ABSTRACT

Libertarian views of freedom claim that, although determinism would rule out our freedom, we are nevertheless free on some occasions. An odd implication of such views (to put it mildly) seems to be that indeterminism somehow enhances or contributes to our agency. But how could that be so? What does indeterminism have to offer to agency? This paper develops a novel answer, centred around the notion of explanation. In short, it is argued that, if indeterminism holds in the right places, then the best explanation of the history of the world necessarily cites facts about our agency. Along the way, alternative proposals regarding the significance of indeterminism are considered and, ultimately, rejected in favour of the one developed in this paper.

摘要

自由主义者的自由观点声称，尽管决定论会排除我们的自由，但在某些情况下我们仍然是自由的。这种观点的一个奇怪含义（委婉地说）似乎是不确定性以某种方式增强或促进了我们的能动性。但怎么会这样呢？不确定性必须为代理机构提供什么？本文围绕解释的概念提出了一个新颖的答案。简而言之，有人认为，如果非决定论在正确的地方成立，那么对世界历史的最佳解释必然引用关于我们机构的事实。在此过程中，考虑了有关非决定论重要性的替代建议，最终被拒绝，取而代之的是本文提出的建议。