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335Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in LifeOxford University Press. 2014.Derk Pereboom articulates and defends an original, forward-looking conception of moral responsibility. He argues that although we may not possess the kind of free will that is normally considered necessary for moral responsibility, this does not jeopardize our sense of ourselves as agents, or a robust sense of achievement and meaning in life
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763Defending hard incompatibilismMidwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (1): 228-247. 2005.In _Living Without Free Will_, I develop and argue for a view according to which our being morally responsible would be ruled out if determinism were true, and also if indeterminism were true and the causes of our actions were exclusively events.1 Absent agent causation, indeterministic causal histories are as threatening to moral responsibility as deterministic histories are, and a generalization argument from manipulation cases shows that deterministic histories indeed undermine moral responsi…Read more
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124Consciousness and the Prospects of PhysicalismOxford University Press. 2011.In this book, Derk Pereboom explores how physicalism might best be formulated and defended against the best anti-physicalist arguments. Two responses to the knowledge and conceivability arguments are set out and developed. The first exploits the open possibility that introspective representations fail to represent mental properties as they are in themselves; specifically, that introspection represents phenomenal properties as having certain characteristic qualitative natures, which these propert…Read more
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7A Compatibilist Account of the Beliefs Required for Rational DeliberationThe Journal of Ethics 12 (3-4): 287-306. 2008.A traditional concern for determinists is that the epistemic conditions an agent must satisfy to deliberate about which of a number of distinct actions to perform threaten to conflict with a belief in determinism and its evident consequences. I develop an account of the sort that specifies two epistemic requirements, an epistemic openness condition and a belief in the efficacy of deliberation, whose upshot is that someone who believes in determinism and its evident consequences can deliberate wi…Read more
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75Conceptual structure and the individuation of contentPhilosophical Perspectives 9 401-428. 1995.Current attempts to understand psychological content divide into two families of views. According to externalist accounts such as those advanced by Tyler Burge and Ruth Millikan, psychological content does not supervene on the physical features of the individual subject, but is fixed partially by the nature of the world external to her.1 In the rival functional role theories developed by Ned Block and Brian Loar, content does supervene on the physical features of the individual, and is, in addit…Read more
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11Book ReviewsJohn Martin Fischer,. My Way.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. 260. $45.00Ethics 117 (4): 754-757. 2007.
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113Alternative possibilities and causal historiesPhilosopical Perspectives 14 (s14): 119-138. 2000.
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21Bats, Brain Scientists, and the Limitations of IntrospectionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (2): 315-329. 1994.
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25A Hard-line Reply to Pereboom’s Four-Case Manipulation ArgumentPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (1): 142-159. 2008.
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51Consciousness and introspective inaccuracyIn Samuel Newlands & Larry M. Jorgensen (eds.), Metaphysics and the good: themes from the philosophy of Robert Merrihew Adams, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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167Bats, brain scientists, and the limitations of introspectionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (2): 315-29. 1994.
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12Early Modern Philosophical TheologyIn Philip Quinn & Charles Taliaferro (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Blackwell. 1996.
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10Book Review. Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. Randolph Clarke. (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (1): 269-72. 2007.
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63Free Will: A Contemporary IntroductionRoutledge. 2014.If my ability to react freely is constrained by forces beyond my control, am I still morally responsible for the things I do? The question of whether, how and to what extent we are responsible for our own actions has always been central to debates in philosophy and theology, and has been the subject of much recent research in cognitive science. And for good reason- the views we take on free will affect the choices we make as individuals, the moral judgments we make of others, and they will infor…Read more
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275Kant's theory of causation and its eighteenth-century German backgroundPhilosophical Review 119 (4): 565-591. 2010.This critical notice highlights the important contributions that Eric Watkins's writings have made to our understanding of theories about causation developed in eighteenth-century German philosophy and by Kant in particular. Watkins provides a convincing argument that central to Kant's theory of causation is the notion of a real ground or causal power that is non-Humean (since it doesn't reduce to regularities or counterfactual dependencies among events or states) and non-Leibnizean because it d…Read more
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197A hard-line reply to the multiple-case manipulation argumentPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (1): 160-170. 2008.No Abstract
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15The Rationalists: Critical Essays on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1999.This book brings together thirteen articles on the most discussed thinkers in the rationalist movement: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Malebranche. These articles address the topics in metaphysics and epistemology that figure most prominently in contemporary work on these philosophers. The articles have all been produced since 1980, and their authors are among the most respected in the field.
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178A Compatibilist Account of the Epistemic Conditions on Rational DeliberationThe Journal of Ethics 12 (3-4). 2008.A traditional concern for determinists is that the epistemic conditions an agent must satisfy to deliberate about which of a number of distinct actions to perform threaten to conflict with a belief in determinism and its evident consequences. I develop an account of the sort that specifies two epistemic requirements, an epistemic openness condition and a belief in the efficacy of deliberation, whose upshot is that someone who believes in determinism and its evident consequences can deliberate wi…Read more
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600Free Will Skepticism and BypassingIn Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology, Vol. 4, Mit Press. 2014.Discusses Eddy Nahmias' “Is Free Will an Illusion?”
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48Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral ResponsibilityLexington Books. 2013.Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility is an edited collection of new essays by an internationally recognized line-up of contributors. It is aimed at readers who wish to explore the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications
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6And Divine ProvidenceIn Ken Perszyk (ed.), Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, Oxford University Press. pp. 262. 2011.
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88Reasons-responsiveness, alternative possibilities, and manipulation arguments against compatibilism: Reflections on John Martin Fischer's my wayPhilosophical Books 47 (3): 198-212. 2006.
Ithaca, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |