A response to the problem of wild coincidences
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A response to the problem of wild coincidences Christopher P. Taggart1 Received: 16 April 2020 / Accepted: 16 July 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Derk Pereboom has posed an empirical objection to agent-causal libertarianism: The best empirically confirmed scientific theories feature physical laws predicting no longrun deviations from fixed conditional frequencies that govern events. If agent-causal libertarianism were true, however, then it would be virtually certain, absent ‘wild coincidences’, that such long-run deviations would occur. So, current empirical evidence makes agent-causal libertarianism unlikely. This paper formulates Pereboom’s ‘Problem of Wild Coincidences’ as a five-step argument and considers two recent responses. Then, it offers a different response: The Problem of Wild Coincidences does not show that current empirical evidence makes agent-causal libertarianism unlikely, even if all events are governed by physical laws featuring fixed long-run conditional frequencies and even if agents can ‘overrule’ normal physical laws. Keywords Indeterminism · Agency · Conditional probability · Substance-causation
1 The problem of wild coincidences Derk Pereboom endorses hard incompatibilism, according to which ‘we likely lack the free will required for moral responsibility since (i) such free will is incompatible with causation by prior events or states, whether deterministic or indeterministic, and (ii) while agent-causation is conceptually coherent’, (Baker, pp. 3085–86), it is very unlikely given current empirical evidence. According to agent-causal libertarianism, although our moral responsibility is inconsistent with the causation of our actions entirely by prior events, we are morally responsible for our actions when we, as substances, exercise causal power reasons-responsively1 when performing them.
B 1
Christopher P. Taggart [email protected] University of Surrey, School of Law, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK
1 A substance with causal power that could not exercise it reasons-responsively could not be morally
responsible for its behavior.
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Synthese
Since Pereboom acknowledges that agent-causal libertarianism ‘involves no internal incoherence’ (Pereboom 1995, p. 28), to ‘eliminate’ agent-causal libertarianism as a viable alternative to hard incompatibilism he argues that ‘we have empirical reasons to believe that it’s improbable that we are agent causes as specified by’ agent-causal libertarianism. (Pereboom 2014, p. 65). His argument can be called the ‘Problem of Wild Coincidences’ or the ‘Wild Coincidences Objection’. This paper considers two recent responses—Runyan (2018) and Baker (2017)—and offers a different response. Unlike Runyan’s response, this paper’s response applies even if all events are governed by physical laws featuring fixed long-run conditional frequencies that never change due to what an agent does from instance to instance. And unlike Baker’s response, this paper defends forms of agent-causal libertarianism according to which agent-causes can ‘overrule’ normal physical
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