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20Basic Desert, Reactive Attitudes and Free Will (edited book)Routledge. 2015.Basic Desert, Reactive Attitudes and Free Will addresses the issue of whether we can make sense of the widespread conviction that we are morally responsible beings. It focuses on the claim that we deserve to be blamed and punished for our immoral actions, and how this claim can be justified given the philosophical and scientific reasons to believe that we lack the sort of free will required for this sort of desert. Contributions to the book distinguish between, and explore, two clusters of quest…Read more
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267The disappearing agent objection to event-causal libertarianismPhilosophical Studies (1): 1-11. 2012.The question I raise is whether Mark Balaguer’s event-causal libertarianism can withstand the disappearing agent objection. The concern is that with the causal role of the events antecedent to a decision already given, nothing settles whether the decision occurs, and so the agent does not settle whether the decision occurs. Thus it would seem that in this view the agent will not have the control in making decisions required for moral responsibility. I examine whether Balaguer’s position has the …Read more
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28On Baker’s Persons and Bodies (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (3). 2002.1. Consider first Baker’s definition of constitution. In her view, constitution is a relation between concrete individuals. Each concrete individual is fundamentally a member of exactly one primary kind. By definition, any concrete individual has its primary kind membership essentially, so that a concrete individual x’s ceasing to be a member of this kind entails that x ceases to exist. For example, David’s primary kind is statue, Piece’s primary kind is piece of marble. Suppose that x and y are…Read more
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110Why a scientific realist cannot be a functionalistSynthese 88 (September): 341-58. 1991.According to functionalism, mental state types consist solely in relations to inputs, outputs, and other mental states. I argue that two central claims of a prominent and plausible type of scientific realism conflict with the functionalist position. These claims are that natural kinds in a mature science are not reducible to natural kinds in any other, and that all dispositional features of natural kinds can be explained at the type-level. These claims, when applied to psychology, have the conse…Read more
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121Self-understanding in Kant's transcendental deductionSynthese 103 (1). 1995.I argue that §§15–20 of the B-Deduction contain two independent arguments for the applicability of a priori concepts, the first an argument from above, the second an argument from below. The core of the first argument is §16's explanation of our consciousness of subject-identity across self-attributions, while the focus of the second is §18's account of universality and necessity in our experience. I conclude that the B-Deduction comprises powerful strategies for establishing its intended conclu…Read more
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18The Metaphysical and Transcendental DeductionsIn Graham Bird (ed.), A Companion to Kant, Blackwell. 2006.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Apperception Representations of Objects Universality and Necessity Logical Forms of Judgment and Categories The Second Step of the B‐Deduction A Final Word.
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15Structuralism, Anti-Structuralism and ObjectivityPhilosophic Exchange 40 (1). 2010.Structuralist theories describe the entities in their domains solely in terms of relations, while also claiming to be complete theories of the entities in question. Leibniz and Kant insist that no structuralist theory can be a complete theory. Kant believes that the knowledge afforded by structuralist theories is sufficient. However, Jacques Derrida is skeptical of the sufficiency of structuralist theories for stable knowledge of any kind.
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181Stoic Psychotherapy in Descartes and SpinozaFaith and Philosophy 11 (4): 592-625. 1994.The psychotherapeutic theories of Descartes and Spinoza are heavily influenced by Stoicism. Stoic psychotherapy has two central features. First, we have a remarkable degree of voluntary control over our passions, and we can and should exercise this control to keep ourselves from having any irrational passions at all. Second, the universe is determined by the providential divine will, and in any situation we can and should align ourselves with this divine will in order to achieve equanimity. Wher…Read more
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96Theological Determinism and Divine ProvidenceIn Ken Perszyk (ed.), Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, Oxford University Press. 2011.
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209The metaphysics of irreducibilityPhilosophical Studies 63 (August): 125-45. 1991.During the 'sixties and 'seventies, Hilary Putnam, Jerry Fodor, and Richard Boyd, among others, developed a type of materialism that eschews reductionist claims.1 In this view, explana- tions, natural kinds, and properties in psychology do not reduce to counterparts in more basic sciences, such as neurophysiology or physics. Nevertheless, all token psychological entities-- states, processes, and faculties--are wholly constituted of physical entities, ultimately out of entities over which microph…Read more
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42Skepticism about Free WillIn Gregg Caruso (ed.), Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility, Lexington Books. pp. 19. 2013.
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The Explanatory Irrelevance of Alternative PossibilitiesIn Robert Kane (ed.), Free Will (Blackwell Readings in Philosophy), Blackwell. pp. 95-124. 2002.
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Response to Kane, Fischer, and VargasIn John Martin Fischer (ed.), Four Views on Free Will, Blackwell. 2007.
