Does Luck Exclude Control?

Coffman, E. J.

doi:10.1080/00048400802674677

Cited by 36 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…Cf. Nagel (1979), Zimmerman (1987), Statman (1991), Greco (1995), Coffman (2007Coffman ( , 2009, and Levy (2009. 8 .…”

Section: Defending the Possibility Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Luck: Its Nature and Significance for Human Knowledge and Agency

Coffman

2015

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“…Cf. Nagel (1979), Zimmerman (1987), Statman (1991), Greco (1995), Coffman (2007Coffman ( , 2009, and Levy (2009. 8 .…”

Section: Defending the Possibility Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…167 Notes 1 Lucky Events: The Current Debate and a New Proposal 1 . Noteworthy contributions include Rescher (1995), Latus (2003), Pritchard (2005), Riggs (2007Riggs ( , 2009a, Lackey (2008), and Levy (2009; other contributions include Coffman (2007Coffman ( , 2009). 2 .…”

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Luck: Its Nature and Significance for Human Knowledge and Agency

Coffman

2015

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“…I can understand such doubt, having recently harbored it myself (cf. Coffman , 503). But I now view such doubt as a mistaken response to a different, though closely related, fact—viz., that it's not a stroke of good luck for me that Evan is safe.…”

Section: Counterexamples To the Leading Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, although I myself have recently claimed that your winning wasn't a stroke of good luck for you (cf. Coffman , 503–4), I now feel no inclination at all to say this, and instead feel a strong inclination to say that your winning was in fact a stroke of good luck for you—as have many people with whom I've discussed such cases . So far as I can see at present, then, Rigged Lottery establishes Thesis 1.…”

Section: Strokes Of Luck: An Analysis and Some Important Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strokes of Luck

Coffman

2014

Metaphilosophy

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This essay aims to reorient current theorizing about luck as an aid to our discerning this concept's true philosophical significance. After introducing the literature's leading theories of luck, it presents and defends counterexamples to each of them. It then argues that recent luck theorists' main target of analysis-the concept of an event's being lucky for a subject-is parasitic on the more fundamental notion of an event's being a stroke of luck for a subject, which thesis serves as at least a partial diagnosis of the leading theories' failure. Next, it develops an analysis of strokes of luck that utilizes insights from the recent luck literature. Finally, having set out a comprehensive new analysis of luck-the Enriched Strokes Account of lucky events-the essay revisits the initial counterexamples to the literature's leading theories and argues that the Enriched Strokes Account properly handles all of them.use "do" in a broad sense that covers both performance (for events) and actualization (for states of affairs). Three Leading Theories of LuckSay that possible world W1 is close to world W2 before time t iff W1 differs no more than slightly from W2 up to (but not including) t. With this stipulative definition in hand, we can state the literature's three leading accounts of luck as follows:The Modal Account: Event E is at t (un)lucky for subject S = df. (E happens at t and) (i) E is in some respect good (bad) for S and (ii) E doesn't happen around t in a wide class of possible worlds close to the actual world before t. 4 The Control Account: E is at t (un)lucky for S = df. (i) E is in some respect good (bad) for S, (ii) S hasn't successfully exploited E for some purpose, and (iii) E isn't something S did intentionally. 5 The Mixed Account: E is at t (un)lucky for S = df. (i) E is in some respect good (bad) for S, (ii) E doesn't happen around t in a wide class of worlds close to the actual world before t, and (iii) E isn't something S did intentionally. 6 9 "Causal determinism" here denotes the thesis that "there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future" (van Inwagen 1983, 3). 10 This case is inspired by one due to Williamson 2000, 123. 11 Consider various small changes we could make in the actual world before the time when you won (I assume you played "062976"): "6" is the penultimate number selected; "5" is the 480 E. J. COFFMAN penultimate number selected; and so on. If things had been slightly different in one of these ways before the time when you won, you wouldn't have won around then. So, in a wide class of worlds close to the actual world before the time when you won, you don't win around then.

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“…Rescher 1995;Baumann 2012;McKinnon 2013), and lack of control over the lucky event (e.g. Coffman 2009;Riggs 2009). But all of these accounts face compelling counterexamples (e.g.…”

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Does luck exclude knowledge or certainty?

Steglich‐Petersen

2018

Synthese

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A popular account of luck, with a firm basis in common sense, holds that a necessary condition for an event to be lucky, is that it was suitably improbable. It has recently been proposed that this improbability condition is best understood in epistemic terms. Two different versions of this proposal have been advanced.According to my own proposal (Steglich-Petersen 2010), whether an event is lucky for some agent depends on whether the agent was in a position to know that the event would occur. And according to Stoutenburg (2015; forthcoming), whether an event is lucky for an agent depends on whether the event was guaranteed or certain to occur in light of the agent's evidence. In this paper, I argue that we should prefer the account in terms of knowledge over that in terms of evidential certainty.

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Does Luck Exclude Control?

Cited by 36 publications

References 10 publications

Luck: Its Nature and Significance for Human Knowledge and Agency

Luck: Its Nature and Significance for Human Knowledge and Agency

Strokes of Luck

Does luck exclude knowledge or certainty?

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