Free Agency and Lemos’s Indeterministic Weightings Model of Libertarian Free Will

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی

نویسنده

Professor Department of Philosophy Wilfrid Laurier University

چکیده

I explore John Lemos’s recent indeterministic weightings model of libertarian free will and evaluate its promise as a model for human and artificial free agency. First, I disambiguate two different interpretations of the model and clarify which interpretation Lemos prefers. I distinguish between an episodic model and non-episodic model. According to the first there are discrete weightings of reasons that occur during deliberation. According to the second there are no such discreet weightings; instead, reasons are assigned their weights at the end of deliberation just before choosing. I argue that Lemos prefers a non-episodic model which avoids a version of the luck objection, namely, one raised by Haji. I then raise some problems for the non-episodic model. First, I argue following Haji that the model lacks a sufficiently agent-centred account of how an agent assigns weights to her reasons. However, I propose that the model might avoid this problem if it included an appeal to a higher order setting of priorities by the agent. Despite this possibility, I also argue that without providing a deeper account of the plural voluntary control agents have over the undetermined weighting of reasons the model is too luck-infected to succeed.

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات

عنوان مقاله [English]

Free Agency and Lemos’s Indeterministic Weightings Model of Libertarian Free Will

نویسنده [English]

  • Neil Campbell
Professor Department of Philosophy Wilfrid Laurier University
چکیده [English]

 I explore John Lemos’s recent indeterministic weightings model of libertarian free will and evaluate its promise as a model for human and artificial free agency. First, I disambiguate two different interpretations of the model and clarify which interpretation Lemos prefers. I distinguish between an episodic model and a non-episodic model. According to the first, there are discrete weightings of reasons that occur during deliberation. According to the second, there are no such discrete weightings; instead, reasons are assigned their weights at the end of deliberation just before choosing. I argue that Lemos prefers a non-episodic model that avoids a version of the luck objection, namely, one raised by Haji. I then raise some problems for the non-episodic model. First, I argue following Haji that the model lacks a sufficiently agent-centered account of how an agent assigns weights to her reasons. However, I propose that the model might avoid this problem if it included an appeal to a higher-order setting of priorities by the agent. Despite this possibility, I also argue that without providing a deeper account of the plural voluntary control agents have over the undetermined weighting of reasons, the model is too luck-infected to succeed.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • artificial agency
  • free will
  • indeterminism
  • deliberation
  • plural voluntary control

مراجع

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