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18The Direct Argument for IncompatibilismIn David Widerker & Ira M. Schnall (eds.), David Palmer (ed.) Libertarian Free Will, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 88-106., . pp. 88-106. 2014.Peter van Inwagen's Direct Argument (DA) purports to establish the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility, without appealing to the notion of avoidability, a notion on whose analysis compatibilists and incompatibilists disagree. Van Inwagen intended DA to refute compatibilism, or at least to shift the burden of proof onto the compatibilist. In this paper, we offer a critical assessment of DA. We examine a variety of objections to DA due to John Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Ishtiyaq…Read more
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10Freedom from Necessity: The Metaphysical Basis of ResponsibilityJournal of Philosophy 90 (2): 98. 1993.
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Libertarianism and Frankfurt's Attack on the Principle of Alternative PossibilitiesIn Gary Watson (ed.), Free will, Oxford University Press. 1982.
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37Pereboom’s Defense of Deliberation-Compatibilism: A Problem RemainsThe Journal of Ethics 23 (3): 333-345. 2019.Pereboom’s defense of deliberation-compatibilism is the most elaborate and most sophisticated current attempt to defend this position. In this paper, I have provided a careful, and open-minded assessment of that defense. The conclusion that emerged is that it is subject to an important objection that leaves him with no explanation of the relevant difference between a scenario in which it would irrational for an agent to deliberate what to do, and a scenario the deliberation-compatibilist would c…Read more
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13Zimmerman on moral responsibility, obligation and alternate possibilitiesAnalysis 54 (4): 285-287. 1994.
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21Blameworthiness, Non‐robust Alternatives, and the Principle of Alternative ExpectationsMidwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (1): 292-306. 2005.
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15Cartesian Intuitions and Anomalous MonismGrazer Philosophische Studien 43 (1): 95-100. 1992.Recently, Colin McGinn has argued that Kripke's Cartesian argument against the mind-body identity thesis is not effective against anomalous monism. This paper attempts to show that the Cartesian has at his disposal an argument that is stronger than that formulated by Kripke, and one that cannot be rebutted by the anomalous monist in the way suggested by McGinn. The paper concludes with a suggestion as to the sort of identity theory one would have to subscribe to in order to resist the stronger C…Read more
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1584On the Luck Objection to LibertarianismIn Andrei Buckareff, Carlos Moya & Sergi Rosell (eds.), Agency, Freedom, and Moral Responsibility, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 94-115. 2015.Abstract Libertarians typically believe that we are morally responsible for the choices (or decisions) we make only if those choices are free, and our choices are free only if they are neither caused nor nomically necessitated by antecedent events. Recently, there have been a number of attempts by philosophers to refute libertarianism by arguing that because a libertarianly free decision (choice) is both causally and nomically undetermined, which decision an agent makes in a deliberative situat…Read more
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47Two fallacious objections to Adams' soft/hard fact distinctionPhilosophical Studies 57 (1). 1989.
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74Libertarianism and the Philosophical Significance of Frankfurt ScenariosJournal of Philosophy 103 (4): 163-187. 2006.
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124A defense of Frankfurt-friendly libertarianismPhilosophical Explorations 12 (2). 2009.Elsewhere, I proposed a libertarian-based account of freedom and moral blameworthiness which like Harry Frankfurt's 1969 account rejects the principle of alternative possibilities (which I call, Frankfurt-friendly libertarianism). In this paper I develop this account further (a) by responding to an important objection to it raised by Carlos Moya; (b) by exploring the question why, if unavoidability per se does not exonerate from blame, the Frankfurt-friendly libertarian is justified in exculpati…Read more
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474Libertarianism and Frankfurt's attack on the principle of alternative possibilitiesPhilosophical Review 104 (2): 247-61. 1995.
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1Responsibility and Frankfurt-type examplesIn Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, Oxford University Press. 2001.
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80Blameworthiness, non-robust alternatives, and the principle of alternative expectationsMidwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (1). 2005.
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71A problem for the eternity solutionInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 29 (2): 87-95. 1991.
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553Libertarian Freedom and the Avoidability of DecisionsFaith and Philosophy 12 (1): 113-118. 1995.Recently, John Fischer has applied Frankfurt’s well-known counter-example to the principle of alternate possibilities to refute the traditional libertarian position which holds that a necessary condition for an agent’s decision (choice) to be free in the sense of freedom required for moral responsibility is that the decision not be causally determined, and that the agent could have avoided making it. Fischer’s argument has consequently led various philosophers to develop libertarian accounts of …Read more
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892A New Argument Against Libertarian Free Will?Analysis 76 (3): 296-306. 2016.In this paper, I present an argument that shows that the belief in libertarian freedom is inconsistent with two assumptions widely accepted by those who are physicalists with regard to the relation between the mental and the physical - that mental properties are distinct from physical properties, and that mental properties supervene on physical properties. After presenting the argument, I trace its implications for the question of the compatibility of libertarian free will and physicalism in gen…Read more
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248Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities (edited book)Ashgate. 2003.This book explores an important issue within the free will debate: the relation between free will and moral responsibility.
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21In Defense of Davidson's Identity Thesis Regarding Action IndividuationDialectica 43 (3): 281-288. 1989.
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21Cartesian Intuitions and Anomalous MonismGrazer Philosophische Studien 43 (1): 95-100. 1992.Recently, Colin McGinn has argued that Kripke's Cartesian argument against the mind-body identity thesis is not effective against anomalous monism. This paper attempts to show that the Cartesian has at his disposal an argument that is stronger than that formulated by Kripke, and one that cannot be rebutted by the anomalous monist in the way suggested by McGinn. The paper concludes with a suggestion as to the sort of identity theory one would have to subscribe to in order to resist the stronger C…Read more
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962The Direct Argument and the burden of proofAnalysis 72 (1): 25-36. 2012.Peter van Inwagen's Direct Argument (DA) for incompatibilism purports to establish incompatibilism with respect to moral responsibility and determinism without appealing to assumptions that compatibilists usually consider controversial. Recently, Michael McKenna has presented a novel critique of DA. McKenna's critique raises important issues about philosophical dialectics. In this article, we address those issues and contend that his argument does not succeed
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652Why God's beliefs are not hard-type soft factsReligious Studies 38 (1): 77-88. 2002.John Fischer has attacked the Ockhamistic solution to the freedom–foreknowledge dilemma by arguing that: (1) God's prior beliefs about the future, though being soft facts about the past, are soft facts of a special sort, what he calls ‘hard-type soft facts’, i.e. soft facts, the constitutive properties of which are ‘hard’, or ‘temporally non-relational properties’; (2) in this respect, such facts are like regular past facts which are subject to the fixity of the past. In this paper, I take issue…Read more
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148In Defense of Non-Causal LibertarianismAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 55 (1): 1-14. 2018.Non-Causal Libertarianism (NCL) is a libertarian position which aims to provide a non-causal account of action and freedom to do otherwise. NCL has been recently criticized from a number of quarters, notably from proponents of free will skepticism and agent-causation. The main complaint that has been voiced against NCL is that it does not provide a plausible account of an agent’s control over her action, and therefore, the account of free action it offers is inadequate. Some critics (mainly agen…Read more
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Philosophy of Mind |