Two Problems of Control for Libertarianism

Randolph Clarke

This paper examines the sort of libertarian account that differs from compatibilist views primarily just by requiring that a free action be nondeterministically caused by its immediate causal antecedents. Accounts of this type face two objections concerning control: that the required indeterminism would diminish the control that is exercised in acting, and that such indeterminism would not augment control and so is at best gratuitous. Several arguments in support of these objections are considered. Those intended to back up the charge of diminished control, it is argued, fail to do so, and the objection is probably mistaken. Although the charge of gratuity, it is accepted, is partly right, certain arguments that have been offered in support of it are inconclusive.