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44Psychology and Free Will: A CommentaryIn John Baer, James C. Kaufman & Roy F. Baumeister (eds.), Are we free?: psychology and free will, Oxford University Press. pp. 325. 2008.This chapter is a commentary on the others, concentrating on themes that link many of them. It provides conceptual background on free will, distinguishes among distinct philosophical positions on the topic (including compatibilist and incompatibilist positions), discusses determinism and laws of nature, connects free will to consciousness, critically examines Benjamin Libet's work on free will and consciousness, and considers the light that Daniel Wegner's contribution to the volume sheds on the…Read more
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58Socratic akratic actionPhilosophical Papers 25 (3): 149-159. 1996.I will argue that some changes of mind about what it is best to do are akratic occurrences and that the associated overt actions are derivatively akratic, and I will explain how akratic episodes of this kind are possible. Even if Socrates is mistaken in denying the reality of strict akratic action, he has identified an important phenomenon that deserves more attention than it has received.
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62Have I Unmasked Self-Deception or Am I Self-Deceived?In Clancy W. Martin (ed.), The philosophy of deception, Oxford University Press. pp. 260. 2009.This chapter separates the problem of self-deception into two component questions: how it happens and what it is. The key to this chapter's account of self-deception is called “deflationary view”. Self-deception, it notes, does not entail “intentionally deceiving oneself; intending to deceive oneself; intending to make it easier for oneself to believe something; concurrently believing each of two explicitly contrary propositions”. The chapter also offers a discussion of the notion of “twisted se…Read more
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50Review of The Significance of Free Will (review)Journal of Philosophy 95 (11): 581-584. 1998.No abstract available.
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26Aristotle on the Justification of EndsProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 56 (n/a): 79. 1982.I believe Aristotle's position on practical ends is both illuminating and consistent with the idea that practical archai, and even conceptions of the ultimate end, are subject to justificatory reasoning. The purpose of this paper is substantiate these beliefs.
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19Motivation, Self-Control, and the Agglomeration of DesiresFacta Philosophica 1 (1): 77-86. 1999.
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18Delusional Confabulations and Self-DeceptionIn William Hirstein (ed.), Confabulation: Views From Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Psychology, and Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 139. 2009.How is confabulation related to self-deception? Obviously, that depends on what confabulation and self-deception are. In the first main section, I sketch a position that I have developed elsewhere on self-deception. I turn to confabulation in the second main section. Confabulation in general is more than I can take on in this chapter. I focus on confabulations associated with a trio of delusions.
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201Self-deceptionPhilosophical Quarterly 33 (October): 366-377. 1983.Self-Deception, Properly understood, Is not paradoxical. Although self-Deception involves motivated false belief, It is not properly modeled after "intentional" interpersonal deception. Thus, The major source of paradox is dissolved. Moreover, Even intentional self-Deception need not be paradoxical and there is good reason to believe that a kind of self-Deception which "would" be paradoxical never occurs. Finally, In cases of self-Deception, As in instances of akratic action, There is scope for …Read more
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60Self-Control in ActionIn Shaun Gallagher (ed.), The Oxford handbook of the self, Oxford University Press. 2011.This article describes a neo-Aristotelian conception of self-control, a concept that seems essential to what it means to be a mature human person. It discusses the moral condition known as akrasia and the conception of self that underpins it. While Aristotle regarded the human self to be primarily rational where reason is taken in a strong sense, this article suggests a more holistic conception of the self, where to act out of passion may not mean that one is acting without self-control. This me…Read more
