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38Self-deception and akratic belief: A rejoinderPhilosophical Psychology 1 (2): 201-206. 1988.Self-deception is standardly viewed as a motivated phenomenon in both the philosophical and the psychological literature. In Irrationality, I maintain that it is at least characteristically motivated. Knight's provocative thesis, that there is an important unmotivated species of self-deception, is consistent with this. Still, if she is right, I overlooked a kind of self-deception that merits close attention.
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7The Structure of Emotions (review)Philosophical Books 29 (4): 224-225. 1988.A book review of Robert M. Gordon's The Structure of Emotions.
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99Decisions, Intentions, Urges, and Free Will: Why Libet Has Not Shown What He Says He HasIn J. Campbell, M. O'Rourke & D. Shier (eds.), Explanation and Causation: Topics in Contemporary Philosophy, Mit Press. pp. 4--241. 2007.No abstract available.
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43Motivational TiesJournal of Philosophical Research 16 431-442. 1991.Must a rational ass equidistant from two equally attractive bales of hay starve for lack of a reason to prefer one bale to the other? Must a human being faced with a comparable, explicitly motivational, tie fail to pursue either option? Surely, one suspects, some practical resolution is possible. Surely, ties of either sort need not result in death or paralysis. But why? Donald Davidson has suggested that, in the human case, resolution depends upon the tie’s being broken---upon the agent’s comin…Read more
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254Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free WillOxford University Press USA. 2014.Does free will exist? The question has fueled heated debates spanning from philosophy to psychology and religion. The answer has major implications, and the stakes are high. To put it in the simple terms that have come to dominate these debates, if we are free to make our own decisions, we are accountable for what we do, and if we aren't free, we're off the hook.There are neuroscientists who claim that our decisions are made unconsciously and are therefore outside of our control and social psych…Read more
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89Aristotle on Akrasia and KnowledgeModern Schoolman 58 (3): 137-157. 1981.In this paper I shall argue that there is good reason to doubt a traditional supposition about this pair of distinctions between types of knowledge used to address worries about Aristotle's account of akrasia, and I shall develop an interpretation on which the supposition is not made. It will be seen that the interpretation to be advanced - on which the entire chapter expresses Aristotle's own position on akrasia - resolves the apparent internal and external inconsistencies; and I hope to show a…Read more
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309The philosophy of action (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1997.The latest offering in the highly successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, The Philosophy of Action features contributions from twelve leading figures in the field, including: Robert Audi, Michael Bratman, Donald Davidson, Wayne Davis, Harry Frankfurt, Carl Ginet, Gilbert Harman, Jennifer Hornsby, Jaegwon Kim, Hugh McCann, Paul Moser, and Brian O'Shaughnessy. Alfred Mele provides an introductory essay on the topics chosen and the questions they deal with. Topics addressed include intenti…Read more
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75Crimes of Negligence: Attempting and Succeeding (review)Criminal Law and Philosophy 6 (3): 387-398. 2012.In chapter 6 of Attempts , Gideon Yaffe defends the thesis that it is “possible to attempt crimes of negligence” ( 2010 , p. 173). I am persuaded that he is right about this, provided that “attempt crimes of negligence” is read as (potentially misleading) shorthand for “attempt to bring it about that we commit crimes of negligence.” But I find certain parts of his defense unpersuasive. My discussion of those parts of his argument motivates the following thesis: Not only can one attempt to bring …Read more
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114Moral responsibility and the continuation problemPhilosophical Studies 162 (2): 237-255. 2013.Typical incompatibilists about moral responsibility and determinism contend that being basically morally responsible for a decision one makes requires that, if that decision has proximal causes, it is not deterministically caused by them. This article develops a problem for this contention that resembles what is sometimes called the problem of present (or cross-world) luck. However, the problem makes no reference to luck nor to contrastive explanation. This article also develops a solution.
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55Chisholm on freedomMetaphilosophy 34 (5): 630-648. 2003.This critical examination of Roderick Chisholm's agent causal brand of libertarianism develops a problem about luck that undermines his earlier and later libertarian views on free will and moral responsibility and defends the thesis that a modest libertarian alternative considerably softens the problem. The alternative calls for an indeterministic connection in the action-producing process that is further removed from action than Chisholm demands. The article also explores the implications of a …Read more
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101Free Will and ScienceIn Robert Kane (ed.), Oxford Handbook on Free Will, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press. 2011.This article examines the work of two figures in fields whose work has had a significant impact on recent free-will debates, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet and psychologist Daniel Wegner. Libet's groundbreaking experimental studies on human subjects relating brain activities to the appearance or production of conscious experience, volition, and willed action have been much discussed by philosophers and scientists over the past few decades and have influenced subsequent scientific research on thes…Read more
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142A Dialogue on Free Will and ScienceOup Usa. 2013.A Dialogue on Free Will and Science is a brief and intriguing book discussing the scientific challenges of free will. Presented through a dialogue, the format allows ideas to emerge and be clarified and then evaluated in a natural way. Engaging and accessible, it offers students a compelling look at free will and science
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70Is there a place for intention in an analysis of intentional action?Philosophia 27 (3-4): 419-432. 1999.My concern here with the possibility of an acceptable intention-involving explication of intentional action is, specifically, a concern with the possibility of such an explication that treats intentions as attitudes.
