmente
enquanto eles não o tenham perdido. Não é um direito que
vem em graus acima deste padrão, apesar de poder vir em
graus abaixo dele. O digno de louvor, portanto, não tem um
direito mais forte a tal proteção, exceto na medida em que
precisamos de uma justificação para reter deles o louvor que
merecem” (Ibidem, p. 4).
◆ O que implica dizer que ninguém é moralmente responsável?
● “É injustificável descontar os interesses dos malfeitores em
cálculos consequencialistas” (Ibidem, p. 4).
● “Nós nunca causamos, como resultado de nossas ações deliberadas,
condições sob as quais nós devemos ser tratados como menos (ou
mais) que iguais em cálculos consequencialistas” (Ibidem, p. 4).
◆ “Eu considero que a responsabilidade moral é contrastiva: um agente é
responsável por fazer A quando ele é responsável por fazer A ao invés de fazer
B. Se a explicação do fato contrastivo, que o agente fez A ou invés de fazer B,
essencialmente envolve sorte, então o agente não é responsável pelo fato
contrastivo e, portanto, não é moralmente responsável, não importa quão
pequeno o grau de responsabilidade moral em questão.” (Ibidem, pp. 34-35).
➔ Controle Relevante: “não é porque nós não temos controle total que a visão da hard
luck mantém que nós não temos livre-arbítrio. É porque nós não temos controle
relevante” (Ibidem, p. 5).
◆ Controle Relevante requer:
● Controle Psicológico sobre nossas ações: “se nossos estados mentais
racionalizam uma ação prospectiva (onde racionalizar uma ação é
fazê-la a melhor alternativa aberta ao agente de seu próprio ponto de
vista), se o agente age intencionalmente, o agente performará a ação
racionalizada” (Ibidem, p. 5);
 ● Controle sobre os estados psicológicos que racionalizam ações: “se
uma ação é racionalizada pelos estados psicológicos do agente, o
agente é culpável pela ação somente se ele é culpável por adquirir ou
reter os estados psicológicos que a racionalizam” (Ibidem, p. 5).
◆ “Ao invés do controle relevante ser uma noção que precisa de defesa, para que
possamos, então, apelar a ele em apoio da visão da hard luck, este livro inteiro
é, em si, uma defesa da necessidade de, bem como da falta de, controle
relevante. É só quando o trabalho substantivo deste livro é completo que eu
espero que o leitor irá aceitar sua necessidade” (Ibidem, p. 5).
➔ Padrões Argumentativos:
◆ A hard luck é revisionária. Por isto, precisa cumprir padrões argumentativos
especiais - deve ser óbvia e claramente melhor que as rivais? (Ibidem, p. 6)
● Revisionária prática e teoricamente.
◆ Afirmações revisionárias só são mais difíceis de justificar se elas conflitarem
com outras afirmações que mantemos (Ibidem, p. 7).
◆ Quais as mudanças práticas da hard luck?
● Alterações significativas ao nosso sistema de justiça criminal - “mas
essas são ao menos serem, no geral, benéficas tão provavelmente
quanto serem custosas” (Ibidem, p. 8);
● Manter um ao outro moralmente responsável (Ibidem, p. 9);
○ Atitudes reativas podem continuar ocorrendo. Pessoas sentem
orgulho e vergonha em atos de suas nações - o que implica que
elas não dependem da crença de que alguém é moralmente
responsável. Elas dependem de “identificação e avaliação
moral, não de responsabilidade moral” (Ibidem, p. 9).
◆ “Nós podemos continuar a avaliar moralmente uns aos outros, amar uns aos
outros, sentir simpatia pelo sofrimento e empatia pela dor, se alegrar com o
sucesso de outro e, talvez, até mesmo sentir uma satisfação quieta pelas falhas
do fanfarrão” (Ibidem, p. 9).
◆ Não seriam todas visões revisionárias?
● Princípio da Justiça: “agentes não merecem ser tratados diferentemente
a não ser que haja uma diferença merecedora de mérito entre eles”
(Ibidem, p. 9);
● “Este princípio está em conflito com os melhores argumentos para a
conclusão de que os agentes são moralmente responsáveis” (Ibidem, p.
10);
◆ Se não pudermos satisfazer nosso conceito de responsabilidade moral,
devemos revisá-lo para preservar as práticas e atitudes em torno dele?
● “Não há razão principiológica para preservar a responsabilidade moral
quando nós abandonamos uma limitação de justiça em sua aplicação”
(Ibidem, p. 10).

Capítulo 2 - Sorte
➔ Introdução:
◆ “A sorte tem um papel importante na vida humana; um papel mais importante
do que nós geralmente gostamos de reconhecer”” (Ibidem, p. 11);
◆ “Nós precisamos de uma explicação da sorte” (Ibidem, p. 12);
● “Para entendermos melhor a natureza da responsabilidade” (Ibidem, p.
12).
➔ Apontamentos Técnicos:
◆ Influências: Pritchard e Coffman;
● Não irei tratar de todo o pensamento deles.
➔ Características Comuns dos Dois Tipos de Sorte:
◆ “Eu irei chamar um evento, processo ou estado de coisas “de sorte”[lucky] se
for uma questão de sorte, seja a sorte positiva ou negativa” (Ibidem, p. 14);
◆ Significância: “Aproximadamente, um evento ou estado de coisas só pode
contar como de sorte se ele for significante” (Ibidem, p. 13);
● “É suficiente que um agente se importe com o evento para ele contar
como (minimamente) significante; já que agentes podem se importar
com quase tudo, quase tudo pode ser significante” (Ibidem, p. 13);
● “Quanto mais significante um evento, mais provável é ele ser
considerado como de sorte” (Ibidem, p. 14).
◆ Falta de Controle Direto sobre o evento ou estado de coisas:
● A princípio (ele diz que não é totalmente adequada esta definição, mas
ela servirá para quase todos propósitos), “eu irei dizer que um agente
tem controle direto sobre a ocorrência de E quando ele pode causar a
ocorrência de E em virtude de performar uma ação básica que
(como ele sabe) irá causar a ocorrência de E (a probabilidade desta
sua ação básica ter o efeito pretendido não precisa ser 100 por
cento, mas deveria ser alta)” (Ibidem, p. 19)
○ Essa concepção de controle não requer que o agente seja capaz
de causar ou prevenir a ocorrência de E - “para exercer o
controle neste sentido, os agentes não precisam ter
possibilidades alternativas” (Ibidem, p. 19).
● Não basta performar a ação básica. O agente precisa saber que, e como,
meu performar a ação básica irá causar a ocorrência do evento (no
sentido de saber quais movimentos corporais iriam causá-lo; ele não
precisa ter qualquer conhecimento dos processos causais envolvidos
(Ibidem, p. 19).
○ Precisa do conhecimento da significância do evento (Ibidem, p.
20).
➔ Chancy Luck: “um evento ou estado de coisas ocorrendo no mundo atual é chancy
luck para um agente se (i) o evento ou estado de coisas é significante para o agente;
(ii) falta ao agente controle direto sobre o evento ou estado de coisas; (iii) o evento
ou estado de coisas falha em ocorrer em muitos mundos próximos; a proporção de
mundos próximos que é larga o suficiente para o evento ser chancy luck é inverso à
significância do evento para o agente” (Ibidem, p. 36);
 ◆ Esta explicação de chance deixa claro que ela pode ocorrer em mundos
determinísticos (Ibidem, p. 14);
● Ele não quer se comprometer com a tese de que mundos
determinísticos não teriam mundos próximos:
○ “Eu nego que devemos permitir as leis da física (neste mundo)
ditarem o número de mundos possíveis próximos” (Ibidem, p.
16);
○ “Vizinhos próximos de mundos determinísticos não são
idênticos ao mundo atual, mas, ao invés disso, diferem dele
trivialmente” (Ibidem, p. 16).
◆ Eu não vejo como ele pode manter essa posição.
◆ Mundos Próximos:”mundos possíveis próximos são aqueles obtíveis ao fazer
não mais que uma pequena mudança ao mundo atual, onde, por exemplo, uma
pequena alteração na posição de um objeto conta como uma pequena
mudança, mas uma alteração nas leis da natureza não” (Ibidem, pp. 15-16);
● Quanto maior a proporção de mundos possíveis em que o evento não
ocorrer, mais chancier sua ocorrência no mundo atual e - as outras
coisas sendo iguais - mais luckier é sua ocorrência (Ibidem, p. 16);
● “Eu estou, portanto, inclinado a pensar que o grau de chanciness
necessário para um evento contar como de sorte é sensível à
significância do evento” (Ibidem, p. 17);
○ “Eu duvido que podemos estabelecer até mesmo um limite
rígido abaixo do qual um evento não é chancy o suficiente para
contar como de sorte [lucky], que será aplicável a todos os
casos” (Ibidem, p. 17).
➔ Non-Chancy Luck: “um evento ou estado de coisas ocorrendo no mundo atual que
afeta as disposições ou traços psicológicos de um agente é non-chancy luck para um
agente se (i) o evento ou estado de coisas é significante para o agente; (ii) falta ao
agente controle direto sobre o evento ou estado de coisas; (iii) eventos ou estados de
coisas deste tipo variam no grupo de referência relevante; (iv) em uma larga
proporção de casos o evento ou estado de coisas falha em ocorrer ou ser
instanciado no grupo de referência da maneira em que ocorreu ou foi
instanciado no caso atual” (Ibidem, p. 36).
◆ “O tipo de sorte que tenho em mente é exemplificado por, apesar de nem
exaurido por ou limitado por, certos casos de sorte constitutiva” (Ibidem, p.
29).
● A sorte constitutiva existe mesmo se o essencialismo de Kripke for
verdadeiro - variação de traços e disposições com o mesmo gênero
(Ibidem, p. 31).
○ Levy 2004a.
◆ Exemplo Clássico: Inculturação;
● Muitos de meus traços constitutivos são devidos à minha cultura - de
um modo, eu sou sortudo em tê-los. Mas os mundos possíveis em que
 não estou na minha cultura estão distantes. Logo, este tipo de sorte é
distinta da chancy luck” (Ibidem, p. 32).
◆ Assimetria: “Porque os agentes são constitutivamente sortudos só sem traços
que variam significantemente na experiência humana, a non-chancy
constitutive luck é caracterizada pelo mesmo tipo de assimetria da chancy
luck. A assimetria consiste no fato de que se um evento ou estado de coisas,
cuja ocorrência ou existência teria sido de sorte, falha em ocorrer ou obter, a
falha pode não ser de sorte [lucky]” (Ibidem, p. 33).
● Assimetria na Chancy Luck: o fato de haver mais mundos possíveis
próximos em que X ocorre do que mundos em que X não ocorre;
○ Exemplo da loteria:
◆ Vencer → lucky;
◆ Perder → não lucky.
● Assimetria na Non-Chancy Constitutive Luck: “o grau segundo o qual
um agente é (non-chancy) constitutive lucky varia conforme a
proporção de mundos no qual qual o traço ocorre. Então, quanto mais
comum o traço através dos mundos relevantes, menos lucky sou de
instanciá-lo” (Ibidem, p. 33);
○ Exemplo do QI:
◆ QI maior que um de cachorro → não lucky;
◆ QI menor → lucky.
◆ Grupo de Referência Relevante: o grupo de referência relevante é fixado
pelo contexto - “às vezes, o grupo de referência será local e às vezes será
muito mais amplo” (Ibidem, p. 34);
● “Um e o mesmo indivíduo pode corretamente ser considerado ser
sujeito à sorte com respeito a um traço em um contexto conversacional,
mas não em outro” (Ibidem, p. 34).
○ Exemplo do Avião:
◆ Não acho que ele acerta no exemplo;
◆ Melhor seria: é lucky morrer em um acidente de avião?
● Não: contexto das pessoas que passam por
acidente de avião - não falha em ocorrer em uma
larga proporção de casos;
● Sim: contexto de pessoas que andam de avião -
morrer falha em ocorrer em uma larga proporção
de casos.
◆ Não precisamos de uma ferramenta que não depende de contexto?
● Não: “quando o tópico é responsabilidade moral, os padrões são
automaticamente altos (no mínimo, quando a responsabilidade moral
realmente importa, as apostas são altas e os padrões adequadamente
estritos). Isto faz a noção de non-chancy luck correlativamente estrita”
(Ibidem, p. 34).
➔ Os Tipos de Sorte: “todos eventos que são chancy lucky são também non-chancy
luck, mas só alguns eventos non-chancy lucky são também chancy lucky” (Ibidem, p.
36).
◆ Sorte Resultante: a não ser que haja caso de “overdeterminação”, “este tipo
de sorte é chancy luck” (Ibidem, p. 36);
◆ Sorte Circunstancial: pode ser chancy (Ibidem, p. 37) ou non-chancy
(Ibidem, p. 34);
◆ Sorte Constitutiva: chancy ou non-chancy (Ibidem, p. 38);
◆ Sorte Causal: não há problema de sorte causal (Ibidem, p. 40).
➔ Determinismo:
◆ Determinismo não satisfaz todas condições de non-chancy luck - já que é falso
que o determinismo varia na experiência humana (Ibidem, p. 40);
◆ Determinismo não satisfaz todas as condições de chancy luck - já que é falso
que o determinismo varia entre mundos próximos: se o mundo atual é
determinista, o mundo indeterminista mais próximo, onde o determinismo é
significante para ação livre, está muito distante (Ibidem, p. 40).

Sorte e o Libertarianismo

➔ Os atos e decisões que são, nas versões padrões do libertarianismo (evento-causal ou

agente-causal), o locus da responsabilidade moral não são atos (ou decisões) sobre os
quais o agente exerce controle suficiente. Portanto, elas falham em garantir controle
suficiente para basear a responsabilidade moral (Ibidem, p. 41).
◆ Por quê? Porque, em qualquer versão do libertarianismo, é uma questão de
sorte que o agente escolhe, ou é a fonte de, a ação que ele realmente
performa (Ibidem, p. 42).
➔ Por que a sorte faz o agente não ser moralmente responsável pela ação?
◆ Para cada ação sobre a qual o agente deve ser livre, a ação alternativa (que o
agente escolhe em uma proporção significativa de mundos possíveis) é uma
ação com uma valência moral conflitante.
● Valência Moral: boa, neutra ou ruim;
● Valência Moral Conflitante: ação boa ou ruim v. ação neutra ou de
valência oposta;
● Se a ação alternativa não tem uma valência moral conflitante, a ação
não é locus de responsabilidade direta.
◆ “We cannot justifiably be blamed, or praised, for actions that we were lucky to
perform, so long as it is true that had events beyond our control played out
differently we would have performed an action with a conflicting moral
valence” (Ibidem, p. 42);
◆ Agents don’t deserve praise or blame for what they do not control (Ibidem, p.
43): “only what is (...) within their control is morally relevant” (Ibidem, p. 43).
● Luck excludes control. Therefore, luck excludes moral responsibility
(Ibidem, p. 43).
 ◆ Direct Moral Responsibility: responsibility for a choice between options of
conflicting moral valence (Ibidem, p. 43);
● An account of moral responsibility must have the resources to explain
choices contrastively (Ibidem, p. 43);
● The contrastive explanation must be of the decision: explain why
the agent chose some particular decision (Ibidem, p. 43);
○ It must cite facts that obtain during deliberation - facts
obtained at the time at which options were open to the agent
(Ibidem, p. 43);
● If this cannot be explained, there’s no moral responsibility.
○ And, because of luck, libertarianism cannot explain the
relevant contrastive facts (Ibidem, p. 44).
◆ “If it is a matter of luck whether the agent performs one
action rather than another, then the agent seems to lack
the kind of control over his actions required for genuine
freedom” (Ibidem, p. 45);
● This kind of control = “freedom-level control”
(Ibidem, p. 45).
➔ However, there can be a libertarianism that survives the luck objection - but it is a
libertarianism that borrows heavily from compatibilism (Ibidem, p. 44).

Luck and Event-Causal Libertarianism

➔ Event Causal Libertarianism: “free actions are the product of undetermined,

agent-involving, events” (Ibidem, p. 44);
➔ Kane’s Theory:
◆ “Free decisions deterministically cause correlative actions, but these decisions
are themselves indeterministically caused by mental states of the agent”
(Ibidem, p. 44);
◆ Agents act with direct free will when they exercise voluntary plural control
(Ibidem, p. 45):
● Voluntary Plural Control: the ability to choose, for reasons, from (at
least) two options (Ibidem, pp. 45-46);
○ We possess this ability only when we have strong reasons in
favor of incompatible actions and no decisive reasons against at
least two;
◆ This can disrupt the thermodynamic equilibrium in our
brains and the quantum-level indeterminacy is
magnified. The magnification begins an indeterministic
process in our brains and as a result it becomes
genuinely undetermined which of the options we shall
ultimately select (Ibidem, p. 46).
● When an agent selects in this situation, the choice is free:
 ○ She selects an option in favor of which she had strong reasons
(Ibidem, p. 46);
○ Whichever option she selects, she will endorse it as her
choice;
○ The compatibilist conditions of freedom are satisfied: with a
bonus of indeterminism regarding the choice of the option.
➔ Mele’s Luck Objection: if an agent hesitates between A-ing and B-ing (being both
incompatible), and it is undetermined whether she As or Bs, isn’t it not just a matter
of luck whether she As or Bs? (Ibidem, p. 46);
◆ Cross-World Differences:
● Mike hesitates between doing A or B. Both options are open to him.
○ “By hypothesis, nothing about Mike as he was as he
deliberated explains this cross-world difference. Mike’s
intentions, beliefs, values, volitions, and so on, were all
compatible with either course of action. But since everything
about Mike and his deliberation was compatible with either
outcome, the outcome must be a matter of luck” (Ibidem, p.
47).
○ Imagine a tiny neutral roulette wheel: the probabilities of the
ball landing on A or B are sensitive to the objective
probabilities of Mike’s deciding one way or the other (Ibidem,
p. 47).
◆ Where the ball lands isn't just a matter of luck: the
probabilities are sensitive to facts about Mike;
◆ But, the ball’s landing is partly a matter of luck.
● Mike’s decision is not just a matter of luck (it reflects the agent’s
character, belief, etc.), but the cross-world difference is entirely a
matter of luck (Ibidem, p. 47).
◆ Against Mele’s Account of Luck:
● Cross-World Differences are explicable entirely as a function of what
happens in each world - if the difference is a matter of luck, this must
be fully explained by the luck in each world;
● An event is lucky for someone, but there is no one for whom a
cross-world difference is lucky (Ibidem, pp. 47-48);
● Mele accepts the No-Difference View: “If event E which is significant
for agent A occurs in W, and E’ which is significant for agent A’
occurs in Wn, and prior to the occurrence of E and E’ the agents A and
A’ were (in relevant respects) identical, then the agents are not
appropriately the objects of divergent moral assessments” (Ibidem, p.
48).
○ But, there can be two worlds W and Wn such as that in W the
agent does B, but in Wn the agent doesn’t do B but only
because of the occurrence of several extremely unlikely events
(she would do B in every other possible world identical as W in
 the relevant respects). Therefore, the no difference view would
be satisfied, but it is false that we should withhold blame from
the agent (because of luck) (Ibidem, p. 48).
➔ Is there luck in Mike’s case?:
◆ We are talking about Chancy Luck: we are talking about difference across
possible world with the same agent (Ibidem, p. 49);
● Conditions:
○ Significance;
○ Control;
○ The event or state of affairs fails to occur in many nearby wolds
◆ Significance: let’s treat as evident for now (Ibidem, p. 50);
● But this is evidente, since the action is self-forming (Ibidem, p. 53)
◆ Control:
● Mike can form his character is a way to make a choice more probable:
but, when he is deciding, he can’t act in a way that can alter the
relative probabilities;
○ Indirect way of influence: not direct control.
● He lacks direct control: “Mike’s decision is undetermined, and by
hypothesis it is causally open that he decides one way or the other
regardless of how he exercises his direct control through his
deliberative processes” (Ibidem, p. 50)
○ Isn’t this like the lack of direct control in compatibilism, where
akrasia doesn’t let the agent ensure that the desired option is
acted upon? (Ibidem, p. 50);
◆ No, because incompatibilism has akrasia PLUS an
additional problem of control (Ibidem, p. 50);
● Van Inwagen’s Replay Argument (Ibidem, p.
51):
○ Mike is undecided between A and B.
Suppose he chooses A, but the universe
is replayed 100 times. If the agent was
equally inclined to A or B, he would
choose each in 50 worlds.
○ What brings about that she As or Bs?
◆ Nothing about her or her reasons,
diseries, etc;
● She does not control
which alternative she
settles for;
◆ The indeterministic causal
process settles that.
○ However, maybe they have enough control. If compatibilism
gives us sufficient control, maybe event-causal libertarian
control can do as well (Ibidem, p. 51).
 ◆ The event or state of affairs fails to occur in many nearby wolds:
● Problem: “Kane requires that a directly free agent experience a
significant degree of conflict” (Ibidem, p. 52);
○ Option 1:“This suggests that the objective probabilities of
the live options will be somewhere around the 50 per cent
mark” (Ibidem, p. 52);
○ Option 2: Kane says that the probabilities, depending on the
strength of weakness of the agents will, may vary between 0
and 1 (Ibidem, p. 52);
● We will suppose that option 1 is correct: “the objective probabilities in
undetermined choices are never significantly above 50 per cent with
regard to either option” (Ibidem, p. 52);
○ If this is so, this condition is satisfied: “the event of the agent’s
selecting the option he selects in the actual world fails to occur
in a large proportion of nearby possible worlds” (Ibidem, p. 53)
➔ Is this kind of luck responsibility-undermining?
◆ Let’s focus on the high stakes of the lucky choice: direct and indirect
significance
● Direct: performing a moral or immoral act is a consequence of the
choice (Ibidem, p. 53);
● Indirect: the action is character-forming (Ibidem, p. 53).
◆ The Problem:
● Suppose Mike, in W, chooses to do A (moral action) and, in W’,
chooses to do B (immoral action). But, given that (by hypothesis) both
Mikes did not differ in their psychological states or volitions prior to
deciding to perform their respective actions and that Mike-W is lucky
to have acted as he did, while Mike-W’ is unlucky, is it really plausible
to say that Mike-W deserves praise and Mike-W’ deserves blame?
(Ibidem, p. 53).
● “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.”
(Ibidem, p. 54).
◆ The Indirect Significance of the Action:
● A bad choice hardens the heart - it will cause (deterministically) the
agent to perform morally wrongful actions more often (Ibidem, p. 54);
● How much does a typical self-forming action change the state of an
agent’s will?
○ Significantly:
◆ Problem: “As a result of his choice, for instance, Mike
might now be merely a few unlucky coin flips away
from having a will that would deterministically
 cause him to perform seriously immoral actions, or
at least bad enough that it will cause him to experience
conflict (sufficient to set in train an indeterministic
process) when he contemplates performing seriously
immoral actions” (Ibidem, p. 55);
○ Only a Small Effect: luck washes out (Ibidem, p. 55)
◆ Kane’s position;
◆ Problem: “the inability to explain how some agents do
become much worse or much better than others, as a
result of their self-forming actions” (Ibidem, p. 56).
● “Choices cannot be self-forming, yet their
effects washed out” (Ibidem, 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” (Ibidem, p. 57).
➔ Saving Eventual-Causal Libertarianism: The Retreat to the Inner Citadel
◆ “Heading off luck by tying desert to the intentions of the agent” (Ibidem, p.
57);
◆ Kane’s Argument: “What is undetermined is which option, both of which she
tries to choose, actually wins the competition. In that case, Kane argues, no
matter which one wins, the agent is responsible for it: not only did she have
strong reasons in favor of it, not only does she endorse it, but she actually
was trying to do what she did” (Ibidem, p. 57)
● “The mere fact that the libertarian agent might have B-ed when she
A-ed does not show that she is not responsible for her A-ing: it was,
after all, one of the things she was trying to do” (Ibidem, p. 58).
◆ Resisting Kane’s Argument - Pereboom and the Disappearing Agent: “Since
the options are conflicting, and she lacks control over which will be actual,
it is hard to see how she can be responsible for the option actually selected. As
Pereboom (2007a: 102) puts the point, the agent’s efforts ‘leave it open
whether this decision will occur, and the agent has no further causal role
in determining whether it does’” (Ibidem, p. 58).
◆ Kane’s Reply: Pereboom implies that the agent is a passive bystander, as
though once she has initiated the indeterministic process, she has no further
role to play. However, the agent is actively engaged throughout the
indeterministic process and is passionately invested in the option - therefore,
responsible for it (Ibidem, p. 58);
◆ Refuting Kane’s Reply: “Pointing out that the agent is effortfully engaged in
the selection does not help with this problem, for the simple reason that this is
the case with regard to both options. What is needed, apparently, is something
 under the direct control of the agent but with regard to which her options are
not entirely symmetrical. Only if Kane can point to an element of the
event-causal process that has these features, seemingly, can he see off the luck
objection (Pereboom 2007b: 195)” (Ibidem, pp. 58-59).
◆ Another Line of Reasoning: by engaging in the process, the agent invests
herself in both options and, because of that, she satisfies the conditions for
moral responsibility with regard to each. Whichever option selected, she has
attempted to throw her weight behind it (Ibidem, p. 59);
● Securing responsibility linking to the agent’s efforts - over which she
exercises direct control - and not to the outcome - over which there is
no control.
● Problem: proves too much;
○ The agent is responsible for what she actually (and luckily)
does, but also for what she fails to do - “the options are entirely
symmetrical in this regard” (Ibidem, p. 59).
● A thought-experiment: “Imagine that Mike has an unusual neurological
structure. He has a ‘split-brain’, like Sperry’s famous subjects (Sperry
1966). However, unlike Sperry’s subjects, the independent movements
of his hands, controlled by the different hemispheres, are not triggered
by ingenious experiments, but occur as a consequence of
thermodynamic disequilibrium in his brain. Like Sperry’s subjects,
Mike’s hemispheres have different kinds of goals and priorities
(though each is still clearly continuous with Mike as he was before his
commissurotomy; neither would make a choice that would be out of
character for Mike as he was). His right hemisphere is essentially
hedonistic, and generally chooses the course of action that will
maximize immediate pleasure, while his left hemisphere usually
chooses the prudent and the moral course of action. The conflict
between the two hemispheres is inconvenient for Mike, so he builds a
machine that will allow him to settle on a course of action in cases of
conflict. The machine has two buttons, one labeled Hedonistic and the
other Moral. Depressing one or the other completes a circuit and
results in a bulb lighting up above the switch. But pressing both
simultaneously sets in motion an indeterministic process, which
culminates in one or the other bulb lighting, with a 50 per cent
probability for each option. Mike commits himself to performing the
action corresponding to the option selected by the machine. He also
takes the precaution of building into the mechanism a means of
binding himself to its outcome: if he fails to act on the option it selects,
he will be subjected to a series of extremely painful shocks (the
prospect of this pain will render him psychologically unable to resist
acting on the selected option). Mike knows that if he faces a choice
between alternatives, one of which offers immediate sensual pleasure
and the other of which involves a sacrifice of such pleasure in favour
 of pursuing the prudent or the moral course of action, then (so long as
neither option is out of character for him as he was) each hemisphere
will struggle to be the one that gets to choose the course of action.
Indeed, in such a situation each hemisphere uses the side of the body
over which it exercises control to lunge for the switch it prefers.
Almost invariably Mike presses both buttons simultaneously, setting
off the indeterministic process that results in one or the other option
being selected.
○ Kane’s conditions for moral responsibility in face of
indeterminacy are met here: “Whichever option Mike acts
upon, he had (what he takes to be) compelling reasons for that
choice. Moreover, he has tried (hard) to choose both options
(he pressed both buttons simultaneously). Whichever choice the
machine selects for him, it seems, he will therefore be
responsible for that choice. Mike’s machine is the
externalization of the brain mechanisms Kane believes are
involved in directly free choices” (Ibidem, p. 60).
○ We shouldn’t praise Mike if he chooses the Moral option. And,
if we should, he is also responsible for choosing Hedonistic
(Ibidem, p. 61).
● How can one be responsible for things they didn’t do?
○ Zimmerman: we are held responsible for our attempts (Ibidem,
p. 61);
◆ If A and B try to do C, but only A success, they both
have the same degree of responsibility, but A’s scope of
responsibility is biggers (B’s was reduced by chancy
luck)
◆ The degree of responsibility is a function of what we
try;
● Let’s go back to Mike. He did A, not B. But he
tried to do B, he would have endorsed B if he
had succeeded in doing it. So, it seems like he
has attempted to do B, but failed due to chancy
luck - like someone who tries to kill another, but
misses the shot (Ibidem, p. 62).
● “Because Mike has tried to do two incompatible
actions simultaneously, he is responsible for
both, and each to the same degree” (Ibidem, p.
62).
○ If I’m equally responsible, what I
actually do does not matter (Ibidem, p.
63).
4
 Luck and Agent-Causal Libertarianism

