This article was downloaded by: [University of Tennessee, Knoxville] On: 17 May 2012, At: 20:11 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Australasian Journal of Philosophy Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rajp20 Does Luck Exclude Control? E. J. Coffman a a The University of Tennessee, Available online: 01 Jul 2009 To cite this article: E. J. Coffman (2009): Does Luck Exclude Control?, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 87:3, 499-504 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048400802674677 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sublicensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 87, No. 3, pp. 499 504; September 2009 DISCUSSION NOTE DOES LUCK EXCLUDE CONTROL? E. J. Coffman Many think that luck excludes control roughly, that an event is lucky for you only if the event is beyond your control. Jennifer Lackey [2008] argues against such a requirement on luck. I show that Lackey s argument fails. I also consider a novel argument against such requirements that differs from but ultimately fares no better than Lackey s argument. Some events are instances of good or bad luck for you; others are not. What makes the difference? Many philosophers endorse this partial answer: Lack of Control Requirement (LCR): An event is lucky for you only if the event is beyond your control. 1 Jennifer Lackey [2008] argues against such a requirement on luck. In this paper, I clarify LCR and defend it from two arguments: Lackey s, and a new argument that differs importantly from hers. A word about what event means here. Like other contributors to the literature on luck, Lackey treats event as synonymous with fact or truth. Ordinary usage allows this e.g., in ordinary discourse, In the event that P can often be replaced with If it s the case that P or If it s true that P. Acquiescing to ordinary usage of event as I will in what follows doesn t commit one to any particular approach to the metaphysics of events: one could instead just talk in terms of facts or truths. 2 Lackey attacks this statement of LCR: I Vague LCR: An event is lucky for a given agent, S, only if the occurrence of such an event is beyond or at least significantly beyond S s control. 3 1 Proponents of versions of LCR include Statman [1991], Zimmerman [1993], Greco [1995], Coffman [2007], and Riggs [2007]. 2 Thanks to an anonymous referee for comments that led me to add this paragraph. 3 Vague LCR derives from the following thesis in Lackey s paper [2008: 256]: LCAL: An event is lucky for a given agent, S, if and only [if] the occurrence of such an event is beyond or at least significantly beyond S s control. Australasian Journal of Philosophy ISSN 0004-8402 print/issn 1471-6828 online Ó 2009 Australasian Association of Philosophy http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/00048400802674677
500 E. J. Coffman Vague LCR is both imprecise and prima facie implausible. Some wellmotivated modifications will yield a better target for Lackey s attack. First, on Vague LCR, E is lucky for S only if every event of some relevant type E belongs to is significantly beyond S s control (... the occurrence of such an event... ). So understood, LCR is too strong. I m lucky that Nathan visited my office this morning (I needed a face-to-face meeting with him then, a time he s usually off campus). But being visited by some or other friend this morning lay well within my control: many other friends (Clerk, Heather, Lee,...) would have visited had I simply asked. Moral: E may be lucky for you even if you have control over other events of some relevant type E belongs to. We shall honour this point by restricting LCR s consequent to the event specified in its antecedent. Second, we need to clarify is significantly beyond S s control. I shall do so in a way that yields a version of LCR that is (a) clearer than Vague LCR, yet (b) still engaged by Lackey s argument. Say that E is significantly beyond S s control iff S isn t both free to do something that would (non-redundantly) help produce E and free to do something that would (non-redundantly) help prevent E. 4 Now, as many theorists have noted, there is a partially epistemic reading of S isn t free to A that is weaker than the thesis that S isn t able (doesn t have it within his power) to A. 5 On this reading, if S is able to A but doesn t know how to A, then S isn t free to A. This is the reading required for a viable version of LCR. 6 Suppose a whimsical billionaire, Bill, decides (unbeknownst to you) to give you a billion dollars if either (a) you raise your right hand within the next five seconds or (b) his next coin flip lands heads. You don t raise your hand, but the flip lands heads; Bill s billion is instantly wired to your bank account. Your getting Bill s billion was a stroke of good luck. Assuming your brain and limbs were working properly, though, you were able to secure Bill s billion (all you had to do was raise your hand). So this case refutes versions of LCR that precisify E is significantly beyond S s control so that it entails that S isn t able to do anything that would be causally relevant to E. But since you had no idea about Bill s decision, the case confirms versions of LCR that precisify E is significantly beyond S s control so that it entails only the partially epistemic reading of S isn t free to A. Invoking the indicated sense of S isn t free to A, then, I can now provide a version of LCR that is clearer than Vague LCR: Clear LCR: E is lucky for S only if S isn t both free to do something that would help produce E and free to do something that would help prevent E. 7 4 Why employ the notion of non-redundant (as opposed to generic) causal relevance here? For this reason: on any plausible reading of is significantly beyond S s control, E may be significantly beyond S s control even if S is free to do something redundantly causally relevant to E. Suppose E will happen no matter what S does, though S is free to contribute redundantly to E s occurrence. (Perhaps E is an avalanche, and S is free to throw a snowball into it.) Then E is significantly beyond S s control notwithstanding the fact that S is free to contribute (redundantly) to E s occurrence. Upshot: if we precisify is significantly beyond S s control in terms of generic causal relevance, our precising definition will be too strong. (I owe these points to an anonymous referee.) 5 See, e.g., O Connor [1993: 208] and Carlson [2000: 280 1]. 6 Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this point and the following example. 7 Note that Clear LCR expresses a requirement on E s being either an instance of good luck or an instance of bad luck for you (in this context, is lucky for means is an instance of good or bad luck for ). To get a
Does Luck Exclude Control? 501 Lackey s argument engages Clear LCR. But before exposing Clear LCR to Lackey s attack, we should note that her objection stands to disable an important argument in the recent free will literature. According to a main brand of libertarianism, an act is free only if it wasn t entailed by the immediate past and physical laws. Something in LCR s neighbourhood underwrites this challenging argument (developed by Alfred Mele [2006], among others) against the indicated kind of libertarianism: If an act A s non-occurrence was compatible with the immediate past and laws, then it is a matter of luck that A occurred. And if it is a matter of luck that A occurred, then A s agent lacked control over A. But then A wasn t a free act after all. Given the role that (something like) LCR plays here, Lackey s argument against such requirements would make waves in the free will debate, were it to succeed. 8 II But Lackey has not refuted Clear LCR. She presents two counterexamples that have the same general structure. I shall focus on DEMOLITION WORKER (DW): 9 Ramona is... about to press a button that will blow up an old abandoned warehouse... Unbeknownst to her,... a mouse had chewed through the relevant wires in the construction office an hour earlier, severing the connection between the button and the explosives. But as Ramona is about to press the button, her co-worker hangs his jacket on a nail in the precise location of the severed wires... As it happens, the hanger... is made of metal, and it enables the electrical current to pass through the damaged wires just as Ramona presses the button and demolishes the warehouse. [2008: 258, emphases added] Straightaway, there is a problem. Compare the italicized bits: this description of DW doesn t make clear precisely when the button-explosives connection was restored. That is problematic because only one of the two ways to tighten DW yields a promising objection to Clear LCR. If the button-explosives connection was restored right when Ramona pressed the button, we shouldn t think Ramona was ever free to do something that would definitely have caused the explosion. But if the connection was restored before Ramona requirement on E s being good luck, strengthen Clear LCR s consequent so that it denies to S freedom to do anything that would definitely contribute to E s production (sustenance). To get a requirement on E s being bad luck, strengthen the consequent so that it denies to S freedom to do anything that would definitely contribute to E s prevention (cessation). As it happens, the counterexamples to Clear LCR discussed below involve only good luck. 8 Notably, while Lackey briefly discusses the above argument (the so called Luck Argument) [265 6], she doesn t connect it with her anti-lcr argument. Indeed, she suggests that her arguments are neutral with respect to the Luck Argument [266]. 9 Interested readers may easily extend my treatment of DW to Lackey s other counterexample involving Derek the professional basketball player (see xi of Lackey [2008]).
502 E. J. Coffman pressed the button, then we should think Ramona was (at some time) free to do something that would have caused the explosion. Fortunately, Lackey resolves this ambiguity. Consider the following commentary on DW: First, that Ramona succeeded in blowing up the warehouse in question is an event that is clearly riddled with luck. [...] Second, because Ramona s pressing of the button... is what is directly responsible for the explosion, the explosion is an event that is sufficiently within her control. [2008: 258 9, emphasis added] We are to read DW so that Ramona s pressing the button is what s directly responsible for the explosion. Now, if the button-explosives connection was restored right when the button was depressed, then the reconnection and depression seem jointly directly responsible for the explosion. But then it s wrong to say that the depression is what is directly responsible for the explosion. The only version of DW on which the depression is what s directly responsible for the explosion is the one on which the reconnection happens before the depression. Fortunately for Lackey, that version of DW also elicits the sense that Ramona was (at some point) free to do something that would have caused the explosion. Henceforth, then, we shall understand DW so that the reconnection precedes the depression. Lackey s objection to Clear LCR will be this: Ramona was lucky relative to the explosion itself, notwithstanding her freedom to do something that would definitely have caused the explosion. So Clear LCR is false: you may be lucky relative to E even if you were free to do something that would definitely have caused E. This objection fails. To see why, consider the following error theory for Lackey s judgment that the explosion itself was good luck for Ramona. Just before Ramona pressed the button, she became free to do something that would definitely cause the explosion. That was a stroke of good luck. But Ramona s becoming free to cause the explosion differs from the explosion itself. Whoever finds it obvious that Ramona was lucky to explode the building would seem to be confusing the explosion itself with Ramona s becoming free to cause the explosion. So, Lackey s judgment that DW is a counterexample to Clear LCR seems to arise from a failure to distinguish between two different (though related) events. At a minimum, presenting this error theory suffices to raise a legitimate worry that Lackey s judgment about Ramona and the explosion is ill founded, thereby undercutting that judgment and defending Clear LCR from DW. Lackey s description of DW s general structure holds a rejoinder to my reply: [F]irst choose an event over which an agent clearly has sufficient control... Second, construct a case in which such control was almost interrupted by factors unknown to all of the parties involved. Third, ensure that the control is not in fact interrupted through a combination of purely coincidental and unlikely features, so that the fact that the agent has the control in question is riddled with luck, which, in turn, extends to the resulting event. [2008: 259, emphases added]
Does Luck Exclude Control? 503 Lackey s key idea here can be put like this: Luck Infection Thesis (LIT): If you were lucky to be free to A and you A-ed, then you re lucky that you A-ed. Ramona was lucky to be free to cause the explosion. Since Ramona then exploded the building, LIT entails that Ramona was also lucky relative to the explosion. Invoking LIT reinstates DW as a threat to Clear LCR. But this attempted defence of DW s counterexample status does not succeed. Not only do we lack good reason to believe LIT; there is also good reason to reject it. Lackey [2008: 256] thinks LIT enjoys support from ordinary reactions to DW-like scenarios: [LIT] is evidenced by the reaction that Ramona would quite likely have upon hearing all of the details of the situation... [S]urely she herself would regard the resulting explosion as an event whose occurrence is extraordinarily lucky. But Ramona s likely reaction doesn t support LIT unless we can expect ordinary attributers of luck to have in mind the subtle difference between being positioned to A and performing A. Since (in all probability) ordinary attributers won t have this difference before their minds, the claim that Ramona would regard the explosion itself as lucky doesn t support LIT. Worse, there are clear counterexamples to LIT. Suppose our department meeting ends early for once. As a result, I m early to pick up Evan from school. Upon arriving, I spot him playing in the street. A car whose inattentive driver is on a cell phone speeds towards Evan. I m free to push him out of harm s way; I exercise this freedom. I was lucky to be free to save Evan. So, LIT entails that I m lucky I saved Evan. But I disagree: neither of us is lucky that, once positioned to do so, I saved my son. (It s not as though I was unsure about whether to save him, and let the outcome be determined by coin flip!) So, LIT is false: it may be that S s A-ing wasn t itself lucky even though S was lucky to be free to A. 10 The envisaged attempt to reinstate DW as a counterexample to Clear CLR fails. I conclude that DW does not pose a serious threat to Clear LCR. III Recall Lackey s recipe for counterexamples to LCR: start with an agent who has sufficient control over an event, then add details to make the event lucky. Let s briefly try the reverse of Lackey s recipe: start with a lucky event, then add details to give the agent sufficient control over it. Suppose Smith has just won the lottery. Unbeknownst to other participants, those running the lottery had offered to rig it in Smith s favour. Smith has been free to do something that would have resulted in his winning. But Smith refrained from exercising this freedom. It seems that 10 As Fred Dretske [1970a: 18] notes in a different context: Sometimes the stage is set for a non-accident in a purely accidental way.
