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165Positive Illusions, Perceived Control and the Free Will DebateMind and Language 24 (5): 495-522. 2009.It is a common assumption among both philosophers and psychologists that having accurate beliefs about ourselves and the world around us is always the epistemic gold standard. However, there is gathering data from social psychology that suggest that illusions are quite prevalent in our everyday thinking and that some of these illusions may even be conducive to our overall well being. In this paper, we explore the relevance of these so-called 'positive illusions' to the free will debate. More spe…Read more
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66Neural Lie Detection, Criterial Change, and OrdinaryLanguageNeuroethics 4 (3): 205-213. 2010.Michael Pardo and Dennis Patterson have recently put forward several provocative and stimulating criticisms that strike at the heart of much work that has been done at the crossroads of neuroscience and the law. My goal in this essay is to argue that their criticisms of the nascent but growing field of neurolaw are ultimately based on questionable assumptions concerning the nature of the ever evolving relationship between scientific discovery and ordinary language. For while the marriage between…Read more
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91Fringe benefits, side effects, and indifference: A reply to FeltzJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 27 (1): 127-136. 2007.In a previous paper, I suggested that if an agent is a morally praiseworthy person and one of the consequences of the action she knowingly brings about is morally positive, then this consequence isn’t really a side effect for the agent. Adam Feltz has recently developed a case that purportedly puts pressure on my account of side effects. In the present paper, I am going to argue that Feltz’s purported counter-example fails to undermine my view even if it happens to shed new light on the differen…Read more
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664Natural compatibilism versus natural incompatibilism: Back to the drawing boardMind and Language 24 (1): 1-23. 2009.In the free will literature, some compatibilists and some incompatibilists claim that their views best capture ordinary intuitions concerning free will and moral responsibility. One goal of researchers working in the field of experimental philosophy has been to probe ordinary intuitions in a controlled and systematic way to help resolve these kinds of intuitional stalemates. We contribute to this debate by presenting new data about folk intuitions concerning freedom and responsibility that corre…Read more
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1630The phenomenology of free willJournal of Consciousness Studies 11 (7-8): 162-179. 2004.Philosophers often suggest that their theories of free will are supported by our phenomenology. Just as their theories conflict, their descriptions of the phenomenology of free will often conflict as well. We suggest that this should motivate an effort to study the phenomenology of free will in a more systematic way that goes beyond merely the introspective reports of the philosophers themselves. After presenting three disputes about the phenomenology of free will, we survey the (limited) psycho…Read more
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310The Actor–Observer Bias and Moral Intuitions: Adding Fuel to Sinnott-Armstrong’s FireNeuroethics 1 (2): 133-144. 2008.In a series of recent papers, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has used findings in social psychology to put pressure on the claim that our moral beliefs can be non-inferentially justified. More specifically, he has suggested that insofar as our moral intuitions are subject to what psychologists call framing effects, this poses a real problem for moral intuitionism. In this paper, we are going to try to add more fuel to the empirical fire that Sinnott-Armstrong has placed under the feet of the intuition…Read more
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138On trying to save the simple viewMind and Language 21 (5): 565-586. 2006.According to the analysis of intentional action that Michael Bratman has dubbed the 'Simple View', intending to x is necessary for intentionally x-ing. Despite the plausibility of this view, there is gathering empirical evidence that when people are presented with cases involving moral considerations, they are much more likely to judge that the action (or side effect) in question was brought about intentionally than they are to judge that the agent intended to do it. This suggests that at least …Read more
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6Is psychopathy a mental disease?In Nicole Vincent (ed.), Neuroscience and legal responsibility, Oxford University Press. 2013.Whether psychopathy is a mental disease or illness can affect whether psychiatrists should treat it and whether it could serve as the basis for an insanity defense in criminal trials. Our understanding of psychopathy has been greatly improved in recent years by new research in psychology and neuroscience. This illuminating research enables us to argue that psychopathy counts as a mental disease on any plausible account of mental disease. In particular, Szasz's and Pickard's eliminativist views a…Read more
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1Criminal law, philosophy, and psychology : working at the cross-roadsIn Leslie Green & Brian Leiter (eds.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law, Oxford University Press. 2011.
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43The Mind, the Brain, and the LawIn Thomas A. Nadelhoffer (ed.), The Future of Punishment, Oup Usa. 2013.
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5366Surveying Freedom: Folk Intuitions about free will and moral responsibilityPhilosophical Psychology 18 (5): 561-584. 2005.Philosophers working in the nascent field of ‘experimental philosophy’ have begun using methods borrowed from psychology to collect data about folk intuitions concerning debates ranging from action theory to ethics to epistemology. In this paper we present the results of our attempts to apply this approach to the free will debate, in which philosophers on opposing sides claim that their view best accounts for and accords with folk intuitions. After discussing the motivation for such research, we…Read more
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230Neuroprediction, violence, and the law: setting the stageNeuroethics 5 (1): 67-99. 2010.In this paper, our goal is to survey some of the legal contexts within which violence risk assessment already plays a prominent role, explore whether developments in neuroscience could potentially be used to improve our ability to predict violence, and discuss whether neuropredictive models of violence create any unique legal or moral problems above and beyond the well worn problems already associated with prediction more generally. In Violence Risk Assessment and the Law, we briefly examine the…Read more
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146Folk intuitions, slippery slopes, and necessary fictions : an essay on Saul Smilansky's free will illusionismIn Peter A. French & Howard K. Wettstein (eds.), Philosophy and the Empirical, Blackwell. 2007.During the past two decades, an interest among philosophers in fictitious and illusory beliefs has sprung up in fields ranging anywhere from mathematics and modality to morality.1 In this paper, we focus primarily on the view that Saul Smilansky has dubbed “free will illusionism”—i.e., the purportedly descriptive claim that most people have illusory beliefs concerning the existence of libertarian free will, coupled with the normative claim that because dispelling these illusory beliefs would pro…Read more
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196Bad acts, blameworthy agents, and intentional actions: Some problems for juror impartialityPhilosophical Explorations 9 (2). 2006.In this paper, I first review some of the recent empirical work on the biasing effect that moral considerations have on folk ascriptions of intentional action. Then, I use Mark Alicke's affective model of blame attribution to explain this biasing effect. Finally, I discuss the relevance of this research - both philosophical and psychological - to the problem of the partiality of jury deliberation. After all, if the immorality of an action does affect folk ascriptions of intentionality, and all s…Read more
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105Temperament and intuition: A commentary on Feltz and CokelyConsciousness and Cognition 18 (1): 351-355. 2009.In this paper, we examine Adam Feltz and Edward Cokely’s recent claim that “the personality trait extraversion predicts people’s intuitions about the relationship of determinism to free will and moral responsibility”. We will first present some criticisms of their work before briefly examining the results of a recent study of our own. We argue that while Feltz and Cokely have their finger on the pulse of an interesting and important issue, they have not established a robust and stable connection…Read more
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180The Butler problem revisitedAnalysis 64 (3): 277-284. 2004.On the surface, it seems plausible that the goodness or badness of an agent’s actions should be completely irrelevant to the question of whether she performed them intentionally, but there is growing evidence that ascriptions of intentional actions are affected by moral considerations. Joshua Knobe, for instance, has recently published a series of groundbreaking papers (2003a, 2003b, 2004) in which he suggests that people’s judgments concerning the intentionality of an action may sometimes depen…Read more
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45On Trying to Save the Simple ViewMind and Language 21 (5): 565-586. 2006.According to the analysis of intentional action that Michael Bratman has dubbed the ‘Simple View’, intending toxis necessary for intentionallyx‐ing. Despite the plausibility of this view, there is gathering empirical evidence that when people are presented with cases involving moral considerations, they are much more likely to judge that the action (or side effect) in question was brought about intentionally than they are to judge that the agent intended to do it. This suggests that at least as …Read more
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279Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2010._Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings_ is the first book to bring together the most significant contemporary and historical works on the topic from both philosophy and psychology. Provides a comprehensive introduction to moral psychology, which is the study of psychological mechanisms and processes underlying ethics and morality Unique in bringing together contemporary texts by philosophers, psychologists and other cognitive scientists with foundational works from both philosop…Read more
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237Desire, foresight, intentions, and intentional actions: Probing folk intuitionsJournal of Cognition and Culture 6 (1-2): 133-157. 2006.A number of philosophers working under the rubric of “experimental philosophy” have recently begun focusing on analyzing the concepts of ordinary language and investigating the intuitions of laypersons in an empirically informed way.1 In a series of papers these philosophers—who often work in collaboration with psychologists—have presented the results of empirical studies aimed at proving folk intuitions in areas as diverse as ethics, epistemology, free will, and the philosophy of action. In thi…Read more
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1949The past and future of experimental philosophyPhilosophical Explorations 10 (2). 2007.Experimental philosophy is the name for a recent movement whose participants use the methods of experimental psychology to probe the way people think about philosophical issues and then examine how the results of such studies bear on traditional philosophical debates. Given both the breadth of the research being carried out by experimental philosophers and the controversial nature of some of their central methodological assumptions, it is of no surprise that their work has recently come under at…Read more
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159Skill, luck, control, and intentional actionPhilosophical Psychology 18 (3). 2005.On the surface, it seems intuitively plausible that if an agent luckily manages to perform a desired action (e.g., rolling a six with a fair die or winning the lottery), the performance of which is not the result of any relevant skill on her part, we should not say that she performed the action intentionally. This intuition suggests that our concept of intentional action is sensitive to considerations of skill, luck, and causal control. Indeed, some philosophers have claimed that in order for an…Read more
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55On Implicit Testability and Philosophical ExplanationsIn Margaret A. Simons, Marybeth Timmermann & Mary Beth Mader (eds.), Philosophical Writings, University of Illinois Press. pp. 27--3. 2004.
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88Folk intuitions, slippery slopes, and necessary fictions: An essay on Saul Smilansky's free will illusionismMidwest Studies in Philosophy 31 (1): 202-213. 2007.A number of philosophers have recently become increasingly interested in the potential usefulness of fictitious and illusory beliefs.As a result, a wide variety of fictionalisms and illusionisms have sprung up in areas ranging anywhere from mathematics and modality to morality.1 In this paper, we focus on the view that Saul Smilansky has dubbed “free will illusionism”—for example, the purportedly descriptive claim that the majority of people have illusory beliefs concerning the existence of libe…Read more
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35Bad acts, blameworthy agents, and intentional actions : some problems for juror impartialityIn Joshua Michael Knobe & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Experimental Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 149. 2008.
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74The Future of Punishment (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2013.The twelve essays in this volume aim at providing philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, and legal theorists with an opportunity to examine the cluster of related issues that will need to be addressed as scholars struggle to come to grips with the picture of human agency being pieced together by researchers in the biosciences.
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519Polling as PedagogyTeaching Philosophy 31 (1): 39-58. 2008.First, we briefly familiarize the reader with the emerging field of “experimental philosophy,” in which philosophers use empirical methods, rather than armchair speculation, to ascertain laypersons’ intuitions about philosophical issues. Second, we discuss how the surveys used by experimental philosophers can serve as valuable pedagogical tools for teaching philosophy—independently of whether one believes surveying laypersons is an illuminating approach to doing philosophy. Giving students surve…Read more
FSU
Department Of Philosophy
Alumnus
Areas of Interest
Empathy and Sympathy |
The Concept of Disability |
Psychopathology |