Open AccessTwo Accounts of the Problem of Enhanced Control
Author(s) -
Damir Ćićić
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
croatian journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1847-6139
pISSN - 1333-1108
DOI - 10.52685/cjp.21.62.5
Subject(s) - indeterminism , free will , libertarianism , epistemology , relevance (law) , action (physics) , incompatibilism , determinism , event (particle physics) , causal theory of reference , focus (optics) , compatibilism , control (management) , action theory (sociology) , philosophy , sociology , law , computer science , political science , physics , optics , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence
According to event-causal libertarianism, an action is free in the sense relevant to moral responsibility when it is caused indeterministically by an agent’s beliefs, desires, intentions, or by their occurrences. This paper attempts to clarify one of the major objections to this theory: the objection that the theory cannot explain the relevance of indeterminism to this kind of freedom (known as free will). Christopher Evan Franklin (2011, 2018) has argued that the problem of explaining the relevance of indeterminism to free will (which he calls “the problem of enhanced control”) arises because it is difficult to see how indeterminism could enhance our abilities, and disappears when we realize that beside the relevant abilities free will requires opportunities. In this paper, I argue that the problem occurs not because of the focus on abilities, but because of the difficulty to explain how indeterminism could contribute to the satisfaction of the sourcehood condition of free will in the framework of event-causal theory of action.