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Freedom, foreknowledge, and FrankfurtIn David Widerker & Michael McKenna (eds.), Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities, Ashgate. pp. 159--183. 2003.
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Actions, thought-experiments and the 'principle of alternate possibilities'Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (1). 2009.In 1969 Harry Frankfurt published his hugely influential paper 'Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility' in which he claimed to present a counterexample to the so-called 'Principle of Alternate Possibilities' ('a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise'). The success of Frankfurt-style cases as counterexamples to the Principle has been much debated since. I present an objection to these cases that, in questioning their conceptual cogency, …Read more
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Fairness, Agency and the Flicker of FreedomNoûs 43 (1). 2009.
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Robust flickers of freedomSocial Philosophy and Policy 36 (1): 211-233. 2019.:This essay advances a version of the flicker of freedom defense of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities and shows that it is invulnerable to the major objections facing other versions of this defense. Proponents of the flicker defense argue that Frankfurt-style cases fail to undermine PAP because agents in these cases continue to possess alternative possibilities. Critics of the flicker strategy contend that the alternatives that remain open to agents in these cases are unable to rebuff F…Read more
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Responsibility, Tracing, and ConsequencesCanadian Journal of Philosophy 42 (3-4): 187-207. 2012.Some accounts of moral responsibility hold that an agent's responsibility is completely determined by some aspect of the agent's mental life at the time of action. For example, some hold that an agent is responsible if and only if there is an appropriate mesh among the agent's particular psychological elements. It is often objected that the particular features of the agent's mental life to which these theorists appeal (such as a particular structure or mesh) are not necessary for responsibility.…Read more
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The objects of moral responsibilityPhilosophical Studies 175 (6): 1357-1381. 2018.It typically taken for granted that agents can be morally responsible for such things as, for example, the death of the victim and the capture of the murderer in the sense that one may be blameworthy or praiseworthy for such things. The primary task of a theory of moral responsibility, it is thought, is to specify the appropriate relationship one must stand to such things in order to be morally responsible for them. I argue that this common approach is problematic because it attempts to explain …Read more
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Chapman UniversitySmith Institute for Political Economy and PhilosophyPostdoctoral Research Associate
Orange, California, United States of America