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152Free will and moral responsibility: does either require the other?Philosophical Explorations 18 (3): 297-309. 2015.This article explores the conceptual connections between free action and action for which the agent is morally responsible. Questions addressed include the following. Can agents who are never morally responsible for anything sometimes act freely? Can agents who never act freely be morally responsible for some of their actions? Various compatibilist and incompatibilist responses to these questions are discussed, as is the control over their behavior that ordinary agents attribute to themselves
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86The Oxford handbook of rationality (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2004.Rationality has long been a central topic in philosophy, crossing standard divisions and categories. It continues to attract much attention in published research and teaching by philosophers as well as scholars in other disciplines, including economics, psychology, and law. The Oxford Handbook of Rationality is an indispensable reference to the current state of play in this vital and interdisciplinary area of study. Twenty-two newly commissioned chapters by a roster of distinguished philosophers…Read more
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102Are intentions self-referential?Philosophical Studies 52 (3): 309-329. 1987.What is it, precisely, that an agent intends when he intends, as we might say, to clean his stove today? What is the content of his intention? In recent years, Gilbert Harman and John Searle have maintained that all intentions are self-referential -- that is, that an adequate expression of the content of any intention makes essential reference to the intention whose content is being expressed. I shall call this the self-referentiality thesis (SRT). Harman, in his paper 'Practical Reasoning', arg…Read more
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191Moral responsibility and history revisitedEthical Theory and Moral Practice 12 (5). 2008.Compatibilists about determinism and moral responsibility disagree with one another about the bearing of agents’ histories on whether or not they are morally responsible for some of their actions. Some stories about manipulated agents prompt such disagreements. In this article, I call attention to some of the main features of my own “history-sensitive” compatibilist proposal about moral responsibility, and I argue that arguments advanced by Michael McKenna and Manuel Vargas leave that proposal u…Read more
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122Libertarianism and Human AgencyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 87 (1): 72-92. 2011.Some scientists have reported what they regard as evidence of indeterministic brain processes that influence behavior (Brembs 2011, Maye et al. 2007). How do these reports bear on the positive side of libertarianism about free will? That is an approximation of my guiding question in this article. I make the question more precise in section 1, in light of some conceptual and scientific background. In the remainder of the article, I seek—and eventually offer—an answer. Topics dis-cussed …Read more
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9Causality, Interpretation, and the Mind (review)Philosophical Review 104 (4): 637. 1995.Child’s aim is to defend a pair of ideas in the philosophy of mind—"interpretationism" and "causalism"—and, especially, to establish their compatibility. "What is essential for interpretationism is the claim that thought is, in its nature, interpretable" ; "interpretability is a necessary condition for thought". Regarding belief, "the interpretationist thought is that we can give an account of the circumstances under which it is true that S believes that p by considering the circumstances under …Read more
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46Free Will and NeurosciencePhilosophic Exchange 43 (1). 2013.Has modern neuroscience shown that free will is an illusion? Those who give an affirmative answer often argue as follows. The overt actions that have been studied in some recent experiments do not have corresponding consciously made decisions or conscious intentions among their causes. Therefore no overt actions have corresponding consciously made decisions or conscious intentions among their causes. This paper challenges this inference, arguing that it is unwarranted.
