What’s the Relevant Sort of Control?

Abstract

Our options include all and only those events over which we exert the relevant sort of control. This chapter argues that the relevant sort of control must be complete as opposed to partial and synchronic as opposed to diachronic (i.e., the sort of control that we exercise at a moment in time rather than over a span of time). And it’s argued that the relevant sort of control is personal as opposed to subpersonal (i.e., the sort of control that makes our actions intelligible in terms of reasons and not just in terms of cause and effect). Last, it’s argued that the relevant sort of control is not the sort that we exert directly over our intentional acts by forming certain volitions, but the sort that we exert directly over our reasons-responsive attitudes (e.g., our beliefs, desires, and intentions) by being both receptive and reactive to reasons.