Indeterminism and Obligation

The obligation dilemma’s indeterministic horn, whose primary constituent is the luck objection, is introduced in this chapter. This is the objection that indeterministically caused actions are too luck-infected to be obligations. Two versions of this objection are discussed. On the No Explanation Version, if an agent indeterministically decides to do one thing rather than another, then there is no detailed causal account of her decision. Since the control free decision requires is causal, her deciding to do what she does is not free. On the Pure Luck Version, if an agent does something, which she refrains from doing in another possible world with the same past and laws, and there is nothing about her powers, capacities, states of mind, moral character, and the like that explains this cross-world difference, then this difference is just a matter of freedom-undermining luck.

Options and Challenges

The chapter first summarizes various respects in which the responsibility and obligation dilemmas are relevantly similar and relevantly different. One similarity is that the luck objection underpins the indeterministic horns of both. A salient difference is that whereas some have thought that the responsibility dilemma’s deterministic horn is persuasive because responsibility requires ultimate origination, there is no such requirement for obligation. The chapter then lays out certain options as responses to the obligation dilemma. The principal alternatives include: (i) accepting both horns and, thus, embracing obligation skepticism; (ii) rejecting the indeterministic horn by rejecting the luck objection; and (iii) rejecting the deterministic horn on the assumption that obligation requires alternatives which determinism does not preclude. The chapter also comments briefly on the proposal that an analysis of specific ability should help with assessing the dilemma.

The Extended Luck Problem

Chapter 4 continues critical discussion of the cross-world or present luck problem regarding obligation. It assesses various responses to this problem, including responses by teleological theorists about action explanation, agent causalists, and event causalists. It evaluates the view that so-called non-action-centered varieties of libertarianism (as opposed to action-centered varieties) bypass this objection. It discusses why the phenomenon of “tracing” with respect to obligation—the freedom of an action that is obligatory may be inherited from a previously performed free action—is not promising. It argues, finally, that this sort of luck objection is far reaching. It affects non-moral varieties of obligation, such as prudential obligation, and extends to best-from-one’s-own-point-of-view judgments that play a vital role in our practical deliberations.