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96Scientific Skepticism about Free WillIn Thomas Nadelhoffer, Eddy A. Nahmias & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 295. 2010.My topic is recent scientific skepticism about free will. A leading argument for such skepticism features the proposition—defended by Daniel Wegner (2002, 2008) and Benjamin Libet (1985, 2004) among others that conscious intentions (and their physical correlates) never play a role in producing corresponding overt actions. This chapter examines alleged scientific evidence for the truth of this proposition.
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43Conscious Deciding and the Science of Free WillIn Roy Baumeister, Alfred Mele & Kathleen Vohs (eds.), Free will and consciousness: how might they work?, Oxford University Press. pp. 43. 2010.Mele's chapter addresses two primary aims. The first is to develop an experimentally useful conception of conscious deciding. The second is to challenge a certain source of skepticism about free will: the belief that conscious decisions and intentions are never involved in producing corresponding overt actions. The challenge Mele develops has a positive dimension that accords with the aims of this volume: It sheds light on a way in which some conscious decisions and intentions do seem to be effi…Read more
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321Motivation: Essentially motivation-constituting attitudesPhilosophical Review 104 (3): 387-423. 1995.The term 'motivation' has considerable currency both in moral philosophy and in the philosophy of mind. It appears in debates between internalists and externalists about moral judgments and moral reasons, in the related controversy over moral realism, and in explanatory schemes for purposive behavior offered in the philosophy of mind. But what is motivation? My aim in this paper is to elucidate a notion of motivation associated with a popular perspective on intentional conduct, a perspectiv…Read more
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16Passive ActionIn Ghita Holmström-Hintikka & Raimo Tuomela (eds.), Contemporary Action Theory, Volume 1, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1997.Peter was placed — face down and head first — on a sled, and pushed from the top of a high, snow-covered hill. The brisk wind and flying snow swiftly awoke him. In moments, he had his wits about him and surmised that this early morning trip down the hill was part of his initiation into the SAE fraternity. Peter quickly surveyed his options. He could put an end to his trip by sliding off the sled, or by turning it sharply. He could grasp the steering handles and guide the sled down the slope. Or,…Read more
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15Free Action, Moral Responsibility, and Alternative Possibilities: Frankfurt-style Cases RevisitedIn Francesca Castellani & Josef Quitterer (eds.), Agency and Causation in the Human Sciences, Mentis Verlag. 2007.
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127Philosophy of ActionIn Kirk Ludwig (ed.), Contemporary Philosophy in Focus: Donald Davidson, Cambridge University Press. 2003.The basic subject matter of the philosophy of action is a pair of questions: (1) What are actions? (2) How are actions to be explained? The questions call, respectively, for a theory of the nature of action and a theory of the explanation of actions. Donald Davidson has articulated and defended influential answers to both questions. Those answers are the primary focus of this chapter.
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70Against a belief/desire analysis of intentionPhilosophia 18 (2-3): 239-242. 1988.An influential belief/desire analysis of intention proposed by robert audi does not provide sufficient conditions for intention. Intending to "a" entails being settled upon "a"-Ing (or upon trying to "a"), And it entails being willing to "a". But an agent can satisfy audi's conditions for intending to "a" and yet be neither settled upon "a"-Ing (or trying to "a") nor willing to "a". The objection raised poses a serious problem for belief/desire analyses of intention in general
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32Incontinent BeliefJournal of Philosophical Research 16 197-212. 1991.Brian McLaughlin, in “Incontinent Belief” (Journal of Philosophical Research 15 [1989-90], pp. 115-26), takes issue with my investigation, in lrrationality (Oxford University Press, 1987), of a doxastic analogue of akratic action. He deems what I term “strict akratic belief” philosophically uninteresting. In the present paper, I explain that this assessment rests on a serious confusion about the sort of possibility that is at issue in my chapter on the topic, correct a variety of misimpressions,…Read more
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99She intends to tryPhilosophical Studies 55 (1): 101-106. 1989.My aim in this paper is to refute an intriguing argument of Hugh McCann's for the thesis that'S tried to A' entails 'S intended to A. I shall call this the strong intention thesis about trying, or SIT. SIT implies, as McCann observes, that even an agent who thinks that the probability of her A-ing is close to zero intends to A, provided only that she tries to A.
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206Motivation and Agency: PrecisPhilosophical Studies 123 (3): 243-247. 2005.This is a POD only reprint of a 2002 philosophy monograph, which discusses themes related to motivation and human action.
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29Intentions and InterpretationsMLN 107 (5): 931-949. 1992.Even if everything is up for grabs in philosophy, some things are very difficult to doubt. It is hard to believe, for example, that no one ever acts intentionally. Even the most powerful arguments for the unreality of intentional action could do no more, we believe, than place one in roughly the position in which pre-Aristotelian Greeks found themselves when presented with one of Zeno's arguments that nothing can move from any given point A to any other point B. One argument has it, for example,…Read more
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26Mental CausationRevue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 185 (1): 105-106. 1995.Common sense and philosophical tradition agree that mind makes a difference. What we do depends not only on how our bodies are put together, but also on what we think. Explaining how mind can make a difference has proved challenging, however. Some have urged that the project faces an insurmountable dilemma: either we concede that mentalistic explanations of behavior have only a pragmatic standing or we abandon our conception of the physical domain as causally autonomous. Although each option has…Read more
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |