Daniele Conti

In recent years, the literature on free will libertarianism has seen the unfolding of a debate over whether undetermined free actions should be assigned (non-trivial) objective probabilities or can instead be considered probabilistically indeterminate (Buchak 2013; Vicens 2016; O'Connor 2016; Schlosser 2017; Conti 2024). According to one line of reasoning, the ascription of objective probabilities is justified by the phenomenology of decision-making processes. Typically, in situations of choice, we are not equally inclined towards the options open to us, but we are more motivated to choose some of them over others. This, it is argued, suggests that some actions have a higher objective probability associated with them. In this article, I object to this argument and claim that it rests on considerations about the phenomenon of motivational imbalance that fit badly with libertarianism.

According to libertarianism about free will, at least some of the choices we make are free and undetermined. Many libertarians also accept the thesis that, before we make an undetermined choice, there is a nontrivial objective probability that we will make that choice. In the literature on free will, the ascription of objective probabilities is sometimes justified via an “Argument from Motivation,” which adverts to the fact that typically, in situations of choice, we are more motivated to choose some options over others. In this paper, I will examine this argument and I will argue that it is unsound, as one of its premises is at odds with a widely accepted principle governing the evolution of objective probabilities over time.