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329Two kinds of agencyIn Lucy O'Brien & Matthew Soteriou (eds.), Mental actions, Oxford University Press. 2009.I will argue that making a certain assumption allows us to conceptualize more clearly our agency over our minds. The assumption is this: certain attitudes (most uncontroversially, belief and intention) embody their subject’s answer to some question or set of questions. I will first explain the assumption and then show that, given the assumption, we should expect to exercise agency over this class of attitudes in (at least) two distinct ways: by answering for ourselves the question they embody an…Read more
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1509Reflection and ResponsibilityPhilosophy and Public Affairs 42 (1): 3-41. 2014.A common line of thought claims that we are responsible for ourselves and our actions, while less sophisticated creatures are not, because we are, and they are not, self-aware. Our self-awareness is thought to provide us with a kind of control over ourselves that they lack: we can reflect upon ourselves, upon our thoughts and actions, and so ensure that they are as we would have them to be. Thus, our capacity for reflection provides us with the control over ourselves that grounds our responsib…Read more
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Ethics |
Moral Responsibility |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Moral Psychology |
Reasons |
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