•  16
    Aristotle on the Proximate Efficient Cause of Action
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 10 (n/a): 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 recently …Read more
  •  26
    Can Libertarians Make Promises?
    In John Hyman & Helen Steward (eds.), Agency and Action, Cambridge University Press. pp. 217-241. 2003.
    Libertarians hold that free action and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism and that some human beings occasionally act freely and are morally responsible for some of what they do. Can libertarians who know both that they are right and that they are free make sincere promises? Peter van Inwagen, a libertarian, contends that they cannot—at least when they assume that should they do what they promise to do, they would do it freely. Probably, this strikes many readers as a surpris…Read more
  •  49
    This chapter discusses the view according to which human actions are explained teleologically and, therefore, all causal accounts of action explanation are, in a sense, rivals. This view is referred to here as “anticausalist teleologism” (AT). Teleological explanations of human actions are explanations in terms of aims, goals, or purposes of human agents. After providing some background on AT, an objection raised by Mele to a proposal George Wilson makes in developing his version of AT is presen…Read more
  •  11
    The present book is a collection of essays exploring some classical dimensions of mind both from the perspective of an empirically-informed philosophy and from the point of view of a philosophically-informed psychology. In the last three decades, the level of interaction between philosophy and psychology has increased dramatically. As a contribution to this trend, this book explores some areas in which this interaction has been very productive – or, at least, highly provocative. The interaction …Read more
  •  197
    Free will in everyday life: Autobiographical accounts of free and unfree actions
    with Tyler F. Stillman and Roy F. Baumeister
    Philosophical Psychology 24 (3). 2011.
    What does free will mean to laypersons? The present investigation sought to address this question by identifying how laypersons distinguish between free and unfree actions. We elicited autobiographical narratives in which participants described either free or unfree actions, and the narratives were subsequently subjected to impartial analysis. Results indicate that free actions were associated with reaching goals, high levels of conscious thought and deliberation, positive outcomes, and moral be…Read more
  •  11
    A Libertarian View of Akratic Action
    In Tobias Hoffmann (ed.), Weakness of Will from Plato to the Present, Catholic University of America Press. pp. 252-275. 2008.
    What may cause individuals to act contrarily to their better judgment is that although they have a good reason (or reasons) not to perform an action, they have an insignificant reason to do it. Supposing that the decision to act one way or the other is made by a free agent, un- derstood in the libertarian sense that the person had alternative possi- bilities of action, how does one account for the the actual choice of one alternative? In other words, what accounts for the difference between the …Read more
  •  684
    When Are We Self-Deceived?
    Humana Mente Journal of Philosophical Studies (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 selfdeception happens. I then return to the proposed set of jointly sufficient conditions and offer a pair of amendments.
  •  75
    Libertarianism, Compatibilism, and Luck
    The Journal of Ethics 19 (1): 1-21. 2015.
    The “problem of present luck” targets a standard libertarian thesis about free will. It has been argued that there is an analogous problem about luck for compatibilists. This article explores similarities and differences between the alleged problems
  •  83
    Persisting intentions
    Noûs 41 (4). 2007.
    Al is nearly finished sweeping his kitchen floor when he notices, on a counter, a corkscrew that should be put in a drawer. He intends to put the corkscrew away as soon as he is finished with the floor; but by the time he returns the broom and dustpan to the closet, he has forgotten what he intended to do. Al knows (or has a true belief) that there is something he intended to do now in the kitchen. He gazes around the room and tries to recall what it was. Within a minute or so, without seeing th…Read more
  •  32
    Chance, choice and freedom
    The Philosophers' Magazine 55 (55): 61-65. 2011.
    What does the idea that you could have done something else at the time come to? According to some philosophers, it comes to this: in a hypothetical universe that has exactly the same past as our universe and exactly the same laws of nature, you do something else at this very time.
  •  64
    Intentional, Unintentional, or Neither? Middle Ground in Theory and Practice
    American Philosophical Quarterly 49 (4). 2012.
    There are intentional actions and unintentional actions. Do we ever perform actions that are neither intentional nor unintentional? Some philosophers have answered "yes" (Mele 1992; Mele and Moser 1994; Mele and Sverdlik 1996; Lowe 1978; Wasserman, forthcoming). That is, they have claimed that there is a middle ground between intentional and unintentional human actions.1 Motivation for this claim is generated by attention to a variety of issues, including two that are of special interest to expe…Read more
  •  38
    Self-deception and akratic belief: A rejoinder
    Philosophical 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.
  •  190
    Free will and luck: Reply to critics
    Philosophical Explorations 10 (2). 2007.
    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 issues 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
  •  142
    Addiction and Self-Control
    Behavior and Philosophy 24 (2). 1996.
    Addicts often are portrayed as agents driven by irresistible desires in the philosophical literature on free will. Although this portrayal is faithful to a popular conception of addiction, that conception has encountered opposition from a variety of quarters (e.g., Bakalar & Grinspoon, 1984; Becker & Murphy, 1988; Peele, 1985 and 1989; Szasz, 1974). My concern here is some theoretical issues surrounding a strategy for self-control of potential use to addicts on the assumption that their pe…Read more
  •  7
    The Structure of Emotions (review)
    Philosophical Books 29 (4): 224-225. 1988.
    A book review of Robert M. Gordon's The Structure of Emotions.
  •  100
    Internalist moral cognitivism and listlessness
    Ethics 106 (4): 727-753. 1996.
    This paper criticizes the conjunction of two theses: 1) cognitivism about first-person moral ought-beliefs, the thesis (roughly) that such beliefs are attitudes with truth-valued contents; 2) robust internalism about these beliefs, the thesis that, necessarily, agents' beliefs that they ought, morally, to A constitute motivation to A. It is argued that the conjunction of these two theses places our moral agency at serious risk. The argument, which centrally involves attention to clinical depress…Read more
  •  43
    Motivational Ties
    Journal 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
  •  257
    Effective intentions: the power of conscious will
    Oxford University Press. 2009.
    Each of the following claims has been defended in the scientific literature on free will and consciousness: your brain routinely decides what you will do before you become conscious of its decision; there is only a 100 millisecond window of opportunity for free will, and all it can do is veto conscious decisions, intentions, or urges; intentions never play a role in producing corresponding actions; and free will is an illusion. In Effective Intentions Alfred Mele shows that the evidence offered …Read more
  •  57
    Autonomy and akrasia
    Philosophical Explorations 5 (3). 2002.
    Strict akratic actions, by definition, are performed freely. However, agents may seem not to be selfgoverned with respect to such actions and therefore not to perform them autonomously. If appearance matches reality here, freedom and autonomy part company in this sphere. Do they? That is this article's guiding question. To make things manageable, it is assumed that there are free actions, including strict akratic actions. Two theses are defended. First, the combination of (i) an intentional acti…Read more
  •  309
    The 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
  •  79
    Incontinent believing
    Philosophical Quarterly 36 (143): 212-222. 1986.
    In this paper I shall attempt to characterize a central case of incontinent believing and to explain how it is possible. Akrasiais exhibited in a variety of ways in the practical or "actional" sphere; but in the full-blown and seemingly most challenging case the akratic agent performs an intentional, free action which is contrary to a judgment of what is better or best to do that he both consciously holds at the time of action and consciously believes to be at odds with his performing the action…Read more
  •  114
    Moral responsibility and the continuation problem
    Philosophical 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.
  •  4
    Book Reviews (review)
    Mind 100 (399): 417-418. 1991.
  •  12
    Rationality in Action (review)
    Mind 111 (444): 905-909. 2002.
  •  124
    Deciding to act
    Philosophical Studies 100 (1). 2000.
    As this passage from a recent book on the psychology of decision-making indicates, deciding seems to be part of our daily lives. But what is it to decide to do something? It may be true, as some philosophers have claimed, that to decide to A is to perform a mental action of a certain kind – specifically, an action of forming an intention to A. (Henceforth, the verb ‘form’ in this context is to be understood as an action verb.) Even if this is so, we are faced with pressing questions. Do we form …Read more
  •  103
    One of us -- Alfred Mele (1996; 2003, ch. 5) -- has argued that possible instances of listlessness falsify the combination of cognitivism and various kinds of internalism about positive first-person moral ought-beliefs. If an argument recently advanced by James Lenman (1999) is successful, listlessnessis impossible and Mele's argument from listlessness therefore fails.However, we will argue that Lenman's argument is unpersuasive.
  •  96
    Scientific Skepticism about Free Will
    In 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.
  •  86
    Is akratic action unfree?
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 46 (4): 673-679. 1986.
    That incontinent action is possible, I have argued elsewhere. The purpose of the present paper is to ascertain whether such action can ever be free.