Contemporary Incompatibilism: Libertarianism 243rational explanation. But the luck objection can be raised here as well. Imagine
that in some situation, an agent can decide either morally or out of self- interest,
and she considers reasons for each choice, and this results in a motivational
balance between the two options. And in addition, she has both moral and self-
interested undefeated authorized preferences. We can now ask: With this balance
of motivations and preferences in place, what settles whether her self- interested or
her moral preference wins out, whether the self- interested or moral decision
occurs? When one of the preferences is efficacious, this would seem to happen
without anything about the agent settling that it is, and thus which actually occurs
would appear to be a matter of luck. Adding in the agential requirements on for-
mation of preferences appears not to make it intuitive that she settles which deci-
sion occurs, which would be required if she is to be responsible for her decision.
10.6. Agent- Causal Libertarianism
It’s natural to turn to agent- causal libertarianism if one is impressed by the luck
problem for the event- causal alternative. Recall the disappearing agent version
of the luck objection to event- causal libertarianism. Suppose a decision occurs in
a context in which the agent’s moral motivations support that decision, and her
prudential motivations favor her refraining from making it, and these motiva-
tions are equally balanced. On the event- causal libertarian position, the causal
conditions pertinent to the decision, the occurrence of certain agent- involving
events, will not settle whether the decision will occur. Because no occurrence of
antecedent events will settle whether the decision will occur, and only ante-
cedent events are causally relevant, nothing will settle whether the decision will
occur. So it can’t be that the agent or anything about the agent settles whether
the decision will occur, and for this reason she lacks the control required for
moral responsibility for it.
What would need to be added to the event- causal libertarian account is
involvement of the agent in the making of her decision that would facilitate her
settling whether the decision occurs, which would allow the control in deciding
required for moral responsibility. Agent- causal libertarianism proposes to satisfy
this requirement by introducing the agent as a cause, not merely as involved in
events, but rather fundamentally as a substance. Supposing the agent was reintro-
duced merely as involved in events, the disappearing agent objection could be
reiterated. What the agent- causal libertarian adds instead is an agent who pos-
sesses a causal power, fundamentally as a substance, to cause a decision—or
more inclusively as O’Connor (2009) specifies, “the coming to be of a state of
intention to carry out some act”—without being causally determined to do so,
and thereby to settle, with the requisite control, whether this state of intention
will occur. Agent- causal libertarianism was advocated by Immanuel Kant
(1781/1787/1987) and Thomas Reid (1788) in the eighteenth century, and then
developed in more recent times by Roderick Chisholm (1964, 1976), Richard
Taylor (1966, 1974), Timothy O’Connor (2000, 2009), Randolph Clarke (2003),
and Meghan Griffith (2010).