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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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5355Surveying 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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1945The 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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516Polling 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
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198Neurolaw and Neuroprediction: Potential Promises and PerilsPhilosophy Compass 7 (9): 631-642. 2012.Neuroscience has been proposed for use in the legal system for purposes of mind reading, assessment of responsibility, and prediction of misconduct. Each of these uses has both promises and perils, and each raises issues regarding the admissibility of neuroscientific evidence.
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Experimental EthicsIn Christian Miller (ed.), Continuum Companion to Ethics, Continuum. pp. 261. 2011.
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66The Potential Dark Side of Believing in Free Will (and Related Concepts)In Gregg Caruso (ed.), Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility, Lexington Books. 2013.
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98Some Varieties of Humility Worth WantingJournal of Moral Philosophy 14 (1): 168-200. 2017._ Source: _Page Count 32 In this paper we first set the stage with a brief overview of the tangled history of humility in theology and philosophy—beginning with its treatment in the Bible and ending with the more recent work that has been done in contemporary philosophy. Our two-fold goal at this early stage of the paper is to explore some of the different accounts of humility that have traditionally been developed and highlight some of the key debates in the current literature. Next, we present…Read more
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146On praise, side effects, and folk ascriptions of intentionalityJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 24 (2): 196-213. 2004.In everyday discourse, we often draw a distinction between actions that are performed intentionally (e.g. opening your car door) and those that are performed unintentionally (e.g. shutting a car door on your finger). This distinction has interested philosophers working in a number of different areas. Indeed, intentional actions are not only the primary focus of those concerned with understanding and explaining human behavior, but they often occupy center stage in philosophical discussions of fre…Read more
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54Folk retributivism and the communication confoundEconomics and Philosophy 29 (2): 235-261. 2013.Retributivist accounts of punishment maintain that it is right to punish wrongdoers, even if the punishment has no future benefits. Research in experimental economics indicates that people are willing to pay to punish defectors. A complementary line of work in social psychology suggests that people think that it is right to punish wrongdoers. This work suggests that people are retributivists about punishment. However, all of the extant work contains an important potential confound. The target of…Read more
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95Blame, Badness, and Intentional Action: A Reply to Knobe and MendlowJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 24 (2): 259-269. 2004.Florida State University In a series of recent papers both Joshua Knobe (2003a; 2003b; 2004) and I (2004a; 2004b; forthcoming) have published the results of some psychological experiments that show that moral considerations influence folk ascriptions of intentional action in both non-side effect and side effect cases.1 More specifically, our data suggest that people are more likely to judge that a morally negative action or side effect was brought about intentionally than they are to judge that …Read more
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6393The free will inventory: Measuring beliefs about agency and responsibilityConsciousness and Cognition 25 27-41. 2014.In this paper, we present the results of the construction and validation of a new psychometric tool for measuring beliefs about free will and related concepts: The Free Will Inventory (FWI). In its final form, FWI is a 29-item instrument with two parts. Part 1 consists of three 5-item subscales designed to measure strength of belief in free will, determinism, and dualism. Part 2 consists of a series of fourteen statements designed to further explore the complex network of people’s associated bel…Read more
FSU
Department Of Philosophy
Alumnus
Areas of Interest
Empathy and Sympathy |
The Concept of Disability |
Psychopathology |