Premium
Libertarianism, the Rollback Argument, and the Objective Probability of Free Choices
Author(s) -
Furlong Peter
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12120
Subject(s) - libertarianism , argument (complex analysis) , premise , event (particle physics) , positive economics , law and economics , epistemology , free will , economics , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics
It is widely assumed that candidates for free, undetermined choices must have objective probabilities prior to their performance. Indeed although this premise figures prominently in a widely discussed argument against libertarianism, few libertarians have called it into question. In this article, I will investigate whether libertarians ought to reject it. I will conclude that doing so should not be tempting to event‐causal libertarians or most agent‐causal ones, because the added costs outweigh the benefits.