John Lemos

In recent work, I defend an indeterministic weightings model of libertarian free will. (Lemos, 2018, Ch. 5; 2021; 2023, Ch. 6). On this view, basic free-willed actions are understood as the result of causally indeterminate deliberative processes in which the agent assigns evaluative weight to the reasons for the different choice options under consideration. In basic free-willed actions, the assignment of weights is causally undetermined, and the choices are typically the causal consequence of these assignments of weights in which the choice option that is more highly valued is the choice option selected. In a recent article, Ishtiyaque Haji (2022) criticizes my view, arguing that it: (a) does not resolve worries about luck and (b) does not make coherent sense of the freedom of the weightings involved in free choices. I argue that his criticisms are based on misunderstandings of my position.

John Lemos defends an indeterministic weightings model of libertarian free will that is a variant of event-causal libertarian views. Many argue that these views are susceptible to the luck problem: an agent’s directly free choices are too luck infected for the agent to be morally responsible for them. The weightings model supposedly escapes this problem largely because in this model an agent’s reasons for choices do not come with pre-established values. Rather, an agent performs intentional acts of weighting that contribute to the value she assigns to her reasons. Decisions that are consequences of weightings are, thus, under the agent’s control and not subject to luck. In a recent paper, I argued that despite its weighting component, Lemos’s model succumbs to the luck problem. Lemos rejoins that my criticisms are based on misunderstandings and confusions. I deflect the charge of misperception and explain why the weightings model remains susceptible to the luck problem.