504 E. J. Coffman Smith is lucky to have won even though he was free to do something that would have resulted in his winning. If so, Clear LCR is too strong. Granted: Smith s winning the lottery fairly was a stroke of good luck. But that s a different event (fact, truth) from Smith s winning the lottery (full stop). While Smith was free to do something that would have resulted in his winning, he wasn t free to do anything that would have resulted in a legitimate win. So, when we focus on the sole event that was clearly lucky for Smith (his legitimate win), we see that he lacked freedom to do something that would definitely have brought it about. The case simply confirms Clear LCR. A natural reply invokes the claim that luck is closed under entailment if you re lucky relative to P and P entails Q, then you re lucky relative to Q. If so, then given that Smith is lucky vis-a` -vis his legitimate win, he s also lucky he won (full stop). But luck isn t closed under entailment. 11 Any lottery winner is lucky to have won. That she won entails that someone won. But no one is lucky there s a winner, not even the winner herself (there had to be a winner...). 12 The University of Tennessee Received: May 2008 Revised: July 2008 References Carlson, Erik 2000. Incompatibilism and the Transfer of Power Necessity, Nouˆs 34/2: 277 90. Coffman, E. J. 2007. Thinking about Luck, Synthese 158/3: 385 98. Dretske, Fred 1970a. Conclusive Reasons, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 49/1: 1 22. Dretske, Fred 1970b. Epistemic Operators, Journal of Philosophy 67/24: 1007 23. Greco, John 1995. A Second Paradox Concerning Responsibility and Luck, Metaphilosophy 26/1 2: 81 96. Lackey, Jennifer 2008. What Luck is Not, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86/2: 255 67. Mele, Alfred 2006. Free Will and Luck, Oxford: Oxford University Press. O Connor, Timothy 1993. On the Transfer of Necessity, Nouˆs 27/2: 204 18. Riggs, Wayne 2007. Why Epistemologists are So Down on Their Luck, Synthese 158/3: 329 44. Statman, Daniel 1991. Moral and Epistemic Luck, Ratio 4/2: 146 56. Zimmerman, Michael 1993. Luck and Moral Responsibility, in Moral Luck, ed. Daniel Statman, Albany: State University of New York Press. 11 Cf. Dretske [1970b: 1008 9]. 12 This paper was presented at the University of Tennessee; the 2008 meetings of the Central States Philosophical Association and the Southwestern Philosophical Society; and the 2009 meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association. Thanks to those audiences for stimulating discussion and helpful feedback. Special thanks to Richard Aquila, Nathan Ballantyne, Michael Ball-Blakely, John Hardwig, Heidi Hildeman, Tomis Kapitan, Peter Kung, Jonathan Kvanvig, Evan Leutwiler, James McBain, John McClellan, David Reidy, Wayne Riggs, Thomas Senor, Clerk Shaw, Lee Shepski, and two anonymous referees.