242 Contemporary Incompatibilism: Libertarianism
mistake or accident, without being coerced or compelled in doing so, or
otherwise controlled by other agents or mechanisms. (Kane, 2011a: 389)This point makes sense as a response to the no- enhanced-control objection.
Still, the objector might now point out that so far Kane lacks a response to the
various versions of the luck objection, and thus the plural voluntary control that
remains is insufficient for moral responsibility. In response, Kane might argue that
there is an additional resource for responding to the luck objection available to
him. Mele (2006a) suggests a related view that escapes the luck objection as he
sets it out, one on which by earlier character- forming decisions, for which the
agent is morally responsible, she can significantly affect the probabilities that
govern her decision. More generally, through their past behavior such agents
shape present practical probabilities, and in their present behavior agents shape
future practical probabilities. Mele calls this view “daring soft libertarianism.”
Along the same lines, Kane might propose that choices are produced by efforts of
will, and efforts of will are explained in part by the agent’s character, but the char-
acter that explains an effort of will need not be a factor beyond the agent’s control.
For this character could in turn be produced partly by the agent’s free choices.
But this type of account is vulnerable to the following objection. Consider the
first free choice an agent makes. Her character cannot explain how this choice
might be free and responsible, since it could not have been produced in part by
other free choices the agent makes. However, she cannot be free and responsible
in the second choice either. Suppose the first choice was character- forming.
Because the agent cannot be responsible for the first choice, she also cannot be
responsible for the resulting character formation, and thus she cannot be respons-
ible for the second choice either. Since this type of reasoning can be repeated for
all subsequent choices, an agent that meets Kane’s specifications can never be
morally responsible for a choice she makes (Pereboom, 2001, 2007).
10.5. Adding in Higher- Order States
One might propose to solve the luck problem within the event- causal framework
by specifying that the event- or state- causal etiology of a decision for which an
agent is morally responsible must feature agent- involving states such as values
or standing preferences, thereby making it intuitive that the agent does in fact
settle whether the decision occurs. In Laura Ekstrom’s version of event- causal
libertarianism (2000, 2003), a decision for which an agent is morally responsible
must result by a normal causal process from an undefeated authorized preference
of the agent’s, where such preferences are non- coercively formed or maintained,
and are caused by, but not causally determined by considerations brought to bear
in deliberation. In her view, these conditions on the formation of preferences
intuitively tie them to who the agent is, and preclude causal determination of
preferences by factors beyond the agent’s control.
Ekstrom argues that indeterminacy need not make preferences and decisions
purposeless, that it need not render them accidental, and that it does not preclude