➔ Does it escape the luck objection?

◆ “The agent-causal power is the power to be an uncaused cause, to initiate
chains of causation ab initio, and the exercise of this power is an exercise of
direct control” (Ibidem, p. 63);
◆ There’s an explanation for the cross-world difference: the agent’s exercise of
her agent-causal power (Ibidem, p. 64).
➔ Levy’s Problem: “The exercise of the agent-causal power is not an exercise of direct
control (...) because it is not a power that can be exercised for reasons” (Ibidem, p. 64)
◆ Free Will is a Rational Power: if the agent-causal power is an exercise of
control. it can be exercised for reasons;
● Ways to Connect Free Will and Reasons:
○ Clarke’s Hybrid Account;
○ O’Connor’s Single Causal Route.
➔ Clarke’s Hybrid Account:
◆ “There are two nomologically linked causal routes to action” (Ibidem, p.
64):
● Event-Causal: route actions are caused (undetermined) by the agent’s
having reasons;
● Agent-Causal;
● “The reasons an agent has for various courses of action will determine
the range of options from amongst which she chooses, and will
influence the relative probabilities of the alternatives (Clarke 2003:
136–7). But she retains a distinct power to agent-cause the option she
selects” (Ibidem, p. 64);
○ Since the action is caused by reasons, it is chosen rationally,
and she has a kind of control over it (Ibidem, p. 65).
◆ The Problem: the agent-causal route is not rational by itself (Ibidem, p. 66);
● “Reasons account for the options among which we choose, but the
final choice—the agent-causal push—is itself made for no reason
at all” (Ibidem, p. 65);
○ “Once reasons have done this job [arraying the range of
options], their power is exhausted” (Ibidem, p. 65).
● The selection from among the options arrayed before the agent by the
reasons cannot be done for the reasons that array the options: “that
would be double-counting of reasons. The final agent causal push
cannot be exercised for a reason at all, since all the reasons operate
prior to the push, and explain the structure and relative probabilities of
the options she faces” (Ibidem, p. 65);
● “Agent-causation must be rational all by itself for the luck objection to
be averted. If the luck objection succeeds against event-causal
libertarianism, because it is mere chance that explains which option
the agent chooses, and avoided on agent-causal libertarianism
 because the agent exercises a degree of active control unavailable
in event-causal libertarianism, then the elements added to
event-causal libertarianism cannot themselves be irrational or
arbitrary” (Ibidem, p. 66).
➔ O’Connor’s Single Causal Route:
◆ Two ways in which reasons enter into agent-causation:
● Reasons structure our options (Ibidem, p. 66);
○ This alone can’t save agent-causal libertarianism for the
reasons seen above.
● The intention that is agent-caused has a reason built directly into it
(Ibidem, p. 66).
○ “The agent causes her coming to have an intention to act for the
sake of a goal she has in view” (Ibidem, p. 66): “reasons also
enter into the content of the final decision” (Ibidem, p. 67).
◆ Problem: “there is nothing the agent can rationally do to ensure that she
selects option 1 (for R1) rather than option 2 (for R2)” (Ibidem, p. 67);
● The agent’s reasons bring her to the point at which the agent-causal
power is exercised, but they are unable to explain the final agent-causal
push itself. This final push selects from among options for which the
agent has reasons, but those reasons cannot explain why she selects the
option she chooses. (...) since those reasons rationalize multiple
options, the final choice cannot be explained by appeal to those
very reasons” (Ibidem, p. 67);
◆ Response: the agent selects from the option assigning greater weight to one of
her reasons (Ibidem, p. 68)
● View analogous to McCall and Lowe;
● “In the process of deliberation the agent discovers the weights that her
reasons have for her” (Ibidem, p. 68): This can be done in two ways:
○ “To throw the agent’s weight behind the option which she takes
herself to have most reason to choose” (Ibidem, p. 69):
◆ Problem: its role is purely formal (Ibidem, p. 69);
● It endorses the option that is event-casually
selected by the agent;
◆ If agent-causality is this, it can be exercised rationally -
but does not contribute anything to freedom-level
control (Ibidem, p. 69).
◆ “The agent-causal power must be a difference-maker: it
must have the role of (sometimes) selecting options that
are not uniquely endorsed by the agent’s reasons (upon
due reflection)” (Ibidem, p. 69).
○ “To select the other option” (Ibidem, p. 69):
◆ If the agent-causal power is a difference-maker, it is
capable of being used to select against options that are
uniquely rationalized or when no option is uniquely
 rationalized - then, the reasons cannot be invoked to
explain how the agent chooses from among those
options (Ibidem, pp. 69-70).
◆ Weighting of reasons: “Whereas an agent weighs
reasons when she attempts to discover how significant,
all things considered, they are for her, given her values,
preferences, goals, and desires, she weights reasons
when she cannot weigh them because they lack
‘ready-made weights’” (Ibidem, p. 70);
● How can this be done for reasons and not merely
at random?
○ They must show how the agent’s free
choice itself is explained by reasons - the
reasons explanation must apply to the
contrastive fact “because only if they are
capable of explaining this fact can they
explain why agents can be directly
morally responsible, for reasons we
glimpsed earlier (briefly, because agents
are directly morally responsible for
choices only when the alternative action
had a conflicting moral valence).”
(Ibidem, p. 70). But, the model can’t
explain this.
◆ How can the assigning of weights be done?
● Without any reference to the reasons prior to the
assignment: but, then, the assignment is
arbitrary (Ibidem, p. 70);
● In light of her reasons:
○ However, she can’t simply discover what
weights her reasons have for her: “if
that’s all weighting comes down to, it is
merely a more indirect manner of
weighing. Weighting had better be done
in light of reasons, without being done
for reason” (Ibidem, p. 70)
○ “The fact that McCall and Lowe must
explain is, once again, not that
<whichever option Jane chooses she
chooses because she has reasons in favor
of it>. Instead, it is the contrastive fact
<that Jane assigns a greater weight to
one of the options for which she has
reasons than the other for which she has
 roughly equal reasons>. That Jane’s
weighting is made in light of reasons
ensures that the first fact is explained,
but her reasons are powerless to
explain the second, contrastive, fact.
Jane has (prior to her weighting of her
reasons) reasons for both options, but no
decisive reasons for either. Her reasons
got her this far, but they can take her no
further. If her reasons explained the
contrastive fact then she would not be
weighting them; she’d be weighing
them” (Ibidem, p. 71)
◆ “There cannot be a reasons
explanation for the weighting of
reasons, because the reasons that
would explain the weighting are
the weighted reasons themselves”
(Ibidem, p. 71)
○ What makes Jane choses A instead of B?
◆ “Nothing—nothing about her, her
reasons, desires, volitions, or
tryings— except luck. She does
not control which alternative she
weights more heavily; it’s simply
a matter of chance. On this
picture, we do not control the
indeterministic process that
settles how we assign weights.
We do not exercise freedom-level
control over the very element that
is supposed to ensure our
freedom. I conclude that the
weighting of reasons cannot
explain how the agent-causal
power—the final push that
selects between reasons after due
deliberation—is itself exercised
for reasons” (Ibidem, p. 71).
➔ Pereboom’s Explanation: “an aspect of her agent-causal power is the capacity to
consider and weigh reasons, and thereby to guide her causing of choices” (Ibidem, p.
72);
◆ Pereboom owes us a story about the origins of the agent causal power to
consider and weigh reasons (Ibidem, p. 72):.
 ● Suppose the agent-cause is inclined toward certain alternatives by her
reasons, but these reasons do not necessitate her final choice. Now we
need to know how the agent-cause goes about choosing between the
alternatives towards which she is variously inclined. How is she able
rationally to evaluate these alternatives? Hasn’t the force of her reasons
been exhausted in arraying the options before her?
○ If so, then she chooses for no reason; that is, arbitrarily.
○ It would be double counting of reasons, once again, to hold that
she chooses one of her options for some of the reasons that
made it available to her as a live option.
◆ Alternative: “rather than the force of her reasons arraying the options before
her, they operate through her” (Ibidem, p. 73);
● Problem: this fails to match up with phenomenology of choice - “we
do not seem to be equally well disposed to all possible alternatives
before choosing” (Ibidem, p. 73);
● “When she decides to throw her weight behind her reasons, either she
does so irrationally—and therefore arbitrarily—or she does so because
one reason or set of reasons seems more weighty to her than others, in
which case her action is event-caused after all” (Ibidem, p. 73).
◆ O’Connor’s Reply: “the exertion of the power of agent causation is
intrinsically an exercise of control” (Ibidem, p. 73);
● However, since this power cannot be exercised by reasons, the claim
fails: “a power that cannot be exercised for reasons cannot be
identified with an exercise of control” (Ibidem, p. 74)
◆ “A power that cannot be exercised for reasons is no power of the agent’s, at
least in the relevant sense of ‘agent’” (Ibidem, p. 74):
● “For an action to count as an agent’s it must express or be caused by
precisely the mental states that constitute her reasons” (Ibidem, p. 75).
● In Clarke and O’Connor’s views, the actions are caused by reasons but
due only to the event-causal route - the final agent-causal push is not
itself a power of the agent (Ibidem, p. 75).

Adequate Libertarianism:

➔ The Two Problems and the Two Solutions:

◆ Libertarianism failed to luck because:
● “They have failed to give the agent direct control over the choice
between the options rationally available to them” (Ibidem, p. 76);
● “The choices have been chancy” (Ibidem, p. 76).
◆ Two Replies:
● Granting the agent sufficient control (Ibidem, p. 76);
● Ensuring that the choice is not chancy (Ibidem, p. 76).
➔ Avoiding Chanciness: “Libertarianism can dispense with chanciness by borrowing
even more heavily from compatibilism than do the accounts we have surveyed. Such a
 theory can stipulate that directly free actions are near deterministically caused by
agents’ reasons, such that for every free action there is a very large chance that
one, and only one, of the incompatible options between which the agent
deliberates will be the option selected” (Ibidem, p. 77);
◆ The choice goes the same way in a very large proportion of nearby worlds
(Ibidem, p. 78).
➔ Granting Control:
◆ Mele’s Modest Soft Libertarianism: “Rather than judgments being
indeterministically caused by the reasons the agent has, on Modest Soft
Libertarianism indeterminacy occurs only during deliberation (which might
be a very extended process). The agent’s judgment deterministically causes
her intention, but prior to the conclusion of her judgment-forming
deliberation it is metaphysically open to her to decide in more than one way.
How she decides is sensitive to the considerations that occur to her, and
what considerations occur to her is genuinely undetermined” (Ibidem, p.
79;
● Luck is mitigated: “the agent is not merely the victim of such
considerations: because they serve as inputs into deliberation, she
may assess them (where the process of assessment is deterministic).
Because she has this opportunity, her final decision is apparently
not chancy lucky, because she—apparently—has a high degree of
control over the decision-making process” (Ibidem, p. 80)
● “Modest Soft Libertarianism does not achieve its aim by making
indeterministic causation near-deterministic. Instead, it achieves it by
ensuring that agents are subject to chance only at the same point
as compatibilist agents. As Mele points out, compatibilist agents do
not control which considerations come to mind either; if compatibilism
is satisfactory as an account of free will, it is difficult to see why a
libertarianism that allows indeterminism only at this point should be
any less satisfactory.” (Ibidem, p. 80).
◆ Fischer Indeterminism: “To defend free will against the threat from
indeterminism, Fischer simply substitutes for the counterfactual intervener of
the Frankfurt-style case an indeterministic mechanism. This mechanism
operates while an agent, Jones, deliberates about whether to raise his hand at t.
If, just prior to t, the mechanism settles into state 1, it will initiate a
deterministic causal sequence that will terminate in Jones’s brain being
stimulated such that he decides not to raise his hand; if, on the other hand, it
settles into state 2, the machine simply ‘goes to sleep’ and does not causally
affect Jones at all. Suppose that the probability of the machine settling into
either state is 50 per cent. (...) we can point out that Jones’s choice seems to be
chancy lucky: apparently, at least, it is (let us assume) significant for him,
genuinely chancy, and given the presence of the indetermistic mechanism, not
under his direct control. Yet, Fischer urges, if Jones raises his hand, he is
morally responsible for doing so. (...) if we agree, as he thinks we ought, that
 agents in Frankfurt-style cases are morally responsible for what they do
because the counterfactual intervener who ensures that they lack alternative
possibilities does not play any role at all in the actual sequence, so we ought to
agree that the presence of a mechanism that fails to play any role in the actual
sequence is irrelevant to the moral responsibility of agents, even if the
presence of the mechanism ensures that the agent’s action is lucky” (Ibidem, p.
81)
● “Fischer argues that if agents in deterministic worlds are morally
responsible, so can their analogues in indeterministic worlds be
morally responsible when the indeterminism operates in the manner he
sketches” (Ibidem, p. 82)..
➔ All three accounts, however, depend on the success of compatibilism.

Luck and History-Sensitive Compatibilism

➔ Introduction:
◆ A luck problem for compatibilists?
● “Nothing in our definitions of luck requires that the universe be
indeterministic” (Ibidem, p. 84).
◆ The Problem of Present Luck for Compatibilism:
● By itself, it is less significant than the luck objection to libertarianism
(Ibidem, p. 85);
● “However, the problem of present luck is significant enough to
undermine solutions to the problem of distant luck, offered by
history-sensitive compatibilists” (Ibidem, p. 85).
◆ Historical Conditions on Moral Responsibility:
● The need for a deeply historical condition in an account of moral
responsibility:
○ Why deeply?
◆ Every account of morality, in a sense, needs to be
historical “to deal with cases in which an agent does not
have the right kinds of reasons-responsiveness or
control to qualify as morally responsible but is
responsible for the fact that they lack these kinds of
capacities” (Ibidem, p. 85).
○ Intuition: “Two agents might be identical in their snapshot
(that is, current time-slice) properties, and yet one might be
responsible for her choices while another is not because of the
way in which they came to be the kinds of people they are,
in the circumstances in which they find themselves” (Ibidem, p.
85).
◆ “Proved” by manipulation cases (Ibidem, p. 85);
◆ If Hans donates to charity in a normal situation, we
praise him. But if Helmut does so manipulated by a
 device that changed his desires, values and beliefs, we
don’t praise him (because the springs of Helmut’s
actions are not due to him—that is, not the product of a
causal history in which he was active) (Ibidem, p. 86);
◆ People with identical snapshot properties may have
different degrees of moral responsibility (one may even
not be responsible where the other is) (Ibidem, p. 86).
➔ History and Luck:
◆ The Problem of History is a Problem of Luck:
● Manipulation is bad constitutive chancy luck:
○ It’s an unusual constitutive luck:
◆ Because it’s chancy;
◆ Because few are victims of manipulation.
○ But, the problem of manipulation is just the problem of
constitutive luck: “we can therefore treat typical cases of bad
constitutive luck and philosophical thought experiments
involving manipulation as raising the same problem, and
demand a unified response to both” (Ibidem, p. 87).
◆ The History-Sensitive Compabilist’s Reply to the Problem of Constitutive
Luck:
● Endowment: “the set of traits and dispositions that are the direct
product of constitutive luck” (Ibidem, p. 88);
● Responses to The Problem: “providing ownership conditions on our
endowment” (Ibidem, p. 88).
○ “Agents are not responsible from the instant they acquire a
set of actional dispositions and values; instead they become
responsible by taking responsibility for their dispositions and
values” (Ibidem, p. 87);
◆ The manipulated agent becomes responsible only after
having sufficient time to reflect and experience the
effects of the new dispositions (Ibidem, pp. 87-88);
◆ “The passage of time (under normal conditions) offers
opportunities for deliberation and reflection, which
enable an agent to become responsible for who she is,
and thereby for her actions” (Ibidem, p. 88);
● Agents become responsible for dispotions and
values over time even when they are product of
bad constitutive luck (Ibidem, p. 88);
● “At some point our bad constitutive luck
ceases to excuse, because we have had time to
take responsibility for it” (Ibidem, p. 88).
○ On Historical Accounts of Moral Responsibility, agents become
responsible by making something out of their endowment
(Ibidem, p. 88):
 ◆ They don’t only inherit dispositions;
◆ They work upon them:
● Modifying some;
● Rejecting some;
● Taking responsibility for some.
○ We become responsible agents - we become responsible for the
values inherited by constitutive luck: “hence, the problem of
constitutive luck can be seen off” (Ibidem, p. 89);
◆ The Problem of Present Luck: “the compatibilist solution to the problem of
constitutive luck can succeed only if the series of actions through which
agents shape and modify their endowment are not significantly subject to
present luck: we cannot undo the effects of luck with more luck” (Ibidem, p.
89).
➔ Compatibilism and Present Luck:
◆ Contrastive Explanations:
● Libertarianism cannot offer a fully satisfactory contrastive
explanations (Ibidem, pp. 89-90);
● Compatibilism can provide contrastive explanations: however,
“contrastive explanations are always available in compatibilist
accounts of free agency in virtue of facts that entail that the decision is
a product either of constitutive luck, or of present luck, or (very
frequently) both” (Ibidem, p. 90).
◆ Present Luck: “luck at or near the time of (putatively) directly free action,
which significantly influences that action” (Ibidem, p. 90);
● Agents’ decisions are significantly influenced by various chance
factors over which they do not exercise control (Ibidem, p. 90):
○ Which considerations come to mind;
○ Our moods:
◆ Can influence the considerations that come to mind;
◆ Can influence what weight we give to the
considerations;
○ Our attention may wander;
○ Our deliberation may be primed by chance features of our
environment.
● These factors make decisions subject to present luck - regardless of the
causal structure of the universe (Ibidem, p. 91).
● Are these chancy factors present luck?
○ Mele: no - they aren’t very significant (Ibidem, p. 91);
◆ The considerations that come to mind are only inputs
into deliberation: the agent can’t control them, but can
control how she responds to them (Ibidem, p. 91).
○ Reply: inputs are frequently decisive;
◆ George has to choose between job A and B and prefer
job A. However, he is afraid that his colleagues are
 snobbish. If George comes to think that the snobbish
attitude may be nothing more than shyness, he would
choose job A. So, the input is decisive: “mere inputs
can decisively tip the scales” (Ibidem, p. 92).
◆ A lot of present chance (moods, fancies, environmental
influences) may tip the scales.
○ Present luck is often present chance: “but the fact, if it is a fact,
that present luck is constrained to a relatively small sphere for
the compatibilist agent is no help whatsoever in helping her
escape the responsibility-undermining effects of luck. For the
factors that limit the significance of present luck,
downgrading it to present chance, are themselves the
product of luck” (Ibidem, p. 92).
◆ Formulating the Problem:
● “Contrastive explanations of compatibilist agents’ actions and
decisions are available in virtue of facts about the agent that are
themselves the product of luck” (Ibidem, p. 92);
● There are 3 ways in which luck figures in these explanations:
○ 1- Contrastive explanations may be available in virtue of the
agent’s constitutive luck: when the agent decides one way
rather than another because his endowment settles the
question for him, making that choice uniquely rational for him
(Ibidem, p. 93);
○ 2- Contrastive explanations may be available in virtue of
present luck: “when an agent decides one way rather than
another owing to the influence of chancy factors (which
considerations come to mind, what we notice, and so on) that
are beyond his control” (Ibidem, p. 93);
○ 3- Contrastive explanations may be available in virtue of how
the agent is, psychologically, at the time of the decision:
where how she is is not a direct product of her endowment,
but instead of her endowment as modified by the combined
effects of constitutive and present luck (Ibidem, p. 93).
● The problem is that “the actions whereby agents take responsibility for
their endowment, either express that endowment (when they are
explained by constitutive luck) or reflect the agent’s present luck, or
both” (Ibidem, p. 93): “the attempts to satisfy the ownership conditions
on constitutive luck are subject to present luck” (Ibidem, p. 93).
➔ The Luck Pincer: the problem of constitutive luck combined with the problem of
present luck;
◆ The problem of present luck - on its own - is not that serious for
compatibilism: but, combined with the problem of constitutive luck, it is a
problem to History-Sensitive Compatibilism;
◆ Introducing the Luck Pincer: “though it might often, perhaps usually, be the
case that the role played by present luck in the decisions and actions of
compatibilist agents is relatively small, it is the agent’s endowment—directly,
or as modified by the effects of present luck—that explains why this is the
case. Decisions are easy for compatibilist agents when their dispositions
and values render them easy; that is, when the pre-existing background of
reasons (desires, attitudes, beliefs, and values) against which they deliberate
decisively supports one course of action over alternatives. But this
pre-existing background is our endowment from constitutive luck,
inflected and modified, to be sure, but inflected and modified by decisions
that either express constitutive luck, or that were not settled by the
endowment, and therefore were subject to present luck. Hence the luck
pincer: our actions are (directly or indirectly) either the product of
constitutive luck or of present luck, or both” (Ibidem, p. 94).
● Strictly speaking, a decision is never subject to present luck alone -
what counts as present luck is a product of the way a problem strikes
an agente (which is the product - directly or indirectly - of constitutive
luck).
◆ The Problem:
● History-Sensitive Compatibilism: we have an ability to take
responsibility for our constitutive luck - our endowment doesn’t
determine how we choose (Ibidem, p. 94);
○ We have the power to modify or endorse inherited elements.
● To modfyy our values, reasons and desires, we must act against
reasons of our own - and this can be to in two ways (Ibidem, p. 94):
○ In a way that is settled by our endowment: express (not
overcomes) constitute luck;
◆ Sometimes, we act against reasons we have as a result
of our constitutive luck because our reasons are
inconsistent or incoherent - but the inconsistency is
relatively minor.
● Our reasons strongly support doing A, but we
have reasons that weekly support doing B;
◆ What is done here is just ironing out inconsistencies:
this express the background against which we
deliberate (Ibidem, p. 95)
○ In a way that is subject to present luck.
◆ “Our reasons do not decisively support one decision
over another” (Ibidem, p. 95):
● But because it is not settled by reasons, our
decision is subject to present luck: “whether or
not a consideration occurs to us, the force with
which it does if it does, or the way we ‘plump’;
these and other instances of present luck are
 decisive for us, settling how we decide and act,
and they are decisive because our reasons do not
settle the issue” (Ibidem, p. 95)
○ “The history-sensitive compatibilist appeals to our ability to
shape ourselves to ameliorate the effects of constitutive
luck. If this ability is either itself merely expressive of
constitutive luck, or is instead subject to present luck, or
both, this appeal will fail. The compatibilist agent escapes
constitutive luck only to land in present luck, present luck
only to land in constitutive” (Ibidem, p. 96).
◆ The compatibilist agent can modify her endowment
very significantly - but “the series of decisions
whereby they supposedly took responsibility for
their endowment were either expressive of that
endowment, or subject to present luck, or expressive
of their endowment as modified by previous actions
in turn expressive of their endowment or subject to
present luck” (Ibidem, p. 96).
● “The solution to the problem of constitutive luck
is therefore lots more luck. But surely we cannot
undo the freedom-undermining effects of luck
by virtue of more luck. Iterated luck does not
cease to be luck” (Ibidem, p. 96).
● There’s no solution for the problem of distant luck, because every
event of intention formation is explained by constitutive luck, present
luck or by constitutive luck as modified by present luck (Ibidem, p. 97)
➔ Negative Versions of History Sensitive:
◆ History-Sensitive Compatibilism: positive and negative historicism;
● Positive Historicism: “agents are responsible only if they have taken
ownership of their endowment” (Ibidem, p. 97);
● Negative Historicism: responsibility “requires only that they lack a
history of a certain sort” (Ibidem, p. 97).
○ Responsibility, ordinarily, is a partially historical concept - but,
they deny only that it is necessarily historical (Ibidem, p. 97);
◆ Why responsibility isn’t necessarily historical? →
Instant Agents:
● Instant Agents: agents who lack any kind of
history, but who are morally responsible.
● Instant agents are conceivable (Ibidem, p. 97).
◆ Mele’s Negative Historicism:
● Three Conditions under an attitude or psychological state that is a
partial cause of a morally significant action is ‘non-autonomous’
(Ibidem, p. 98):
 ○ 1- “It must have been brought about in a way that bypasses
the agent’s capacities for control over their mental life
(without the agent herself having arranged for such bypassing)”
(Ibidem, p. 98).
○ 2- “It must be practically unsheddable by the agent” (Ibidem,
p. 98);
◆ “An attitude or state is practically unsheddable if
there is nothing an agent could intentionally and
knowingly do, in normal circumstances, to bring it
about that they abandon or significantly weaken the
attitude or state” (Ibidem, p. 98);
◆ “Practically unsheddable attitudes are those with which
the agent is identified” (Ibidem, p. 98).
○ 3- “The agent’s identification with the attitude must not be
due to further attitudes of his that themselves were not
produced in a way that bypasses his capacities for control
over his mental life” (Ibidem, p. 98).
● A Conceivable Instant Agent: an agent who lacks a history and has
only sheddable values (Ibidem, p. 99);
○ Condition 1 is true, but 2 is false: so, she is autonomous.
● The Instant Agent, actually, is inconceivable:
○ It’s impossible to have and agent who can shed her attitudes
for reasons: an agent who is able intentionally and knowingly
to shed each of her attitudes (...) would not have a deliberative
standpoint at all, and would not therefore be able to shed her
attitudes in the relevant manner; that is, by assessing her
attitudes and rejecting one or more of them for reasons. She
might lose her values, but she could not shed them. Such an
agent would not in fact be able to evaluate her attitudes,
because, as Mele (1995: 159) explicitly recognizes, ‘any
process of critical reflection is conducted from some
perspective or other’, but an agent who could shed all her
attitudes would not have a deliberative perspective”
(Ibidem, p. 99);
○ Is it possible to have attitudes constitutive of a deliberative
standpoint be only provisionally fixed?
◆ But the attitudes cannot all be practically sheddable: “an
attitude is sheddable not if it can come up for revision at
some time and in some manner, but if shedding it is a
live option for the agent in the near future. My claim
is that an agent for whom all attitudes were sheddable,
in this sense, would lack an evaluative perspective. She
would not be suitably invested in her attitudes to be able
to assume an evaluative stance” (Ibidem, pp. 99-100).
 ○ What is involved in Shedding an Attitude?
◆ The Content of the Target Attitude: the agent must
be able, from her deliberative standpoint, to identify
that attitude as apt for change (Ibidem, p. 100);
● She must identify an inconsistency (active
inconsistency or an isolated attitude) between
the attitude and the deliberative standpoint.
◆ The Content of the Deliberative Standpoint: a
deliberative stand point is a complex of attitudes that
are closely linked and mutually supporting;
● For an agent to be able to shed more than a
relatively few attitudes, she needs a plurality of
genuine deliberative standpoints. But an agent
with this plurality of deliberative standpoints
suffers from a pathology - rational agents are
relatively unified, but this agent isn’t (Ibidem, p.
100).
○ “Rational agency requires practically unsheddable
attitudes, because it requires a deliberative standpoint”
(Ibidem, p. 101): “insofar, however, as we necessarily acquire
the unsheddable attitudes constitutive of our initial
deliberative standpoint in a manner that bypasses our
capacities for control over our mental life (on pain of
infinite regress), we deliberate from a standpoint that is
constitutively lucky for us” (Ibidem, p. 101).
◆ Haji and Cuypers’s Negative Historicism:
● “The ‘authenticity’ of an attitude is forward-looking, or, as they often
put it, relational: a finagled attitude is inauthentic iff it would subvert
responsibility for later behavior that causally derives from it” (Ibidem,
p. 101);
○ The agent may be suitably in touch with finagled attitudes: she
satisfies the Participation Principle.
● The Problem: Suzie Instant
○ “Suzie Instant is an instant agent, but one created by the same
God who also created a current time-slice identical agent, Suzy
Normal, who genuinely has a past (Suzy Instant only thinks she
has a past)” (Ibidem, p. 101);
◆ According to them, Suzy Instant is responsible for her
actions.
○ Suzy Instant*: a counterpart of Suzy Instant who is created ex
nihilo and subsequently finagled, perhaps only moments later;
◆ She would not be responsible for her actions: “finagling
is responsibility-subversive except when it causes an
 entirely new being to come into existence” (Ibidem, p.
102).
○ Suzy Instant**: a further current time-slice identical instant
agent (identical to Suzy Instant*), performing the same action
in the same circumstances for the same reasons;
◆ Why Suzy Instant and Suzy Normal are alike in moral
responsibility, but Suzy Instant* and Suzy Instant**
aren’t?
● “Haji and Cuypers’s argument simply seems to consist in the insistence
on a qualified historicism. I see no reason to follow them in qualifying
historicism in this manner. It is bizarre that a little finagling should be
responsibility-subversive but not a great deal of it” (Ibidem, p. 102).
➔ Excursus on Fischer and Ravizza:
◆ Fischer and Ravizza’s Ownership Condition:
● 1- The agent must see herself as the source of the behavior (Ibidem, p.
103);
● 2- She must see herself as a fair target of the reactive attitudes with
regard to the behavior (Ibidem, p. 103);
● 3- Her view of herself as the source of the behavior and a fair target of
reactive attitudes on that basis must be based, in an appropriate way,
on her evidence (Ibidem, p., 103).
◆ The Problem:
● Beth focuses too much on family and too little on work.
Neuropsychologists rewire Beth while she sleeps and change her
attitude towards work and family. When she awakes, she only wants to
work. She, then, goes to work on a paper. Is she responsible for the
action? It seems that she isn't. However, Fischer and Ravizza must
concede that she might be responsible - she could have satisfied their
ownership conditions as she lay in bed reflecting on her new values.
○ She recognizes that, being a normal agent, and sees herself as
the source of her behavior (she has no reason to distinguish the
behavior caused by the new values and her behavior in the past)
and has no reason to think that she would not be a fair target of
reactive attitudes. And this satisfaction of 1- and 2- seems
based on her evidence: “Of course, by hypothesis, she is
unaware that she has been subjected to new-wave
brainwashing, but I don’t see how that is relevant. She is
wrong about the causal process whereby she came to have
her new values, but she recognizes that they are new. We
can even allow her to entertain the speculation that she has
been subject to brainwashing without altering the fact that she
bases her satisfaction of (1) and (2) on her evidence. There is
nothing relevant—about the strength or content of her altered
desires and attitudes—hidden from her. I therefore cannot see
 why she cannot, lying in bed that morning, take
Fischer-and-Ravizza-responsibility for her attitudes” (Ibidem,
p. 104).
◆ Two Responses and Why They Fail:
● In order for Beth to take responsibility for her action she has to
come to be aware of the kind of mechanism that generates it
(Ibidem, p. 105):
○ There’s no mechanism for which she needs to take
responsibility: she acts on ordinary mechanisms of practical
reason and theoretical deliberation in endorsing her values and
in acting on them (Ibidem, p. 105);
○ “It is implausible that we need to understand either the causes
or the details of the implementation of our action-generating
mechanisms in order to take responsibility for them. Agents
routinely fail to understand the causes of their desires”
(Ibidem, p. 105)
◆ “If we must discover their causes to be responsible for
our desires, we shall be responsible much less often
than Fischer and Ravizza think” (Ibidem, p. 105).
○ To endorse the desire’s content, the agent doesn’t need to be
aware of the causes of the desire - only of the fact that she has
it (Ibidem, p. 105).
◆ And if she is wholly behind her new attitudes (thanks to
being manipulated), the discovery of their origins may
not alter them (Ibidem, p. 106).
➔ It’s clear that the Luck Pincer affects, also, libertarianism (Ibidem, p. 106).
➔ Avoiding the Luck Pincer:
◆ Denying that constitutive luck is responsibility-undermining:
● History-Insensitive Compatibilism: responsibility is not a partially
historical concept (Ibidem, p. 108);
○ The sufficient conditions of moral responsibility are current
time-slice conditions (Ibidem, p. 108).

The Epistemic Dimensions of Control

➔ Introduction:
◆ Control has very demanding epistemic conditions, conditions that agents
regularly, and luckily, fail to satisfy (Ibidem, p. 110);
◆ Some treat the control condition independently of the epistemic control.
However, Levy argues that the control condition is built right into the control
condition (Ibidem, p. 110);
● “Perhaps it need not be the case (as Frankfurt-style compatibilists and
semicompatibilists argue) that agents need genuine access to
alternative possibilities when they choose and act, but they do need
 epistemic access to a range of alternatives: they can only
appropriately be blamed for performing an action if they believed
that alternatives were available to them, and understood the
significance of these alternatives” (Ibidem, p. 111).
◆ For the agent to exercise relevant control, it isn’t enough direct control:
● Direct Control: “an agent exercises direct control over an event’s
occurrence, we said, if there was a basic action which he could perform
and which he knows would (probably) bring about that event’s
occurrence” (Ibidem, p. 111);
● “It isn’t sufficient that that state of affairs is causally sensitive to the
agent’s actions; in addition the agent needs to know that, and how,
the state of affairs is sensitive to his actions” (Ibidem, p. 111).
◆ “Agents cannot freely undo the effects of constitutive luck because free
choices are rational choices, and agents’ reasons are either the product of their
endowment or the product of present luck (or both). Reasons, in the internalist
sense at issue here, are constituted by an agent’s beliefs [and, presumably,
other pro-attitudes). Now, if agents can control their beliefs, then they can
exercise control over their reasons for acting, and, derivatively, over their
actions” (Ibidem, p. 111);
➔ The Epistemic Dimension of Control:
◆ The control condition, in chancy or non-chancy luck, has epistemic conditions
- because control has demanding epistemic conditions (Ibidem, p. 112);
● “Due to these epistemic conditions on control, agents may lack
freedom-level control over a state of affairs, despite the fact that
that state of affairs is causally sensitive to their actions” (Ibidem, p.
112).
◆ For an agent to possess freedom-level control, in addition to the causal
sensitivity condition, these demanding epistemic conditions must be satisfied:
● 1- The agent must know that, and how, the sensitivity condition is
satisfied (Ibidem, p. 112);
● 2- The agent must properly appreciate how alterations to that state of
affairs are significant (Ibidem, p. 112).
◆ Condition 1: “ignorance with regard to the causal sensitivity condition
undermines freedom-level control” (Ibidem, p. 112).
● Zamir: Zamir não sabe que, se apertar um botão ao lado de sua cama,
será emitido um pedido de ajuda. Não se pode dizer que ele tem
controle sobre o fato de pedir ou não ajuda - mesmo que ele tenha
controle sobre o fato de apertar o botão (Ibidem, p. 113)
◆ Condition 2:
● “He must properly appreciate the significance of bringing about that
state of affairs, where the significance of a state of affairs consists of
the features which provide reasons for bringing it about (often, but
not always, moral reasons)” (Ibidem, p. 113).
○ Relevant Reasons
 ◆ Definition: Those that the agent must properly
appreciate in order to be morally responsible for
bringing about (or failing to bring about) a state of
affairs (Ibidem, p. 113);
◆ Identification: “those reasons constituted by the harm
for which the agent might be blamed or the benefit
for which he might be praised” (Ibidem, p. 113).
● Grandfather: Grandfather doesn’t know that Betty is allergic to
peanut butter. He gives her a peanut butter sandwich. She goes to a
hospital thanks to that sandwich. We can’t say that Grandfather has
control over the state of affairs that Betty is hospitalized - even though
he has control over the state of affairs that Betty eats a peanut butter
(Ibidem, pp. 113-114).
◆ However, Condition 2 is even more demanding:
● Two Aspects:
○ The agent must know how the state of affairs is significant
(Ibidem, p. 114);
○ The agent must properly appreciate or be culpable for failing
to appreciate the facts (Ibidem, p. 114):
◆ Failures of appreciation can be non-culpable.
● Doctor: A doctor in the 19th century is told that germs cause the
disease he treats and not the “miasma”. He refuses to countenance the
claim. If he had believed the claim, he would be able to prevent deaths.
However, if he lacks good reasons to take the claim seriously and is
non-culpable for that fact, then he is not culpable for his ignorance and
actions for which his ignorance is causally sufficient. Imagine if his
Professor - one the experts in the field - said that germy theory is
wrong. “Under these conditions, he has no reason to believe it, nor any
reason to investigate it for himself” (Ibidem, p. 114).
➔ Non-Culpable Ignorance:
◆ Introduction:
● Non-culpable ignorance can be chancy or non-chancy luck:
○ Chancy Luck: imagine if Betty’s mom send Grandfather and
email about her allergy - but, by chance, the email had gone
astray;
○ Non-Chancy Luck: doctor.
● In some cases, non-culpable ignorance is a constituent of constitutive
luck: “our doxastic states are part of what makes us who we are, in the
relevant (characterization) sense of ‘identity’” (Ibidem, p. 115).
● If someone does not have control thanks to non-culpable ignorance,
they are not responsible for failing to possess such control, and - prima
facie - ought to be excused responsibility for their actions (Ibidem, pp.
115-116).
 ◆ Isn’t this a problem - the epistemic conditions on control are subject to
control conditions (complete with epistemic conditions) (Ibidem, p. 116).
● Isso não leva a um regresso infinito;
● “However, the multiple embeddings of epistemic conditions can
excuse: an agent can be non-culpably ignorant because she lacks
knowledge, at a second- or third-order level, of how to control her
process of belief formation, or of the significance of controlling her
process of belief formation. Ignorance can be non-culpable because
it goes all the way down. When ignorance is culpable, it is because it
does not go all the way down: it bottoms out in an act or omission with
regard to which the agent was not ignorant” (Ibidem, p. 116).
◆ Culpable Ignorance and Benighting Act:
● Benighting Act: “the act or the omission in which culpable ignorance
bottoms out” (Ibidem, p. 117);
○ An act (act or omission) “in performing which the agent
knowingly and freely passes up an opportunity to improve
her epistemic position” (Ibidem, p. 117).
● “Culpable Ignorance is rare because Benighting acts are rare” (Ibidem,
p. 117):
○ “A benighting act is a controlled act (since it is a free act), and
therefore must satisfy the demanding epistemic conditions on
such actions” (Ibidem, p. 117).
○ Grandfather: Suppose Grandfather receives a letter from his
daughter that says that Betty is allergic to peanut butter.
Grandfather has (and knows he has) control over opening the
latter. If he doesn’t open, isn’t this a benighting action? No,
because he may not satisfy the significance prong of the
epistemic condition - he might not realize that it matters that he
reads the letter (he may think that it contains nothing but
gossip). We can only say that he was morally responsible to
read the letter if we can identify some earlier benighting action
of his, by virtue of which he culpably lacks the knowledge he
needs now (Ibidem, p. 117).
➔ The Problem of Moral Ignorance
◆ In many cases, people lack moral knowledge, not knowledge of the facts
(Ibidem, p. 118);
◆ Asymmetry: we are more reluctant to recognize non-culpable ignorance with
regard to moral facts thant to non-moral (Ibidem, p. 118);
● Why (Levy’s Suggestion)?
○ Causal relations can be difficult to discern, but it is far from
clear that knowledge of moral properties requires special skills
- it seems easy to know moral facts (Ibidem, p. 118).
● However, global and localized moral ignorance are all too common.
◆ Global Moral Ignorance: complete lack of moral knowledge (Ibidem, p. 118)
 ● Non-culpable moral ignorance? → Psychopaths (Ibidem, pp. 118-119).
◆ Limited Moral Ignorance:
● It can be argued that this moral ignorance isn’t non-culpable, but it is
willful:
○ “It is likely that each morally ignorant person (...) was at some
point in their lives exposed to better values than those they
came to profess” (Ibidem, p. 121);
○ “Since agents are innately disposed to acquire moral
norms” (Ibidem, p. 121).
● Problem 1: “we are also apparently innately disposed to extend the
scope of these norms rather unevenly” (Ibidem, p. 121);
○ “We have an innate sense of fairness, but what counts as fair
is subject to cultural modulation” (Ibidem, p. 121);
○ If these things are true, “acquiring the right moral norms is
not something that occurs just as a matter of course, such
that failures to acquire them is evidence of culpability” (Ibidem,
p. 122).
● Problem 2: The Example of Racists and the difficulty of finding a
benighting action;
○ Shouldn't it be easy to find a benighting action?
◆ Morality is important - and this importance is almost
universally appreciated (Ibidem, p. 122);
● If someone fails to investigate her moral beliefs
(to see if they are justified), wouldn’t the failure
usually constitute a benighting action?
○ But things are harder…
○ Racist 1: he does not appreciate the significance of his racist
beliefs;
◆ Their belief-formation process is ill-motivated: the
same motivations that lead to their based treatment of
evidence also makes it difficult for them to appreciate
the significance of the belief (Ibidem, p. 122);
● Are they responsible for their motivations - is
there freedom-level control?
◆ The significance of racist beliefs can only be
appreciated by non-racists (Ibidem, p. 122);
◆ He may believe that his beliefs are well-enough justified
and the effort of seeking further evidence is not
worthwhile (Ibidem, p. 123):
● If the belief isn’t significant, this is right: we all
have beliefs that could be better justified
(Ibidem, p. 123);
● Since the belief is significant, he is wrong. But,
to blame him, we have to show that he exercised
 freedom-level control over his beliefs (the racist
beliefs and the accompanying belief in the
insignificance of their racist beliefs) (Ibidem, p.
123).
◆ He could change his mind if confronted by evidence.
But, to do this, he needs to investigate and, to
investigate, he needs to consider the beliefs significant.
However, he doesn’t - and he doesn’t exercise
freedom-level control over this failure (Ibidem, p. 123)
○ Racist 2: considers the racist beliefs are highly significant, but
takes his racist views to be well justified (Ibidem, p. 123);
◆ He has seen the evidence - but haven’t understood or
properly appreciated the evidence. Perhaps, he is victim
of self-deception:
● “But agents do not control self-deceptive
processes (Levy 2004b). Such processes of
motivated belief formation operate behind the
backs of agents, and they are at least typically
not responsible for them” (Ibidem, p. 123).
● He is incapable of being aware of the distortions
or of controlling them (Ibidem, p. 124).
➔ Culpable Ignorance without a Benighting Act?
◆ Mr. Potter: Mr. Potter is a powerful businessman who holds false moral
views according to which ruthless exploitation of the poor is not wrong.
There’s no benighting act in the causal history of Potter’s moral views
(Ibidem, p. 124);
◆ To ask whether an agent is culpable for ignorance, FitzPatrick suggests
(and Levy agree) that we ask the following question (question R): “What, if
anything, could the agent reasonably (and hence fairly) have been expected
to have done in the past to avoid or to remedy that ignorance?” (Ibidem, p.
125);
◆ FitzPatrick explanation on why Mr. Potter is culpable:
● “Potter’s failure to take these opportunities for improving his moral
views is an indulgence of his (epistemic) vices, and is therefore
culpable” (Ibidem, p. 125);
○ This is not because there was an opportunity to improve his
moral views and he recognized it as such - there's no benighting
act (Ibidem, p. 125).
● When an agent (1) lives in an environment that presents him with
opportunities for improvement of her moral views and (2) she
possesses the capacity to take advantage of these opportunities, her
failure to improve her moral views is vicious and, therefore, culpable
(Ibidem, pp. 125-126).
● Why is the epistemically vicious behavior culpable?
 ○ “This behavior is culpable because Potter could reasonably
have been expected to have done something to avoid or remedy
his ignorance” (Ibidem, p. 126):
◆ Because there were no limitations in his context or in
his capabilities (Ibidem, p. 126): the failure was the
result of the voluntary exercise of vices.
● The Condition for Culpable Ignorance: “Ignorance, whether
circumstantial or normative, is culpable if the agent could reasonably
have been expected to take measures that would have corrected or
avoided it, given his or her capabilities and the opportunities
provided by the social context, but failed to do so either due to
akrasia or due to the culpable, non-akratic exercise of such vices as
overconfidence, arrogance, dismissiveness, laziness, dogmatism,
incuriosity, self-indulgence, contempt, and so on” (Ibidem, p. 126).
◆ Levy’s Response:
● Two Aspects:
○ To ask whether the ignorance is culpable, we must see what the
agent could reasonably have been expected to have done;
○ It is unreasonable to ask people to behave in ways that are not
rational for them;
● Internalist Sense of Rationally: “what an agent can do rationally, in
this sense, is a function of what she takes her reasons to be” (Ibidem, p.
127);
● Potter could not rationally have grasped the opportunities for moral
improvement his environment made available (Ibidem, p. 127)
○ “A moral outlook is more than a set of beliefs; it is also a
perspective on the moral world. It constitutes the viewpoint
from which we assess moral claims, and in terms of which
we assess whether a particular objection to our views
should be regarded as an annoyance or a serious challenge.
Because Potter’s outlook is constituted by his moral views, the
opportunities for moral improvement he encounters—say,
editorials by Paul Krugman in the New York Times—are seen
by him as the whining of socialists or sissies. It is true that
these judgments express Potter’s epistemic vices, and that his
complacent dismissal of these views is inconsistent with the
relatively high standards he sets himself in other areas of
inquiry. But by his lights Potter governs his normative views
adequately. He gives competing views the attention he takes
them to deserve” (Ibidem, p. 127)
○ “If Potter does not see that he is managing his moral views
badly, he has no (internal) reason to manage them any
differently. Potter exhibits epistemic vices aplenty, but because
 he does not conceive of them as vices, he has no reason to
refrain from so doing” (Ibidem, p. 127).
● If we understand question R in an internalist sense, Mr. Potter is
not culpable for his ignorance:
○ Why should we understand question R in an internalist
sense?
◆ “It is only reasonable to demand that someone perform
an action if performing that action is something they
can do rationally; that is, by means of a reasoning
procedure that operates over their beliefs and desires.
But what agents can do rationally in this sense is a
function of their internalist reasons” (Ibidem, p. 128);
◆ If I do what I don’t have good reasons for, I act
akratically and this is a failure of practical rationality
(even if the act is objectively better).
➔ Can Doxastic Voluntarism help?
◆ Doxastic Voluntarism: “the thesis that agents can form beliefs for
non-epistemic reasons” (Ibidem, p. 128);
● “Form beliefs that they do not take to be required by the state of the
world (...), but which they would prefer to have for pragmatic reasons”
(Ibidem, p. 129).
◆ Levy thinks doxastic voluntarism is wrong: “because there is no plausible
mechanism whereby agents can, by performing some kind of mental act, bring
themselves to believe something for non-epistemic reasons” (Ibidem, p. 129);
◆ But, even if it’s right, it does nothing to establish our moral responsibility for
our beliefs: “if we can control our beliefs, then we must satisfy the
epistemic conditions on control; thus, any alleged exercise of such control
will merely set us off on a regress, searching for a benighting action; we are
unlikely to find one” (Ibidem, p. 129)
● “Direct exercises of a power over our beliefs constitute an exercise of
control over our beliefs only if the exercises satisfy the epistemic
conditions on control, and there is no more likelihood that an exercise
of a direct power satisfies the epistemic conditions than an indirect”
(Ibidem, p. 130);
● “Blaming for beliefs requires us to identify a benighting action, where
a benighting action is a controlled action” (Ibidem, p. 131).
➔ Conclusion: “Agents generally try to act as they believe they ought, all things
considered. When an agent acts immorally, this is often because they believe either
that they are doing the morally right thing, or because they fail to give morality its
proper weight, thinking, wrongly, that moral considerations are outweighed in this
case by prudential ones (or whatever it may be). Since in these common cases agents
are acting as they believe they ought, we can apparently find them blameworthy
for their actions only if we can blame them for their false beliefs. Blaming agents
for false beliefs (once more from the control-based perspective adopted here)
 requires that we locate a benighting action, an action whereby an agent knowingly
and freely passed up an opportunity for knowledge, and in virtue of which they are
responsible for their ignorance.”
◆ Problem: the view that akratic actions are free.

Akratic Freedom?

➔ Introduction:
◆ The claim that akratic actions are free is important for two reasons:
● “The claim that choices that run contrary to an agent’s judgments
reflect a failure of agency, and are therefore chancy, played a pivotal
role in my argument that extant event-causal libertarianisms are
unacceptably lucky” (Ibidem, p. 133);
● “If akratic actions are free, then there is a class of genuinely chancy
actions that are free” (Ibidem, p. 133).
◆ Akrasia: “action against an agent’s concurrent judgement” (Ibidem, p. 133).
➔ The Puzzle of Akrasia:
◆ Sincere Judgment Entails Action (SJEA): “If an agent sincerely judges it
best to A at once, and truly believes that she is able to A at once, then she
will A at once” (Ibidem, p. 135);
◆ Two Kinds of Accounts of Akrasia:
● Judgment-Based Accounts: accept SJEA;
○ Turn on claims about the content of akratic agents’ judgments
(Ibidem, p. 135);
● Desire-Based Accounts: reject SJEA;
○ Hold that motivational force of desires can be quite
independent of agents’ judgments (Ibidem, p. 135).
◆ “On any plausible account, akratic actions are not free” (Ibidem, p. 136).
➔ Judgement-Based Accounts of Akrasia:
◆ Views in which Agents cannot be Entirely Lucid about their Reasons:
● Aristotle: distinguishing between explicit judgment and implicit
judgment, that actually causes the action (Ibidem, p. 136);
○ “Explicit judgment and action can come apart (...) because the
agent suffers from a kind of ignorance” (Ibidem, p. 136)
○ Akratic Agents falsely belief (explicit judgment) that a certain
action is unconditionally best, but their unconditional judgment
(implicit judgment) endorses a conflicting action (Ibidem, p.
136);
● Davidson: distinction between an agent’s all-things-considered and her
unconditional judgment (Ibidem, p. 136);
● Why are the judgments different? (Ibidem, p. 137)
○ The agent may be unconscious of the reasons that cause his
action when he acts contrary to his sincere judgment
concerning what it is best that he do;
 ○ He may fail to recognize some of his reasons as reasons;
○ Both can have the same extension, but the agent can be
mistaken about the force of their own reasons;
○ “His sincere judgment about what it is best for him to do might
express a particular perspective on action, a perspective whose
importance he acknowledges (...) but which is nevertheless
(and unbeknownst to him) not the perspective that is overriding
for him” (Ibidem, p. 137).
● In all these cases, the explanation of akrasia is consistent with
(something very like) SJEA:
○ At the deepest level (the unconditional level), the agent
“believes that she ought to act in a way that conflicts with the
action she prescribes for herself. It is this fact that dissolves the
apparent paradox of akrasia” (Ibidem, p. 138)
● “In the previous chapter, it was argued that agents were not
blameworthy for actions they genuinely and non-culpably took to
be best, all things considered. It follows that blameworthiness
bottoms out in akratic actions (...) But on a judgment-based account
of akrasia, it is not true that agents wholeheartedly judges that they
ought, all things considered, to act otherwise than they do. They only
think that they judge they ought to act otherwise. They are wrong: they
actually act in accordance with their all-things-considered
judgment. Insofar as this is true, akrasia is not a problem for the
view we sketched” (Ibidem, p. 138);
○ “On judgment-based accounts, akratic actions look very much
like non-akratic” (Ibidem, p. 138);
◆ “They seem on these accounts actually to act less
irrationally in acting as they do than they would were
they to act otherwise. In acting akratically, they act in
accordance with their best judgment” (Ibidem, p.
138).
● The irrationality in akrasia is just the fact that
the agents are mistaken about their reasons -
given these reasons, the akratic action is the
most rational option (Ibidem, p. 138)
● Agents cannot be entirely lucid about their reasons:
○ A victim of judgment-based akrasia must be ignorant: she
must fail to recognize her reasons as reasons, or fail to
recognize their causal force” (Ibidem, p. 139);
● “These kinds of akratic agents are ignorant of what their own
all-things-considered best judgments are; they may also be ignorant of
its grounds or causes. Is their ignorance culpable? We need not
investigate that question, since we turned to the question of akrasia to
plug a gap in our account of non-culpable ignorance. If responsibility
 for akrasia itself turns on questions of culpability for ignorance, we can
simply refer back to our earlier remarks. On this kind of account,
akratic agents cannot exercise the kind of self-control needed to bring
their implicit and explicit judgments into line because they lack
relevant knowledge. Self-control is a kind of control, and as we have
seen control requires knowledge. When an agent is ignorant of the
existence of a gap in her cognitive economy, she cannot act to narrow
or eliminate it” (Ibidem, p. 139)
○ Unnecessary - this ignorance is not an ignorance that generates
an action. The only important point is the fact that they act in
accordance to their judgment. If wrong, it’s because their
judgment was wrong - but we will face non-culpable ignorance
as seen in the last chapter. Therefore, akratic actions aren’t free.
◆ Views in which Agents can be More Lucid about their reasons: “the akratic
agent may be aware of the gap between his judgments and therefore seems
to be in a position to act to eliminate the gap” (Ibidem, p. 139)
● Tenebaum: direct and oblique cognition;
○ Direct Cognition: “a judgment in making which the agent is
aware of the grounds supporting the judgment” (Ibidem, p. 139)
◆ It strikes the agent forcefully, “imposing itself on her
will due to its ‘clarity and distinctness’” (Ibidem, p.
140).
○ Indirect Cognition: “a judgment made by an agent aware that
there are good grounds for the claim, but (occurrently) unaware
of those grounds” (Ibidem, pp. 139-140).
○ Chocolate: An agent, in the grip of clear and distinct
perception of the goodness of chocolate, may be forcefully
struck by its value for her. But she is capable of judging that
she ought to remain on her diet - however, the grounds of this
judgment are not occurrently available to her (the judgment
will have lesser rational force).
● In this view, akrasia is simply a kind of error: “the akratic agent
believes that she ought to be persuaded by her oblique cognition, but is
not in fact persuaded by it. But in that case the agent is, after all,
ignorant: at the time of akratic action, she is effectively ignorant of
the rational force of her oblique cognition. On this account, too, her
ignorance blocks the claim that her akratic action is free” (Ibidem,
p. 140).
○ The agent may be less ignorant, but she is far from entirely
lucid.
● However, the agent can be lucid enough: “the agent acknowledges
(say) that there is a valid perspective from which the action which she
intentionally and voluntarily performs stands condemned as irrational,
or worse” (Ibidem, p. 140).
○ Rodney: he is tempted to drink and thinks that morality
dictates that he shouldn’t drink. “He judges that he ought best
to refrain from drinking, thus acknowledging the primacy of the
moral perspective” (Ibidem, p. 141). However, he drinks,
because morality is not (as he wrongly believes) overriding for
him - other considerations are more wighty for him. It doesn’t
seem that he is ignorant.
◆ Problem: the epistemic conditions on moral
responsibility are very demanding.
● We can only condemn him if he properly
appreciates the wrongness of what he does: “it is
not sufficient that he knows that his action is
(say) condemned by morality; he must
genuinely know that is morally wrong” (Ibidem,
p. 141);
○ But, for this, his knowledge must come
in the form of a direct cognition - which
contradicts Tanebaum’s definition
(Ibidem, p. 141).
◆ Explaining Rodney’s action:
● Rodney is Ignorant:
○ Failure to appreciate the Moral
Significance of the Action: He may use
moral language in an inverted commas
manner - he doesn’t appreciate the
distinctive kind of wrongness that is
moral wrongness;
○ Failure to place due weight on its
significance: he takes other
considerations to be more weighty.
◆ Doesn’t he deserve some blame? “Any moral agent who
knowingly violates (what he acknowledges are) moral
rules is due some blame” (Ibidem, p. 142);
● Violating an Immoral Rule:
○ Thinking that it's an immoral rule;
○ Thinking that it’s a moral rule.
● Violating a Neutral Rule:
○ Thinking it does not suit him.
◆ Ignorance or immoral.
● Violating a Moral Rule:
○ Thinking it’s not a moral rule;
◆ Ignorance.
○ Doesn’t realizing the full moral force
attached to it;
 ◆ Ignorance;
◆ The agent doesn’t appreciate the
moral rule.
○ He makes an exception of himself.
◆ He may be an exception due to
his skills or tolerance of alcohol;
◆ Ignorance.
➔ Desire-Based Accounts: the causal power of a desire may not be reflected in our
judgments (Ibidem, p. 144);
◆ Immediate Challenge: distinguishing akrasia from compulsion;
◆ The Akratic Agent is Compelled to Give in:
● Watson: normative account;
○ The Akratic Agent is subject to desires of a strength that we
expect normal agents to be able to resist (Ibidem, p. 144);
○ The Compelled Agent is subject to desires that we do not
expect normal agents to be able to resist (Ibidem, p. 144).
● Tracking Back Account: the akratic agent is blameworthy inasmuch
as there was some earlier action or omission which the agent ought to
have performed (Ibidem, p. 145);
○ “However, we turned to the question of akrasia only to plug an
apparent gap in our argument for the non-responsibility of
agents for actions or omission” (Ibidem, p. 145).
◆ The Akratic Agent can Resist the Akratic Desires:
● How?
○ Increasing the strength to act in accordance with their
motivation or decreasing the strength of the recalcitrant desires:
◆ Reframing the tempting options;
◆ Trying to distract themselves;
◆ Promise themselves rewards.
● Problem:
○ Did the agent know that these actions were available and that
by performing them they would succeed in performing the
action they judged best?
◆ No: Non-Culpable Ignorance;
◆ Yes: the failure to act upon this belief was itself akratic
(second-order akrasia);
● Did they know that there was something they
could do to overcome it?
○ No: Non Culpable Ignorance;
○ Yes: they are victims of third-order
akrasia;
◆ Sooner or later, we will find that
the akratic failure bottoms out in
 non-culpable ignorance or
compulsion.
➔ Akrasia and Present Luck:
◆ Smith’s Account of Akrasia ( Ibidem, p. 146):
● Akrasia:
○ The agent believes that the action is wrong;
○ The agent is overcome by her contrary desires;
◆ The agent could have desired as she ought.
● Rational Capacities:
○ “An agent could have had the right desire if she had the
rational capacity to form the right desires in response to
relevant considerations” (Ibidem, p. 147);
○ Rational Capacities are Constituted Capacities - the “agent
possess these capacities by virtue of possessing certain
constituting intrinsic properties” (Ibidem, p. 147);
● Testing to see if an agent has the relevant capacities: “an agent has
the capacity to A just in case, in the nearest possible world in which no
intervener masks the agent’s capacities, the agent actually” (Ibidem, p.
147);
○ Not the nearest possible world - because of the threat of an
interventor.
● Problem of the Account: no reference of luck;
○ Doing something Fluckly: happens when one is extremely
lucky in successfully doing it or failing to do it (Ibidem, p. 147)
● Revising the Account: “an agent has the capacity to A just in case in a
large proportion of nearby possible worlds in which the agent has the
same intrinsic properties as in the actual world and in which any masks
are absent or do not interfere, the agent As when he tries to” (Ibidem,
p. 148);
○ “Capacities do come in degrees” (Ibidem, p. 148).
◆ Smith’s Account prove that there’s Luck in Akrasia:
● Failures to exercise such capacities are the result of luck (Ibidem, p.
149):
○ Condition (iii) of Chancy Luck is evident:
◆ When the agent suffers from akrasia only when they
have the capacity to desire otherwise (Ibidem, p. 149);
◆ Capacity is related to possible worlds: the agent acts
one way in the actual world, but a different way in a
large proportion of nearby possible worlds (Ibidem, p.
150).
○ Condition (ii) of Chancy Luck is evident: epistemic conditions
on control;
◆ The agent judges (implicitly) that the option they
actually choose is unconditionally the best:
 ● If the agent were to perform a conflicting action,
we would see a glitch of agency;
○ It’s a very lucky event
● The agent lacks control over performing the
non-akratic action: “any action that we perform
only irrationally is not an action that is under our
direct - relevant - control” (Ibidem, p. 151);
● When an agent performs a wrongful action in
the mistaken belief that it is all-things
considered the best available, she is only
blameworthy if her ignorance is culpable
(Ibidem, p. 151);
○ But we started analyzing akrasia to plug
a gap in our account of non-culpable
ignorance.
● “Akratic agents who perform the action they
really (if implicitly) take to be best lack this kind
of control [fail to believe they have access to a
range of options or to appreciate the significance
of those options]; their explicit judgment,
whatever its content, does not reflect a proper
appreciation of the significance of the option
they claim to judge best. Hence they lack
freedom-level direct control over their choice”
(Ibidem, p. 151).
◆ The agent explicitly judges that he ought to A, but is
more strongly motivated (or, on rival accounts,
caused by an implicit judgment) to B:
● The agent lacks direct control over A-ing, he can
bring himself to A only by doing C.
○ Does he have control over C-ing?
◆ No, because he lacks knowledge:
non-culpable ignorance;
◆ Yes - but why doesn’t he do C?
● Second-Order Akrasia.
◆ Another way of Founding Luck on Akrasia:
● Typically, when agents act akratically, we can expect the
consideration on both sides to be fairly evenly weighted: “And, as
we have seen, when considerations on both sides are fairly easily
weighted, the stage is set for present luck to play a decisive role. It
is under these conditions that passing thoughts, moods, fancies,
environmental prompts, or whatever it may be, can tip the balance one
way or another” (Ibidem, p. 152)
○ If the scales are relatively evenly balanced, there’s present luck;
 ○ If the motivation of the akratic option is much stronger, “the
explanation of why the agent experiences the options as she
does will refer to constitutive luck, directly, or as modified by
present luck” (Ibidem, p. 153).

The Problem of Control Based History-Insensitive Compatibilism

➔ The Arguments in Favor of History-Insensitive Compatibilism don’t work

against the Hard Luck View:
◆ McKeena and Suzy Instant: the argument is “given that you believe that
Suzy Normal is responsible, how can you exonerate Suzy Instant, a
psychological duplicate of hers?” (Ibidem, p. 202);
● The hard luck view rejects the italicized claim.
➔ It evades the argument from present luck:
➔ But, since they are control based - they have the control problem: “Control, as we
have seen, has demanding epistemic conditions, conditions which are not satisfied by
wrongful actions. Hence control-based history-insensitive accounts cannot justify
blame” (Ibidem, p. 203);
◆ But they may be able to justify praise.
● Levy thinks, however, that they do not deserve it - and this creates
unfair treatment.

The Problem of Quality of Will Theories

➔ Quality of Will Theories: “a family of related views accord to which agents are
morally responsible for actions when these actions express their attitudes toward
others” (Ibidem, p. 181);
◆ “An action can express an agent’s attitudes without the agent knowing the
reasons for which they act, or indeed without them knowing that they have the
relevant attitudes” (Ibidem, p. 181);
◆ Ex.: The Physician who fails to read the medical literature and continues to
use drugs found to be unsafe;
● The agent fails to satisfy the epistemic conditions on control;
● But, she didn’t know better, but should have (Ibidem, p. 181).
◆ These views depend for their plausibility on a set of claims about moral agents
and actions. However, these claims are:
● False; or
● Presuppose some other account of responsibility.
➔ Problem: Scanlon thinks that for an agent to act in a manner that reflects their
indifference to others just is to be morally blameworthy. But, why can’t we say,
simply, that the agent is bad, leaving open the question of moral blameworthiness?
There’s a need to close the gap between badness and blameworthiness.
◆ Bad agents are responsible for their actions because they express their moral
attitudes toward the victims: the actions stem from “a mode of self-governance
[that] has ignored or flouted requirements flowing from another person’s
standing as someone to whom justification is owed” (Ibidem, p. 206).
● Problem: “I can only ignore or flout a requirement if I grasp that
requirement” (Ibidem, p. 206);
○ Example: suppose that plants can suffer and that this suffering
is a moral reason against killing or treading on them. Is every
person who has ever done that morally responsible for their
action? Do they flout a moral requirement?
◆ “If we do not grasp the moral requirement, and this
ignorance is not culpable, we do nothing blameworthy”
(Ibidem, p. 206);
○ “In other words, being responsible for ignoring or flouting
moral considerations requires the satisfaction of the
epistemic conditions on moral responsibility” (Ibidem, p.
206).
○ “In arguing that the wicked person ‘ignores or flouts’ the
relevant moral standards, Scanlon seems covertly to appeal to
the very control-based theory he seeks to refute. These are
things we do deliberately and wilfully, not blindly and
ignorantly” (Ibidem, p. 206).
◆ Covert Appeal to Control-Based Considerations pervade Quality of Will
Theories: “our judgment-sensitive attitudes are in principle within our
control” (Ibidem, p. 207);
● In adopting these attitudes, we take a stand on questions on value;
● “These attitudes are sensitive to and the product of our exercise of
agency. That is why, when these attitudes are bad, we are not merely
held to have faulty commitments or values, but are appropriately
blamed for them” (Ibidem, p. 207)
○ Problem: “either this is a covert appeal to a control-based
account of responsibility, or it is simply confused” (Ibidem, p.
207);
◆ I am responsible for my judgment-sensitive actions not
because I have (or can) control over them, but because
they are, in principle, under the control of reason.
● Example: Scanton believe that the moral views
of psychopaths are different from his height
because the former belongs to a class of things
that are in principle sensitive to reasons.
However, suppose that we discover aliens and
we realize that height is judgment-sensitive for
all other species. The aliens will say that we are
responsible for our height: human inability of
 control does not alter all responsibility. But, this
is wrong:
○ “Actual control matters, and in principle
control in its absence is simply
irrelevant. Note, too, that if it turns out
that we can control our height, we are
excused responsibility for failing to do
so if we do not know how to control it:
Moral responsibility requires control,
and control requires knowledge”
(Ibidem, p. 208).

The Problem of Quality of Will Theories

➔ Quality of Will Theories: “a family of related views accord to which agents are
morally responsible for actions when these actions express their attitudes toward
others” (Ibidem, p. 181);
◆ These views depend for their plausibility on a set of claims about moral agents
and actions. However, these claims are:
● False; or
● Presuppose some other account of responsibility.
➔ Problem: Scanlon thinks that for an agent to act in a manner that reflects their
indifference to others just is to be morally blameworthy. But, why can’t we say,
simply, that the agent is bad, leaving open the question of moral blameworthiness?
There’s a need to close the gap between badness and blameworthiness.
◆ Bad agents are responsible for their actions because they express their moral
attitudes toward the victims: the actions stem from “a mode of self-governance
[that] has ignored or flouted requirements flowing from another person’s
standing as someone to whom justification is owed” (Ibidem, p. 206).
● Problem: “I can only ignore or flout a requirement if I grasp that
requirement” (Ibidem, p. 206);
○ “In other words, being responsible for ignoring or flouting
moral considerations requires the satisfaction of the
epistemic conditions on moral responsibility” (Ibidem, p.
206).
➔ Covert Appeal to Control-Based Considerations pervade Quality of Will
Theories: “our judgment-sensitive attitudes are in principle within our control”
(Ibidem, p. 207);
◆ “These attitudes are sensitive to and the product of our exercise of agency.
That is why, when these attitudes are bad, we are not merely held to have
faulty commitments or values, but are appropriately blamed for them”
(Ibidem, p. 207)
● Problem: “either this is a covert appeal to a control-based account of
responsibility, or it is simply confused” (Ibidem, p. 207)
○ Example: Scanton believe that the moral views of psychopaths
are different from his height because the former belongs to a
class of things that are in principle sensitive to reasons.
However, suppose that we discover aliens and we realize that
height is judgment-sensitive for all other species. The aliens
will say that we are responsible for our height: human inability
of control does not alter all responsibility. But, this is wrong:
◆ “Actual control matters, and in principle control in its
absence is simply irrelevant” (Ibidem, p. 208).