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11Abilities (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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20Moral 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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20Intrinsic 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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10Doing What One Wants Less: A Reappraisal of the Law of DesirePacific Philosophical Quarterly 75 (1): 1-11. 1994.
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14Because 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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11Reflections 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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16Agent causation and event causation in the production of free actionPhilosophical Topics 24 (2): 19-48. 1996.
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28Opposing 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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1Alternatives for LibertariansIn Robert Kane (ed.), Oxford Handbook on Free Will, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press. 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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4Libertarianism, action theory, and the loci of responsibilityPhilosophical Studies 98 (2): 153-174. 2000.
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7Free willIn Stephen P. Stich & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), 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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4Deliberation and Beliefs About one's AbilitiesPacific Philosophical Quarterly 73 (2): 101-113. 1992.
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5The 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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17Autonomous 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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1Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (1): 230-232. 1997.
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8Autonomous agents: From self-control to autonomy. Alfred R. Mele (review)Mind 110 (439): 792-796. 2001.
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26Nonreductive 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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55Incompatibilist (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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23What 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.
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22Commanding Intentions and Prize-Winning DecisionsPhilosophical Studies 133 (3): 391-409. 2007.It is widely held that any justifying reason for making a decision must also be a justifying reason for doing what one thereby decides to do. Desires to win decision prizes, such as the one that figures in Kavka’s toxin puzzle, might be thought to be exceptions to this principle, but the principle has been defended in the face of such examples. Similarly, it has been argued that a command to intend cannot give one a justifying reason to intend as commanded. Here it is argued that ordinary agents…Read more
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3Review: Thomas Pink's The Psychology of Freedom (1996 CUP) (review)Philosophical Review 107 (4): 634-637. 1998.Our conception of freedom requires, then, that decisions have an "executive function": making a decision must ensure that one will remain motivated to act as decided, and, provided that the decision is rational, it must leave one disposed to act rationally in performing the action decided upon. Second, since, as we conceive our freedom, it is by making decisions that we exercise control over future actions, decisions must themselves be actions. Most of the book is devoted to developing and defen…Read more
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11Agent causation and the problem of luckPacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (3): 408-421. 2005.: On a standard libertarian account of free will, an agent acts freely on some occasion only if there remains, until the action is performed, some chance that the agent will do something else instead right then. These views face the objection that, in such a case, it is a matter of luck whether the agent does one thing or another. This paper considers the problem of luck as it bears on agent‐causal libertarian accounts. A view of this type is defended against a recent and challenging version of …Read more
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117Omissions, Responsibility, and SymmetryPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3): 594-624. 2011.It is widely held that one can be responsible for doing something that one was unable to avoid doing. This paper focuses primarily on the question of whether one can be responsible for not doing something that one was unable to do. The paper begins with an examination of the account of responsibility for omissions offered by John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, arguing that in many cases it yields mistaken verdicts. An alternative account is sketched that jibes with and explains judgments about…Read more
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68Free Will and Agential PowersOxford Studies in Agency and Moral Responsibility 3 6-33. 2015.Free will is often said—by compatibilists and incompatibilists alike—to be a power (or complex of powers) of agents. This paper offers proposals for, and examines the prospects of, a powers-conception of free will that takes the powers in question to be causal dispositions. A difficulty for such an account stems from the idea that when one exercises free will, it is up to oneself whether one wills to do this or that. The paper also briefly considers whether a powers-conception that invokes power…Read more
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Libertarian views: Noncausal and event-causal sccounts of free agencyIn Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, Oxford University Press. pp. 356--385. 2001.
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6Determinism and our self-conception (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80 (1): 242-250. 2009.This paper is a contribution to a symposium on John Fischer's MY WAY. In much of that work, Fischer says, he aims to show the "resiliency of our fundamental conception of ourselves as possessing control and being morally responsible agents," and particularly the compatibility of that conception with determinism. I argue that his conclusions leave several important aspects of our ordinary conception of our agency hostage to determinism. Further, there is significant tension between certain of his…Read more
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10The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control (review)Philosophical Review 106 (3): 450. 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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Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Free Will |
Moral Responsibility |
Dispositions and Powers |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Normative Ethics |