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15When Are We Self-Deceived?Humana Mente 5 (20). 2012.This article’s point of departure is a proto-analysis that I have suggested of entering self-deception in acquiring a belief and an associated set of jointly sufficient conditions for self-deception that I have proposed. Partly with the aim of fleshing out an important member of the proposed set of conditions, I provide a sketch of my view about how self-deception happens. I then return to the proposed set of jointly sufficient conditions and offer a pair of amendments.
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485Autonomous Agents: From Self Control to AutonomyOxford University Press. 1995.Autonomous Agents addresses the related topics of self-control and individual autonomy. "Self-control" is defined as the opposite of akrasia-weakness of will. The study of self-control seeks to understand the concept of its own terms, followed by an examination of its bearing on one's actions, beliefs, emotions, and personal values. It goes on to consider how a proper understanding of self-control and its manifestations can shed light on personal autonomy and autonomous behaviour. Perspicuous, o…Read more
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30Jonathan. Adler, Belief's Own Ethics.Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002. Pp. 357. (review)Ethics 114 (1): 156-158. 2003.A book review of Jonathan Adler's Belief's Own Ethics.
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59Ordinary people think free will is a lack of constraint, not the presence of a soulConsciousness and Cognition 60 133-151. 2018.Four experiments supported the hypothesis that ordinary people understand free will as meaning unconstrained choice, not having a soul. People consistently rated free will as being high unless reduced by internal constraints (i.e., things that impaired people’s mental abilities to make choices) or external constraints (i.e., situations that hampered people’s abilities to choose and act as they desired). Scientific paradigms that have been argued to disprove free will were seen as reducing, but u…Read more
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62Diana and Ernie return: on Carolina Sartorio’s Causation and Free WillPhilosophical Studies 175 (6): 1525-1533. 2018.In the final chapter of her Causation and Free Will, Carolina Sartorio offers a novel reply to an original-design argument for the thesis that determinism is incompatible with free will and moral responsibility, an argument that resembles Alfred Mele’s zygote argument in Free Will and Luck. This article assesses the merits of her reply. It is concluded that Sartorio has more work to do if she is to lay this style of argument to rest.
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64Mele develops a view of paradigmatically free actions--including decisions--as indeterministically caused by their proximal causes. He mounts a masterful defense of this thesis that includes solutions to problems about luck and control widely discussed in the literature on free will and moral responsibility.
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76Two Libertarian Theories: or Why Event-causal Libertarians Should Prefer My Daring Libertarian View to Robert Kane's ViewRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 80 49-68. 2017.Libertarianism about free will is the conjunction of two theses: the existence of free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism, and at least some human beings sometimes exercise free will (or act freely, for short). 1 Some libertarian views feature agent causation, others maintain that free actions are uncaused, and yet others – event-causal libertarian views – reject all views of these two kinds and appeal to indeterministic causation by events and states. 2 This article explores the…Read more
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54Springs of Action: Understanding Intentional BehaviorOxford University Press. 2002.Tackling some central problems in the philosophy of action, Mele constructs an explanatory model for intentional behavior, locating the place and significance of such mental phenomena as beliefs, desires, reasons, and intentions in the etiology of intentional action. In the first part, Mele illuminates the connection between desire and action and defends detailed characterizations of irresistible desires and reasons for action. Mele argues for the viability of a causal approach to the explanatio…Read more
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391Irrationality: an essay on akrasia, self-deception, and self-controlOxford University Press. 1987.The author demonstrates that certain forms of irrationality - incontinent action and self-deception - which many philosophers have rejected as being logically or psychologically impossible, are indeed possible.
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21Surrounding Free Will: Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2014.This volume showcases cutting-edge scholarship from The Big Questions in Free Will project, funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation and directed by Alfred R. Mele. It explores the subject of free will from the perspectives of neuroscience; social, cognitive, and developmental psychology; and philosophy. The volume consists of fourteen new articles and an introduction from top-ranked contributors, all of whom bring fresh perspectives to the question of free will. They investigate que…Read more
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32Free Will and LuckOxford University Press USA. 2006.Mele's ultimate purpose in this book is to help readers think more clearly about free will. He identifies and makes vivid the most important conceptual obstacles to justified belief in the existence of free will and meets them head on. Mele clarifies the central issue in the philosophical debate about free will and moral responsibility, criticizes various influential contemporary theories about free will, and develops two overlapping conceptions of free will - one for readers who are convinced t…Read more
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D.N. Walton, "Courage: A philosophical investigation"International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 23 (2): 117. 1988.
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3GF Schueler, Desire: Its Role in Practical Reason and the Explanation of Action (review)Minds and Machines 6 253-256. 1996.
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15The Significance of Free Will (review)Journal of Philosophy 95 (11): 581-584. 1998.A book review of Robert Kane's The Significance of Free Will.
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79Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry FrankfurtAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2): 292-295. 2003.Book Information Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt. Edited by Sarah Buss and Lee Overton. MIT Press. Cambridge MA. 2002. Pp. 381.
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15Free Will and Consciousness: How Might They Work? (New York: OUP, 2010) (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2010.This volume is aimed at readers who wish to move beyond debates about the existence of free will and the efficacy of consciousness and closer to appreciating how free will and consciousness might operate. It draws from philosophy and psychology, the two fields that have grappled most fundamentally with these issues. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors explore such issues as how free will is connected to rational choice, planning, and self-control; roles for consciousness in decision ma…Read more
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25Aristotle on the Proximate Efficient Cause of ActionCanadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (sup1): 133-155. 1984.In this paper I shall attempt to locate and articulate Aristotle's answer to a foundational question in the theory of action - viz., 'what is the proximate (efficient) cause of action?' This task is certainly of historical importance, since one cannot hope to understand Aristotle's interesting and influential theory of action without understanding his views on the proximate efficient cause of action. But the present project is not, I should think, of historical interest alone; for it has recentl…Read more
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148Reactive attitudes, reactivity, and omissions (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (2): 447-452. 2000.Regarding a recent book of mine, John Fischer wrote : “I am faced with the difficult task of doing a critical notice of a book, with almost all of which I agree!” I face a similar task here. Fischer and Ravizza’s Responsibility and Control is an excellent book. It develops, in admirable detail, an attractive compatibilist position on moral responsibility in a trio of related spheres—actions, consequences, and omissions—and it presents powerful objections to leading arguments for incompatibilism.…Read more
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21Motivated BeliefBehavior and Philosophy 21 (2). 1993.In this essay, I focus on Ainslie's interesting and bold view of belief and on its implications for akratic belief.
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58Desiring to Try: Reply to AdamsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 24 (4). 1994.Frederick Adams has tried again to object to my argument in "He Wants to Try"; his new attempt includes both an account of the constitution of trying and a corresponding account of desiring to try. My aim here is to show that his new efforts fail to undermine T and to develop some related problems for his positive view.
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79Reasonology and False BeliefsPhilosophical Papers 36 (1): 91-118. 2007.Whereas some philosophers view all reasons for action as psychological states of agents, others—objective favourers theorists—locate the overwhelming majority of reasons for action outside the agent, in items that objectively favour courses of action. (The latter may count such psychological states as a person's belief that demons dance in his kitchen as a reason for him to seek psychiatric help.) This article explores options that objective favourers theorists have regarding cases in which, owi…Read more
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27Soft Libertarianism and Flickers of FreedomIn David Widerker & Michael McKenna (eds.), Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities, Ashgate. pp. 251--264. 2003.In this chapter, drawing partly on some attractions to soft libertarianism and on a libertarian approach articulated in Mele (1996) to accommodating successful Frankfurt-style cases, I motivate the thesis that at least some human beings sometimes act freely than that no human being ever acts freely.
Tallahassee, Florida, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |