John Lemos

This book defends an event-causal theory of libertarian free will and argues that the belief in such free will plays an important, if not essential, role in supporting certain important values. In the first part of the book, the author argues that possession of libertarian free will is necessary for deserved praise and blame and reward and punishment. He contends that his version of libertarian free will-the indeterministic weightings view- is coherent and can fit with a scientific, naturalistic understanding of human nature. However, the author also notes that we don't have sufficient evidentiary grounds to believe that human beings have this kind of free will. Despite this, he argues there are sufficiently strong value-based/axiological reasons to believe we have such free will and to live an act as if we have it. In the second part of the book, the author makes the case that the belief in such libertarian, desert-grounding free will is very important to defending human dignity in the context of criminal justice, making sense of justified pride and its value, and adding value to our relationships. Free Will's Value will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, action theory, ethics, and the philosophy of law.

In recent work, I defend an indeterministic weightings model of libertarian free will. (Lemos, 2018, Ch. 5; 2021; 2023, Ch. 6). On this view, basic free-willed actions are understood as the result of causally indeterminate deliberative processes in which the agent assigns evaluative weight to the reasons for the different choice options under consideration. In basic free-willed actions, the assignment of weights is causally undetermined, and the choices are typically the causal consequence of these assignments of weights in which the choice option that is more highly valued is the choice option selected. In a recent article, Ishtiyaque Haji (2022) criticizes my view, arguing that it: (a) does not resolve worries about luck and (b) does not make coherent sense of the freedom of the weightings involved in free choices. I argue that his criticisms are based on misunderstandings of my position.

In his recent book The Natural Selection of Autonomy, Bruce Waller defends a view that he calls “natural autonomy.” This view holds that human beings possess a kind of autonomy that we share with nonhuman animals, a capacity to explore alternative courses of action, but an autonomy that cannot support moral responsibility. He also argues that this natural autonomy can provide support for the ethical principle of noninterference. I argue that to support the ethical principle of noninterference Waller needs either a libertarian or a compatibilist theory of autonomy. I then go on to argue that, contra Waller, the libertarian view is both compatible with Darwinism and able to make sense of how autonomous acts belong to the agents who perform them. Thus, I conclude that the libertarian position is a live option for Darwinians. If however, naturalism is taken to include a deterministic view of the universe (at least at the nonquantum level), as is often the case, then my article takes some strides in defending “Darwinian non–naturalism.”

In a recent article, Meghan Griffith (American Philosophical Quarterly 47:43–56, 2010) argues that agent-causal libertarian theories are immune to the problem of luck but that event-causal theories succumb to this problem. In making her case against the event-causal theories, she focuses on Robert Kane’s event-causal theory. I provide a brief account of the central elements of Kane’s theory and I explain Griffith’s critique of it. I argue that Griffith’s criticisms fail. In doing so, I note some important respects in which Kane’s view is unclear and I suggest a plausible way of reading Kane that makes his theory immune to Griffith’s objections.

Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative can be expressed as the formula of humanity. This states that rational beings ought always to treat humanity, whether in our own persons or in others, as ends in themselves and never as mere means. In this essay, I argue that if God exists, then the Kantian formula of humanity is false. The basic idea behind my argument is that if God exists, then he has knowingly created a world with all kinds of naturally occurring threats, such as disease, flood, drought, etc. and he has knowingly placed human beings in such a world without their consent, knowing that many innocent human beings will be led to suffer, and he allows this suffering to occur. I argue that even if this is somehow for their own good or the good of others or contributes to the goodness of the world as a whole, God treats these innocent human beings as mere means when he places humans in such a world without their consent and allows this suffering to occur.

This article compares the views of Foot and Aristotle on virtues and flourishing. It is argued that the view put forward in Philippa Foot’s recent book, Natural Goodness, suffers from a certain sort of vagueness and it is open to other criticisms which the Aristotelian view can avoid. Foot’s views have been subjected to criticism in the recent literature by David Copp and David Sobel. These criticisms are given consideration in the article and it is argued that the more traditional Aristotelian view advocated by the author will have the means to answer some of these criticisms whereas Foot’s view will not.

Organizational ecology applies Darwinian principles of natural selection to understand the evolution of new forms of organizations over time. The idea here is that there are different forms of human organizations, such as different business organizations, religious organizations, political organizations, etc. The growth of new forms of organizations within each of these fields is to be understood in terms of a struggle for existence among organizations with different traits. In a recent article, Reydon and Scholz (2009) argue that this Darwinian view of the evolution of new organizational forms is highly problematic because organizational populations do not exhibit the levels of internal cohesion, isolation, and closure that are necessary for something like Darwinian evolution to occur. In this article, I defend organizational ecology by rebutting the arguments of Reydon and Scholz

A Pragmatic Approach to Libertarian Free Will argues that the kind of free will required for moral responsibility and just desert is libertarian free will. It is a source of great controversy whether such a libertarian view is coherent and whether we should believe that we have such free will. This book explains and defends Robert Kane¿s conception of libertarian free will while departing from it in certain key respects. It is argued that a suitably modified Kanean model of free will can be shown to be conceptually coherent. In addition, it is argued that while we lack sufficient epistemic grounds supporting belief in the existence of libertarian free will, we may still be justified in believing in it for moral reasons. As such, the book engages critically with the works of a growing number of philosophers who argue that we should jettison belief in the existence of desert-grounding free will and the practices of praise and blame and reward and punishment which it supports.

Free determined decisions are free decisions that are causally determined by the character of the agent. Robert Kane is a libertarian about free will who believes some of our free decisions are determined in this way. According to Kane, for a determined decision to be free it must proceed from the agent's character and the agent must have shaped that character through previous undetermined free decisions. In recent writings, Mark Balaguer has argued that human beings may well possess libertarian freedom, but he rejects Kane's view that free determined acts must proceed from a character that is constructed from prior undetermined free decisions. This essay explains Balaguer's argument for rejecting the Kanean view and critically responds to it in defense of Kane's position on free determined decisions

Richard Double argues that libertarians believe we should hold people morally responsible for their actions and we must possess libertarian free will to be morally responsible for our actions; most libertarians believe there is scant epistemic justification for the belief that any of us possess LFW; and morally conscientious persons hold people responsible for their actions only if they have epistemic justification for their guilt. Thus, he concludes most libertarians are not being morally conscientious when they hold people responsible for their actions. Double considers a possible pragmatic, moral argument against his position, but in so doing he only considers a consequentialist version of the pragmatic response. I show that there is a plausible nonconsequentialist way of responding to Double’s argument, and I defend it in the article.

: This article critically examines central arguments made in Sam Harris’ Free Will as well as key aspects of Daniel Dennett’s compatibilist conception of free will. I argue that while Dennett makes thoughtful replies to Harris’ critique of compatibilism, his compatibilism continues to be plagued by critical points raised by Bruce Waller. Additionally, I argue that Harris’ rejection of the libertarian view of free will is ill-informed and I explain the basics of Robert Kane’s libertarian view, arguing that it can be defended against points raised by both Dennett and Harris. Keywords: Free Will; Libertarianism; Compatibilism; Daniel Dennett; Sam Harris Una replica libertaria Dennett e Harris sul libero arbitrio Riassunto : Questo articolo prende criticamente in esame gli argomenti principali presentati nel volume di Sam Harris “Free Will” e gli aspetti principali della concezione compatibili sta proposta da Daniel Dennett sul libero arbitrio. Intendo sostenere che Dennett, pur rispondendo accuratamente alla critica del compatibilismo proposta da Harris, sostiene un compatibilismo che resta sotto il giogo delle critiche sollevate da Bruce Waller. Inoltre, cercherò di sostenere che il rifiuto della prospettiva libertarian proposto da Harris è una posizione male informata ed esporrò I principi di base della prospettiva libertarian di Robert Kane, affermando che lo si può difendere dale critiche sollevate sia da Dennett che da Harris. Parole chiave: Libero arbitrio; Libertarianismo; Compatibilismo; Daniel Dennett; Sam Harris

In Happiness Is Overrated, Raymond Belliotti discusses the nature of happiness, the worth of happiness, how to be happy, and the meaning of life. The book provides clear explanations and critical evaluations of the views of important figures from the history of philosophy as well as the views of various contemporary thinkers. In the first chapter Belliotti discusses the views of ancient and medieval philosophers. In chapter 2 he discusses the views of various modern philosophers, such as Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Bentham, and Mill, and he moves on to discuss the views of twentieth century social scientists. The next chapter addresses the work of contemporary philosophers. Chapter 4 examines different strategies for leading a happy life, and the final chapter discusses the meaning of life.

This article provides a brief explanation of Robert Kane’s indeterministic, event-causal libertarian theory of freedom and responsibility. It is noted that a number of authors have criticized libertarian theories,such as Kane’s, by presenting the problem of luck. After noting how Kane has tried to answer this problem in his recent writings, the author goes on to explain Ishtiyaque Haji’s recent version of the luckargument. The author considers three possible Kanian replies to Haji’s luck argument and argues that the third reply can adequately answer the luck objection. It is also noted that the third reply requires making some significant alterations to Kane’s theory that would also help him resolve certain problems with his views about responsibility for character.

Naturalistic naturalized epistemology combines ontological naturalism with naturalized epistemology. Ontological naturalism is the view that nothing exists other than spatio-temporal beings embedded within a space-time framework. Naturalized epistemology is a view about the nature of knowledge characterized by its commitment to externalism and the idea that knowledge consists in beliefs reliably generated by cognitive mechanisms operating in a suitable environment. Alvin Plantinga has provided a much discussed evolutionary biological argument against naturalistic naturalized epistemology. In this article I defend naturalistic naturalized epistemology by refuting Plantinga's replies to two important criticisms of his argument. /// La epistemología naturalizada naturalista combina el naturalismo ontológico con la epistemología naturalizada. El naturalismo ontológico sostiene que no existe nada más que seres espacio-temporales inmersos en un marco espacio-temporal. La epistemología naturalizada sostiene que la naturaleza del conocimiento se caracteriza por su compromiso con el externismo, y la idea de que el conocimiento consiste en creencias generadas de manera confiable mediante mecanismos cognitivos que operan en un entorno adecuado. Alvin Plantinga ha propuesto un muy discutido argumento biológico evolucionista contra la epistemología naturalizada naturalista. En este artículo defiendo esta epistemología refutando las réplicas de Plantinga a dos críticas importantes a su argumento.

This article is a defense of Michael Ruse's sociobiological account of the origins and nature of morality. In the piece, the author provides a summary explanation of Ruse's views and arguments. Then he goes on to explain and critically discuss a variety of objections that have been made against sociobiological accounts of morality. He argues that the criticisms that have been made often work against less sophisticated sociobiological theories but that Ruse's theory is immune to the criticisms. The author responds to the arguments of the following critics of sociobiology: Kitcher, Flew, Flanagan, Nagel, Miles, Singer, and Jacquette. Key Words: Michael Ruse • E. O. Wilson • sociobiology • altruism • ethical naturalism.