luck objection

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

The luck objection challenges free agency by arguing that an undetermined choice is mere chance and therefore cannot properly be credited to, or controlled by, the agent. AB and RB1 reject its equation of openness with arbitrariness: a choice can remain underdetermined while being shaped and settled by an organized self's reasons and character.

Explanation

AB presents the objection through the contrast between an unfixed choice and a lucky roll. Its response uses the trained jazz player's open performance to show what the author means by a choice issuing from organized character while remaining open. This is the book's proposed answer, not a concession that responsibility rests on random outcomes.

RB1 attributes canonical formulations of both luck and control objections to Kane, then answers luck through a propensity-structured field and the retained organization of the self. Reasons and character constrain outcomes without a uniquely entailing past state. The neighboring control objection asks whether genuine control would require determination; it is related but not identical. RB1 also rejects treating indeterminacy as a coin toss inserted between reasons and action. The entry records this authorial response without presenting it as an externally settled resolution of the free-will debate.

Scope and attribution

Positive treatments are confined to AB and RB1. PB's unverified sketch contrasts forced and arbitrary selection but does not name the objection; RB3's moral luck is a different use.

AB — The Actual Book

The unfixed-choice/lucky-roll challenge is answered by distinguishing arbitrariness from open choice shaped by trained character and reasons. The control objection is introduced separately.

Occurrence locators: 67, 68, 69, 70, 71; Notes: 240.

RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real

The canonical objection is attributed to Kane and answered through structured propensities and retained self-organization, without a uniquely entailing past state or a coin toss between reasons and action.

Occurrence locators: 296, 300, 303.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.