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165Moral Responsibility, Guilt, and RetributivismThe Journal of Ethics 20 (1-3): 121-137. 2016.This paper defends a minimal desert thesis, according to which someone who is blameworthy for something deserves to feel guilty, to the right extent, at the right time, because of her culpability. The sentiment or emotion of guilt includes a thought that one is blameworthy for something as well as an unpleasant affect. Feeling guilty is not a matter of inflicting suffering on oneself, and it need not involve any thought that one deserves to suffer. The desert of a feeling of guilt is a kind of m…Read more
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114Abilities (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (2): 451-458. 2013.The paper is a contribution to a symposium on Dana Nelkin's MAKING SENSE OF FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY. Nelkin advances accounts of moral freedom--the freedom required for moral responsibility--and deliberative freedom--the freedom that any rational deliberator must believe in. She argues that the two come to fundamentally the same thing. I raise doubt about this claim, and also about whether the kind of ability that Nelkin characterizes suffices for responsibility in all cases.
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144Intrinsic finksPhilosophical Quarterly 58 (232). 2008.Dispositions can be finkish, prone to disappear in circumstances that would commonly trigger their characteristic manifestations. Can a disposition be finkish because of something intrinsic to the object possessing that disposition? Sungho Choi has argued that this is not possible, and many agree. Here it is argued that no good case has been made for ruling out the possibility of intrinsic finks; on the contrary, there is good reason to accept it.
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17Doing What One Wants Less: A Reappraisal of the Law of DesirePacific Philosophical Quarterly 75 (1): 1-11. 1994.
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149Because She Wanted ToThe Journal of Ethics 14 (1): 27-35. 2010.Carl Ginet has advanced an account of action explanation on which actions can be entirely uncaused and action explanations need not cite causal factors. Several objections have been raised against this view, and Ginet has recently defended the account. Here it is argued that Ginet’s defense fails to come to grips with the chief problems faced by his view.
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66Reflections on an Argument from LuckPhilosophical Topics 32 (1-2): 47-64. 2004.An argument from luck purports to show than an undetermined action cannot be a free action. I examine here an argument of this sort recently set out by Alfred Mele. Mele does not endorse the argument; rather, he claims, it constitutes a serious challenge to standard libertarian accounts of free will, and he has some proposals about how the challenge can be met. I offer an assessment of Mele's proposals and some observations on the strengths and weaknesses of the argument for luck.
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216Agent causation and event causation in the production of free actionPhilosophical Topics 24 (2): 19-48. 1996.
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203Opposing powersPhilosophical Studies 149 (2). 2010.A disposition mask is something that prevents a disposition from manifesting despite the occurrence of that disposition’s characteristic stimulus, and without eliminating that disposition. Several authors have maintained that masks must be things extrinsic to the objects that have the masked dispositions. Here it is argued that this is not so; masks can be intrinsic to the objects whose dispositions they mask. If that is correct, then a recent attempt to distinguish dispositional properties from…Read more
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65Libertarianism, action theory, and the loci of responsibilityPhilosophical Studies 98 (2): 153-174. 2000.
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3Alternatives for LibertariansIn Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, 2nd edition, . pp. 329-48. 2011.This essay examines several varieties of libertarian accounts of free will. Some require free actions to be uncaused, some require agent causation, and some require non-deterministic event causation. Difficulties are raised for all of these varieties
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44Freedom of the WillIn Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2002.This chapter in the Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind surveys issues concerning free will. Topics include the compatibility question, compatibilist accounts, and libertarian accounts of free will
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11Deliberation and Beliefs About one's AbilitiesPacific Philosophical Quarterly 73 (2): 101-113. 1992.
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31The Metaphysics of Free Will (review)Philosophical Review 106 (3): 450-453. 1997.The first, the Transfer Version, employs an inference principle concerning the transfer of one's powerlessness with respect to certain facts. The principle says, roughly, "If a person is powerless over one thing, and powerless over that thing's leading to another, then the person is powerless over the second thing". The key premises are the Fixity of the Past and the Fixity of the Laws. Fischer defends the transfer principle against objections that have been raised by Anthony Kenny and Michael S…Read more
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139Autonomous reasons for intendingAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (2). 2008.An autonomous reason for intending to A would be a reason for so intending that is not, and will not be, a reason for A-ing. Some puzzle cases, such as the one that figures in the toxin puzzle, suggest that there can be such reasons for intending, but these cases have special features that cloud the issue. This paper describes cases that more clearly favour the view that we can have practical reasons of this sort. Several objections to this view are considered and rejected. Finally, it is consid…Read more
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60Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (1): 230-232. 1997.
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169Nonreductive physicalism and the causal powers of the mentalErkenntnis 51 (2-3): 295-322. 1999.Nonreductive physicalism is currently one of the most widely held views about the world in general and about the status of the mental in particular. However, the view has recently faced a series of powerful criticisms from, among others, Jaegwon Kim. In several papers, Kim has argued that the nonreductivist's view of the mental is an unstable position, one harboring contradictions that push it either to reductivism or to eliminativism. The problems arise, Kim maintains, when we consider the caus…Read more
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85Autonomous agents: From self-control to autonomy. Alfred R. Mele (review)Mind 110 (439): 792-796. 2001.
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316Incompatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free WillStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021.To have free will is to have what it takes to act freely. When an agent acts freely—when she exercises her free will—what she does is up to her. A plurality of alternatives is open to her, and she determines which she pursues. When she does, she is an ultimate source or origin of her action. So runs a familiar conception of free will.
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187What is an omission?Philosophical Issues 22 (1): 127-143. 2012.This paper examines three views of what an omission or an instance of refraining is. The view advanced is that in many cases, an omission is simply an absence of an action of some type. However, generally one’s not doing a certain thing counts as an omission only if there is some norm, standard, or ideal that calls for one’s doing that thing.
APA Eastern Division
Tallahassee, Florida, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Free Will |
Moral Responsibility |
Dispositions and Powers |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Normative Ethics |