Free Will A Contemporary Introduction

Contemporary Incompatibilism: Libertarianism 235

To illustrate his account, and to facilitate objections, Balaguer sets out his
example of Ralph, who makes a specific torn decision (2010: 72, 80):

Stated in ordinary language, Ralph is deciding whether to stay in Mayberry

or move to New York. Favoring the move to New York are his desire to

play for the Giants, and his desire to star on Broadway. Favoring staying in

Mayberry are his desire to marry Robbi Anna, and his desire to manage the

local Der Wienerschnitzel. Suppose Ralph makes the torn decision to move

to New York – he just decides to move to New York.

Because this account is event- causal libertarian, it’s important to see how
Ralph’s story is to be told in event- causal terms. More specifically, since on this
view control is a causal matter, and all the relevant causation is by events, the
purely event- causal specification will allow us to test whether the view can
secure the sort of control required for free will and moral responsibility. In
Ralph’s story, events E1–E4 are the events, and thus the causal factors, that are
relevant to which decision, E5 or E6, will result:

E1: Ralph’s desiring at t1–tn to play for the Giants,

E2: Ralph’s desiring at t1–tn to star on Broadway,

E3: Ralph’s desiring at t1–tn to marry Robbi Anna,

E4: Ralph’s desiring at t1–tn to manage the local Der Wienerschnitzel,

E5: Ralph’s deciding at tn to move to New York,

E6: Ralph’s deciding at tn to stay in Mayberry.

In the actual situation,

E1 and E2 probabilistically cause E5,

and E5 thereby satisfies a key condition on free action.
In The Significance of Free Will, Robert Kane defends a more complex
version of event- causal libertarianism. In his view, the paradigm type of action
for which an agent is morally responsible is one of moral or prudential struggle,
in which there are reasons for and against performing the action in question. The
production of an action of this sort begins with the agent’s character and
motives, and proceeds through the agent’s making an effort of will to act, and
issues in the choice for a particular action. The effort of will is a struggle to
choose in one way given countervailing pressures, and results from the agent’s
character and motives. For a free choice, this effort of will is indeterminate, and
consequently, the choice produced by the effort will be undetermined. Kane
illustrates this specification by an analogy between an effort of will and a
quantum event:

Imagine an isolated particle moving toward a thin atomic barrier. Whether

or not the particle will penetrate the barrier is undetermined. There is a