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72Libertarianism, Compatibilism, and LuckThe 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
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40Action: Volitional Disorder and AddictionIn Jennifer Radden (ed.), The Philosophy of Psychiatry: A Companion, Oxford University Press. pp. 78. 2004.Weakness of will has perplexed philosophers since Plato's time. This chapter places some of the literature on volitional disorders and addictions in a philosophical context dating back to Plato and Aristotle in an attempt to shed light on issues that a theorist who wishes to analyze the idea of a volitional disorder will face. Key here is the notion of the irresistability and resistability of pertinent desires, which is explored in relation to George Ainslie's work on the ability to make and adh…Read more
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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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189Free will and luck: Reply to criticsPhilosophical 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
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51Autonomy and akrasiaPhilosophical 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
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142Self-deception and emotionConsciousness and Emotion 1 (1): 115-137. 2000.Drawing on recent empirical work, this philosophical paper explores some possible contributions of emotion to self-deception. Three hypotheses are considered: (1) the anxiety reduction hypothesis: the function of self-deception is to reduce present anxiety; (2) the solo emotion hypothesis: emotions sometimes contribute to instances of self-deception that have no desires among their significant causes; (3) the direct emotion hypothesis: emotions sometimes contribute directly to self-deception, in…Read more
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99Internalist moral cognitivism and listlessnessEthics 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
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47Review of The Significance of Free Will (review)Journal of Philosophy 95 (11): 581-584. 1998.No abstract available.
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19Motivation, Self-Control, and the Agglomeration of DesiresFacta Philosophica 1 (1): 77-86. 1999.
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257Effective intentions: the power of conscious willOxford 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
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102Lenman on externalism and amoralism: An interplanetary explorationPhilosophia 32 (1-4): 275-283. 2005.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.
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199Self-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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79Incontinent believingPhilosophical 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
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66Autonomy, self-control and weakness of willIn Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, Oxford University Press. 2001.This article defends a nonstandard position on free will that is based on three topics linked to contemporary debates about free will: autonomy, self-control, and weakness of will. It argues that autonomy, and hence also free will, requires more than self-control, including ideal self-control. It considers the additional conditions required, showing how contemporary discussions of autonomy are intertwined with debates about free will. These additional conditions for genuine autonomy do not requi…Read more
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188Moral 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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122Deciding to actPhilosophical 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
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177Goal-Directed Action: Teleological Explanations, Causal Theories, and DevianceNoûs 34 (s14). 2000.Teleological explanations of human actions are explanations in terms of aims, goals, or purposes of human agents. According to a familiar causal approach to analyzing and explaining human action, our actions are, essentially, events (and sometimes states, perhaps) that are suitably caused by appropriate mental items, or neural realizations of those items. Causalists traditionally appeal, in part, to such goal-representing states as desires and intentions (or their neural realizers) in their expl…Read more
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86Is 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.
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24Aristotle on the Proximate Efficient Cause of ActionCanadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Vol. X (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 recentl…Read more
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85The 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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14Michael A. Simon: "Understanding Human Action" (review)The Thomist 48 (1): 121. 1984.A book review of Michael A. Simon's Understanding Human Action: Social Explanation of the Vision of Social Science.
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340Manipulation, 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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71Crimes 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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43Self-Deception and Akrasia: A Review of David Pears's Motivated Irrationality (review)Behaviorism 14 (2): 183-191. 1986.
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50Rational 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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67Akratic feelingsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (2): 277-288. 1989.Elsewhere, I have argued for the possibility of strict or full-blown akratic action - roughly, free (or uncompelled), intentional action against the agent's better judgment.' My aim in the present paper is to defend and account for the possibility of an analogous variety of akratic feeling.
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Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |