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34Free willIn Roger Crisp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics, Oxford University Press. 2013.This chapter analyses the problem of free will and moral responsibility, to which the history of philosophy records three standard reactions. Compatibilists maintain that it is possible for us to have the free will required for moral responsibility if determinism is true. Others contend that determinism is not compossible with our having the free will required for moral responsibility – they are incompatibilists – but they resist the reasons for determinism and claim that we do possess free will…Read more
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1879Hard-Incompatibilist Existentialism: Neuroscience, Punishment, and Meaning in LifeIn Gregg D. Caruso & Owen J. Flanagan (eds.), Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience, Oxford University Press. 2018.As philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism continue to gain traction, we are likely to see a fundamental shift in the way people think about free will and moral responsibility. Such shifts raise important practical and existential concerns: What if we came to disbelieve in free will? What would this mean for our interpersonal relationships, society, morality, meaning, and the law? What would it do to our standing as human beings? Would it cause nihilism and despair as som…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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114Alternative 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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2527Four Views on Free WillWiley-Blackwell. 2007.Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moral responsibility, and determinism, this text represents the most up-to-date account of the four major positions in the free will debate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposing viewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism, and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’s explanation of his particular view; the second half allows them to directly respond to each other’s arg…Read more
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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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602Free 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
Ithaca, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |