For Daniel Dennett

You say that your two-stage model ("Valerian") "installs indeterminism in the right place for the libertarian, if there is a right place at all."

But for many years, you have said that the indeterminism provided by a pseudo-random number generator or deterministic chaos is good enough for the first stage.

As a compatibilist, you are happy with the resulting determinism?

Can we assume that you agree that quantum indeterminism plays a role in biological evolution?

If so, could quantum noise in the storage and recall of information in the brain provide a natural source of alternative possibilities in the first stage, alongside any artificial computer-like alternatives.

Assuming that man is a machine and the brain is a computer (moreover one that has evolved the specific algorithms needed to generate pseudo-random numbers) seems to multiply causes and suggests Ockham's Razor, when quantum noise is already a natural source of randomness.

For Robert Kane

In your two-stage model ("practical reason") you say this is not libertarian free will because some of the alternative possibilities that come to mind are indeterministic (a matter of chance) and so the agent does not have complete control over what comes to mind, as libertarians require?

You say, "What they would need for free will is for the agent to be able to control which of the chance events occur rather than merely reacting to them in a determined way once they have occurred."

But if the possibilities are not indeterministic, they cannot break the causal chain of determinism?

In your "moral and prudential" decisions, does the agent have such "complete control of what comes to mind"?

Furthermore, if the choice between equally important possibilities in a "torn decision" involves indeterminism, how can the agent have the control needed for your "ultimate responsibility?"

You say because the agent made the effort to choose, that constitutes "moral responsibility."

But then why doesn't the agent's choice in "practical reason" also confer practical responsibility?

For Alfred Mele

In your two-stage model (Modest Libertarianism), you share Bob Kane's concern that the alternative possibilities coming to mind present the "problem of luck."

But isn't the "control condition for moral responsibility" satisfied by the adequately determined (i.e., free of quantum noise, which is averaged over) second stage of evaluation and selection?

Since a significant element of luck is found in all aspects of the material world and the biological world, can we just accept that luck, both good and bad, is involved in all human actions?

For Galen Strawson

Your Basic Argument denies that an agent can be responsible for a thought or action that was completely random (causa sui), but both Dan Dennett and Bob Kane describe such cases (in 1978 Dennett considered a woman trying to decide between different graduate studies, in 1985 Kane a man deciding between a vacation in Colorado or Hawaii. These "torn decisions" as Kane describes them, allow the agent to accept responsibility for either choice, since they have good reasons behind both options, despite the fundamental indeterminacy.

Since luck plays an undeniable role in the material and biological world, why not some randomness in the mental world? Why can't we be responsible for thoughts that came to us by chance?