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Soft Libertarianism and the Value of Incompatibilist Control

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Notes

  1. See Alfred Mele, ‘‘Soft Libertarianism and Frankfurt-Style Scenarios,’’ Philosophical Topics 24 (1996): 123-141, Alfred Mele, ‘‘Ultimate Responsibility and Dumb Luck,’’ Social Philosophy and Policy 16 (1999): 274-293, and Alfred Mele, Free Will and Luck (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). In his “Soft Libertarianism and Hard Compatibilism,” Journal of Ethics 3 (1999): 351-365, Gary Watson uses the locution “soft libertarianism” to designate a traditional form of libertarianism that is not committed to any form of agent-causation. The locution “modest libertarianism” is used in the same sense by Randolph Clarke, “Modest Libertarianism,” Philosophical Perspectives, 14, Action and Freedom (2000): 21-45 and Ishtiyaque Haji, “Modest Libertarianism and Practical Reason,” Philosophical Issues, 22, Action Theory (2012): 201-216. This kind of libertarianism is defended by Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) and Robert Kane, “Libertarianism,” in J. M. Fischer, R. Kane, D. Pereboom, and M. Vargas (eds.), Four views on Free Will (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 5-43.

  2. Alfred Mele, “Free Will and Luck: Précis,” Philosophical Explorations 10 (2007a): 153-155, p. 154.

  3. See Mele, op. cit. 2006, p. 57.

  4. See Alfred Mele, ‘‘Libertarianism, Luck, and Control,’’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (2005): 395-421, p. 384, and Mele, op. cit. 2006, p. 9.

  5. Alfred Mele, “Free Will and Luck: Reply to Critics,” Philosophical Explorations 10 (2007b): 195-210, p. 196.

  6. For criticisms of DSL that focus on this issue, see Dana Nelkin, “Good Luck to Libertarians: Reflections on Al Mele’s Free Will and Luck,” Philosophical Explorations 10 (2007): 173-184. For a response, see Mele, op. cit. 2007b.

  7. Mele, op. cit. 2006, p. 100. Wilma ultimately favors modest soft libertarianism. See Mele, op. cit. 1999 and Mele, op. cit. 2006, p. 116. However, Wilma and DSLs are on the same page about the value of being an indeterministic initiator.

  8. See Miguel Herrero-Collantes and Juan Carlos Garcia-Escartin, “Quantum Random Number Generators,” Reviews of Modern Physics 89 (2017): 015004.

  9. See Mark Balaguer, Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2010), p. 72.

  10. Balaguer, ibid., p. 72.

  11. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for emphasizing this distinction.

  12. Mele, op. cit. 2006, p. 101.

  13. Balaguer, op. cit. 2010, p. 86.

  14. Mele, op. cit. 2006, p. 114.

  15. See, for instance, Saul Smilansky, Free Will and Illusion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

  16. See Mele, op. cit. 2006, p. 120.

  17. Mele, ibid., pp. 120-121.

  18. Mele, ibid., pp. 115-116.

  19. Mele, ibid., p. 117.

  20. Mele, ibid., pp. 116-117. Sometimes, Mele talks of basically* free actions instead of basically free actions. As he explains, if Frankfurt-style cases are successful, then basically free action is blocked in them, even though the action may result from the exercise of incompatibilist control. For this reason, Mele introduces the notion of basically* free action: “When and only when an agent freely A-s at a time at which he has at least a nonrobust alternative possibility, the action is basically* free” (Mele, ibid., p. 115).

  21. See Kane, op. cit. 1996 and Kane, op. cit. 2007.

  22. Kane, op. cit. 2007, p. 14.

  23. Mele, op. cit. 2006, p. 202.

  24. There are important differences between daring libertarianism and Kane’s approach. See Alfred Mele, Aspects of Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), Chap. 10. This essay is not the place to explore or evaluate these views.

  25. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pressing this point.

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I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for this journal for their helpful comments.

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Montminy, M. Soft Libertarianism and the Value of Incompatibilist Control. J Value Inquiry 57, 221–232 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-021-09810-4

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