Facundo Rodriguez

David Enoch argues that nudges undermine autonomy because they sever an important connection between sovereignty (self-rule) and non-alienation (acting in line with one’s deepest commitments). I accept that nudges can sever the link, but challenge Enoch’s further claim that such disruption necessarily undermines the full value of autonomy. I introduce the concept of scaffolding nudges: nudges that sever the link temporarily in order to strengthen it over time. These nudges support, rather than subvert, the realization of autonomy, thereby undermining an implicit uniformity assumption in Enoch’s account. The surprising conclusion is that some nudges may have a crucial but temporary role to play in enabling agents to live autonomous lives by helping sustain the integration between sovereignty and non-alienation – a point with implications for broader debates about nudging and autonomy.

Philosophers often think agency is essentially connected with rationality, intention, or control. However, Minimalists argue that agency is just the power to cause a change; acids and boulders are agents too. Many philosophers treat Minimalism as a wild outlier, assuming its falsity without argument. My paper has three main aims: first, to show that Minimalism is actually an incredibly plausible theory; second, to show that it is false; and third, to defend an alternative theory of agency. I begin by providing a new argument for thinking that Minimalism is attractive as the default view of agency. I then argue that despite this attraction it is wrong, and I use it as a foil to defend my own view that agency is the distinctively animal power of discretion. I do this by first arguing for Deflationism about refraining, and then showing that this supports an argument for thinking that agency is a kind of two‐way power. Finally, I show how to arbitrate disputes about the extent of agency, as well as arguing that, if I am right about agency's nature, then it is prevalent throughout the animal kingdom.

Two entities are weakly discernible when they share every single one of their intrinsic and relational properties, but a symmetric and irreflexive relation holds between them. The theory of arbitrary reference, first proposed by Breckenridge and Magidor in 2012, states that some semantic facts are brute. And, in this paper, I argue that this theory is inconsistent with the thesis that weakly discernible entities are metaphysically possible. For the advocates of arbitrary reference, this result is problematic for two independent reasons. First: the thesis that weakly discernible entities are metaphysically possible is strikingly plausible and supported by a variety of compelling arguments. If it is true, though, then the theory of arbitrary reference is false. And second: some of the applications that the theory of arbitrary reference has been claimed to have depend on the assumption that weakly discernible entities are metaphysically possible. Those who have tried to take advantage of said applications (e.g., ante rem structuralists) will find, consequently, that their projects are doomed to fail.