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6The problem of evilIn William Mann (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion, Blackwell. 2004.
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204Source incompatibilism and alternative possibilitiesIn Michael S. McKenna & David Widerker (eds.), Freedom, Responsibility, and Agency: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities, Ashgate. pp. 184--199. 2003.The claim that moral responsibility for an action requires that the agent could have done otherwise is surely attractive. Moreover, it seems reasonable to contend that a requirement of this sort is not merely a necessary condition of little consequence, but that it plays a decisive role in explaining an agent's moral responsibility for an action. For if an agent is to be blameworthy for an action, it seems crucial that she could have done something to avoid this blameworthiness. If she is to be …Read more
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130On Alfred Mele's free will and luckPhilosophical Explorations 10 (2). 2007.I argue that agent-causal libertarianism has a strong initial rejoinder to Mele's luck argument against it, but that his claim that it has yet to be explained how agent-causation yields responsibility-conferring control has significant force. I suggest an avenue of response. Subsequently, I raise objections to Mele's criticisms of my four-case manipulation argument against compatibilism
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38Powers, laws and freedom of the will: Steven Horst: Laws, mind, and free will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011, 277pp, $36.00 HBMetascience 23 (3): 491-495. 2014.Laws, Mind, and Free Will is a highly valuable book for anyone interested in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, or in the problem of free will and moral responsibility. The book has three distinct but related parts. The first presents an anti-empiricist position on the laws of nature, according to which the point of the laws is not primarily to predict kinematic outcomes, but rather to characterize dynamics. One upshot of the account is that the laws have an attenuated role in determinin…Read more
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132Précis of Consciousness and the Prospects of PhysicalismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (3): 715-727. 2013.Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism has three parts. The first (Chapters 1–4) develops a response to the knowledge and conceivability arguments against physicalism, one that features the open possibility that introspective representations represent mental properties as having features they actually lack. The second part (Chapters 5 and 6) proposes a physicalist version of a Russellian Monist answer to these arguments, the core of which is that currently unknown intrinsic physical prop…Read more
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21On Baker's Persons and BodiesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (3): 615-622. 2002.1. Consider first Baker’s definition of constitution. In her view, constitution is a relation between concrete individuals. Each concrete individual is fundamentally a member of exactly one primary kind. By definition, any concrete individual has its primary kind membership essentially, so that a concrete individual x’s ceasing to be a member of this kind entails that x ceases to exist. For example, David’s primary kind is statue, Piece’s primary kind is piece of marble. Suppose that x and y are…Read more
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93On Fischer’s Our Stories (review)Philosophical Studies 158 (3): 523-528. 2012.On Fischer’s Our Stories Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11098-010-9670-5 Authors Derk Pereboom, Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, 218 Goldwin Smith Hall, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.
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203Meaning in life without free willPhilosophic Exchange 33 (1): 19-34. 2002.In a recent article Gary Watson instructively distinguishes two faces or aspects of responsibility. The first is the self-disclosing sense, which is concerned centrally with aretaic or excellence-relevant evaluations of agents. An agent is responsible for an action in this respect when it is an action that is inescapably the agent’s own, if, as a declaration of her adopted ends, it expresses what the agent is about, her identity as an agent. An action for which the agent is responsible in this s…Read more
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53Responses to John Martin Fischer and Dana Nelkin (review)Science, Religion and Culture 1 (3): 218. 2014.I first want to thank John Fischer for his generous appraisal of the book, and for his astute and challenging comments on my treatment of the manipulation argument in Chapter 4. Fischer’s core strategy for resisting this argument is a soft-line reply. Soft-liners claim that in some manipulation cases the agent is not morally responsible, and in others he is. A corollary of the soft-line reply is that there is a plausible compatibilist condition on moral responsibility that has not been met in so…Read more
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Qualitative Inaccuracy and Unconceived Alternatives ReplyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (3): 753-764. 2013.
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74On Baker’s Persons and Bodies (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (3). 2002.1. Consider first Baker’s definition of constitution. In her view, constitution is a relation between concrete individuals. Each concrete individual is fundamentally a member of exactly one primary kind. By definition, any concrete individual has its primary kind membership essentially, so that a concrete individual x’s ceasing to be a member of this kind entails that x ceases to exist. For example, David’s primary kind is statue, Piece’s primary kind is piece of marble. Suppose that x and y are…Read more
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74Replies to Daniel Stoljar, Robert Adams, and Lynne BakerPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (3): 753-764. 2013.
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117Russellian Monism and Absolutely Intrinsic PropertiesIn Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Current Controversies in Philosophy of Mind, Routledge. pp. 40. 2013.
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Philosophy of Religion |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |