Abstract
Whims are philosophically interesting and play a role in debates concerning free will, luck, and responsibility. However, philosophers have had little to say about what whims are. One exception is Lackey (Australas J Philos 86(2): 255–267, 2008) who argues that some whimsical events are counterexamples to the modal account of luck and that whimsical decisions can be modally robust. I argue that these claims are false. I also give an account of whims. In my view, whimsical decisions are definable in terms of two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions: spontaneity and modal fragility. Whimsical outcomes are the successful results of whimsical decisions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 205 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Synthese |
| Volume | 205 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 7 May 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2025.
Funding
The work described in this paper was substantially supported by a General Research Fund (GRF) grant project titled ‘On Luck’ (LU13607224) from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.
Keywords
- Control
- Luck
- Responsibility
- Spontaneity
- The modal account of luck
- Whims
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