Gideon Yaffe

Criminal defendants cannot be punished unless found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Under probabilistic accounts, this means that the probability of guilt given the evidence is above a certain numerical threshold, such as 0.9. Under psychological accounts, by contrast, what is essential is that a factfinder reaches a certain psychological attitude toward guilt, such as certainty or unwavering belief, when contemplating the evidence. An adequate account should provide a normative explanation for why guilt BARD warrants punishment. Psychological accounts are more likely to meet this challenge than probabilistic, it is argued. The permissibility of punishment is likely to be relative to the cognitive attitudes of the punisher, but not to the conditional probability of guilt in light of the evidence.

It was common enough in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to find philosophers holding the position that for something to be ‘in the mind’ and for that mind to be conscious of it are one and the same thing. The thought is that consciousness is a relation between a mind and a mental entity playing the same role as the relation of inherence found between a substance and qualities belonging to it. What it is, on this view, for something to ‘inhere’ in the mind is for that mind to be conscious of it. Locke was explicit in his acceptance of such a claim, writing, for instance,[T]o be in the Mind, and, never to be perceived, is all one, as to say, any thing is, and is not, in the Mind.

Hobbes believed there was nothing more to freedom than the ability to do as we choose. According to this view, freedom is undermined only by ropes and chains, those features of our circumstances that prevent the realization of choices. Such views have been criticized on the grounds that freedom can be undermined also by forces that perniciously influence what we choose. Indoctrination, coercion and psychological disorders such as addiction and compulsion detract from freedom by influencing what we will rather than by determining what we do independently of what we will. Freedom of will is as much a part of full-fledged free agency as freedom of action, and an agent who does not face obstacles to the realization of her choices possesses only freedom of action. This dissertation has two aims: supplement the Hobbesean view of free agency with an account of freedom of will, and examine the account of free agency offered by John Locke, an account that also extends Hobbes' view. ;Both the view for which I argue and the view that Locke defends involve the idea that an agent who lacks freedom of will--who lacks whatever it is that is needed for full-fledged free agency over and above freedom of action--falls short of exemplifying an ideal of agency. The first half of the dissertation argues in favor of views that analyze freedom of will through appeal to ideals of agency, and a particular conception of the relevant ideal. The second of these tasks is approached through examination of the freedom-undermining effects of irresistible desires and threats. ;The second half of the dissertation examines Locke's addition to Hobbes' account of freedom of action in his intriguing conception of volition and voluntary action, the particular conception of ideal agency that informs Locke's conception of freedom of will, the arguments that Locke employs in arguing against alternative conceptions of freedom of will, and the relations between his conception of free agency and his view of personal identity.