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48Strength of motivation and being in control - learning from LibetAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 34 (3): 319-32. 1997.It is sometimes suggested that if, whenever we act intentionally, we do, or try to do, what we are most strongly motivated to do at the time, then we are at the mercy of whatever desire happens to be strongest at the time. I have argued elsewhere that this is false (Mele 1987, ch. 5; 1992, ch. 4; 1995, ch. 3; 1996). This essay provides another route to that conclusion, but that is not my primary aim. The goal of this paper is to display the bearing of some well-known experiments by physiologist …Read more
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16Agnostic autonomism revisitedIn J. Stacey Taylor (ed.), Personal Autonomy: New Essays on Personal Autonomy and Its Role in Contemporary Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2005.Autonomy, as I understand it, is associated with a family of freedom concepts: free will, free choice, free action, and the like. In much of the philosophical literature discussed in this chapter, issues are framed in terms of freedom rather than autonomy, but we are talking about (aspects of) the same thing. Libertarians argue that determinism precludes autonomy by, for example, precluding an agent's being ultimately responsible for anything. Some compatibilist believers in autonomy argue that …Read more
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344Manipulation, Compatibilism, and Moral ResponsibilityThe Journal of Ethics 12 (3-4): 263-286. 2008.This article distinguishes among and examines three different kinds of argument for the thesis that moral responsibility and free action are each incompatible with the truth of determinism: straight manipulation arguments; manipulation arguments to the best explanation; and original-design arguments. Structural and methodological matters are the primary focus
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183Intention, intentional action, and moral responsibilityPhilosophical Studies 82 (3). 1996.Philosophers traditionally have been concerned both to explain intentional behavior and to evaluate it from a moral point of view. Some have maintained that whether actions (and their consequences) properly count as intended sometimes hinges on moral considerations - specifically, considerations of moral responsibility. The same claim has been made about an action's properly counting as having been done intentionally. These contentions will be made more precise in subsequent sections, where infl…Read more
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55Rational Intentions and the Toxin PuzzleProtoSociology 8 39-52. 1996.Gregory Kavka’s toxin puzzle has spawned a lively literature about the nature of intention and of rational intention in particular. This paper is largely a critique of a pair of recent responses to the puzzle that focus on the connection between rationally forming an intention to A and rationally A-ing, one by David Gauthier and the other by Edward McClennen. It also critically assesses the two main morals Kavka takes reflection on the puzzle to support, morals about the nature of intention and …Read more
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4Intentions by DefaultPacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (2): 155-166. 1989.If, as much recent work in the philosophy of action suggests, intention plays a crucial role in the production of intentional action, a complete theory of explanation of intentional action should provide an account of the production of intentions themselves. I shall not offer a perfectly general account in this paper. Rather, I shall limit my investigation to intentions formed or acquired on the basis of practical evaluative inference and to the role of some important kinds of evaluative judgmen…Read more
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52Exciting intentionsPhilosophical Studies 59 (3): 289-312. 1990.In this paper, I restrict the discussion to overt intentional action, intentional action that essentially involves peripheral bodily movement. My guiding question is this: If there is a specific motivational role that intention is plausibly regarded as playing in all cases of overt intentional action, in virtue of what feature(s) of intention does it play this role? I am looking for an answer that can be articulated in the terminology of intentionalist psychology.
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60Surrounding Free Will: Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience (edited book)Oup Usa. 2014.This cutting-edge volume showcases work supported by a four-year, 4.4 million dollar project on free will and science. In fourteen new articles and an introduction, contributors explore the subject of free will from the perspectives of neuroscience; social, cognitive, and developmental psychology; and philosophy
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33Agnostic AutonomismIn J. Stacey Taylor (ed.), Personal Autonomy: New Essays on Personal Autonomy and Its Role in Contemporary Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2005.Professor Mele uses the term `autonomy' where other philosophers have spoken of `freedom', `free will' and the like. His well-worked-out paper, which is individual in more than its usage, is not committed to either of the tired doctrines that determinism is inconsistent with autonomy and that it is consistent with it. He is agnostic about which choice to make. Some proponents of the first doctrine, those who believe determinism, draw the conclusion that there is no autonomy. Some proponents of t…Read more
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243Motivation and agencyOxford University Press. 2003.What place does motivation have in the lives of intelligent agents? Mele's answer is sensitive to the concerns of philosophers of mind and moral philosophers and informed by empirical work. He offers a distinctive, comprehensive, attractive view of human agency. This book stands boldly at the intersection of philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and metaphysics.
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144Irrationality: A precisPhilosophical Psychology 1 (2): 173-177. 1988.My primary aim in Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control (1987) is to show that and how akratic action and self-deception are possible. The control that normal agents have over their actions and beliefs figures in the analysis and explanation of both phenomena. For that reason, an examination of self-control plays a central role in the book. In addition, I devote a chapter each to akratic belief and the explanation of intentional action. A precis of the book will pr…Read more
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50Literary Theory After Davidson (review) (review)Philosophy and Literature 18 (1): 165-167. 1994.A book review of Literary Theory After Davidson edited by Reed Way Dasenbrock.
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |