•  2499
    Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moral responsibility, and determinism, this text represents the most up-to-date account of the four major positions in the free will debate. Four serious and well-known philosophers explore the opposing viewpoints of libertarianism, compatibilism, hard incompatibilism, and revisionism The first half of the book contains each philosopher’s explanation of his particular view; the second half allows them to directly respond to each other’s arg…Read more
  •  1337
    This book provides a comprehensive, systematic theory of moral responsibility. The authors explore the conditions under which individuals are morally responsible for actions, omissions, consequences, and emotions. The leading idea in the book is that moral responsibility is based on 'guidance control'. This control has two components: the mechanism that issues in the relevant behavior must be the agent's own mechanism, and it must be appropriately responsive to reasons. The book develops an acco…Read more
  •  1200
    The Metaphysics of Free Will provides a through statement of the major grounds for skepticism about the reality of free will and moral responsibility. The author identifies and explains the sort of control that is associated with personhood and accountability, and shows how it is consistent with causal determinism. In so doing, out view of ourselves as morally responsible agents is protected against the disturbing changes posed by science and religion
  •  1079
    The Near-Death Experience Argument Against Physicalism: A Critique
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 21 (7-8): 158-183. 2014.
    Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, including the mind. One argument against physicalism appeals to neardeath experiences, conscious experiences during episodes, such as cardiac arrest, when one's normal brain functions are severely impaired. The core contention is that NDEs cannot be physically explained, and so we have reason to appeal to the non-physical in explaining them. In this paper, we consider in detail a recent article by Pim van Lommel in which he appeals to NDEs i…Read more
  •  1019
    Does the Consequence Argument Beg the Question?
    Philosophical Studies 166 (3): 575-595. 2013.
    The Consequence Argument has elicited various responses, ranging from acceptance as obviously right to rejection as obviously problematic in one way or another. Here we wish to focus on one specific response, according to which the Consequence Argument begs the question. This is a serious accusation that has not yet been adequately rebutted, and we aim to remedy that in what follows. We begin by giving a formulation of the Consequence Argument. We also offer some tentative proposals about the na…Read more
  •  821
    Free will and moral responsibility
    In David Copp (ed.), Handbook on Ethical Theory, Oxford University Press. 2004.
    Much has been written recently about free will and moral responsibility. In this paper I will focus on the relationship between free will, on the one hand, and various notions that fall under the rubric of “morality,” broadly construed, on the other: deliberation and practical reasoning, moral responsibility, and ethical notions such as “ought,” “right,” “wrong,” “good,” and “bad.” I shall begin by laying out a natural understanding of freedom of the will. Next I develop some challenges to the c…Read more
  •  804
    A style of argument that calls into question our freedom (in the sense that involves freedom to do otherwise) has been around for millennia; it can be traced back to Origen. The argument-form makes use of the crucial idea that the past is over-and-done-with and thus fixed; we cannot now do anything about the distant past (or, for that matter, the recent past)—it is now too late. Peter van Inwagen has presented this argument (what he calls the Consequence Argument) in perhaps its clearest and mos…Read more
  •  750
    Why immortality is not so bad
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2 (2). 1994.
    (1994). Why immortality is not so bad. International Journal of Philosophical Studies: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 257-270.
  •  729
    Struggling With Evil: Comments on Wandering in Darkness
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (3): 109--122. 2012.
  •  601
    Introduction
    In John Martin Fischer & Patrick Todd (eds.), Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge, Oxford University Press. pp. 01-38. 2015.
    This Introduction has three sections, on "logical fatalism," "theological fatalism," and the problem of future contingents, respectively. In the first two sections, we focus on the crucial idea of "dependence" and the role it plays it fatalistic arguments. Arguably, the primary response to the problems of logical and theological fatalism invokes the claim that the relevant past truths or divine beliefs depend on what we do, and therefore needn't be held fixed when evaluating what we can do. W…Read more
  •  524
    The Frankfurt cases: The moral of the stories
    Philosophical Review 119 (3): 315-336. 2010.
    The Frankfurt cases have been thought by some philosophers to show that moral responsibility does not require genuine metaphysical access to alternative possibilities. But various philosophers have rejected this putative "lesson" of the cases, and they have put forward a powerful "Dilemma Defense." In the last decade or so, many philosophers have been persuaded by the Dilemma Defense that the Frankfurt cases do not show what Frankfurt (and others) thought they show. This essay presents a templat…Read more
  •  493
    Abortion and Ownership
    The Journal of Ethics 17 (4): 275-304. 2013.
    I explore two thought-experiments in Judith Jarvis Thomson’s important article, “A Defense of Abortion”: the violinist example and the people-seeds example. I argue (contra Thomson) that you have a moral duty not to unplug yourself from the violinist and also a moral duty not to destroy a people-seed that has landed in your sofa. Nevertheless, I also argue that there are crucial differences between the thought-experiments and the contexts of pregnancy due to rape or to contraceptive failure. In …Read more
  •  469
    Libertarianism and the Problem of Flip-flopping
    In Kevin Timpe & Daniel Speak (eds.), Free Will and Theism: Connections, Contingencies, and Concerns, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 48-61. 2016.
    I am going to argue that it is a cost of libertarianism that it holds our status as agents hostage to theoretical physics, but that claim has met with disagreement. Some libertarians regard it as the cost of doing business, not a philosophical liability. By contrast, Peter van Inwagen has addressed the worry head on. He says that if he were to become convinced that causal determinism were true, he would not change his view that humans are free and morally responsible. Rather, he would give up at…Read more
  •  460
    Frankfurt-style compatibilism
    In Sarah Buss & Lee Overton (eds.), Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes From Harry Frankfurt, Mit Press, Bradford Books. 2002.
    In this essay I shall begin by sketching a "Frankfurt-type example." I shall then lay out a disturbing challenge to the claim I have made above that these examples help us to make significant progress in the debates about the relationship between moral responsibility and causal determinism. I then will provide a reply to this challenge, and the reply will point toward a more refined formulation of the important contribution I believe Frankfurt has made to defending a certain sort of compatibilis…Read more
  •  426
    Introduction to Philosophy, Fourth Edition, is the most comprehensive topically organized collection of classical and contemporary philosophy available. Building on the exceptionally successful tradition of previous editions, this edition for the first time incorporates the insights of a new coeditor, John Martin Fischer, and has been updated and revised to make it more accessible. Ideal for introductory philosophy courses, the text includes sections on the meaning of life, God and evil, knowled…Read more
  •  416
    Immortality and Boredom
    The Journal of Ethics 18 (4): 353-372. 2014.
    In this paper, we aim to clarify and evaluate the contention that immortality would be necessarily boring . It will emerge that, just as there are various importantly different kinds of immortality, there are various distinct kinds of boredom. To evaluate the Necessary Boredom Thesis, we need to specify the kind of immortality and the kind of boredom. We argue against the thesis, on various specifications of “immortality” and “boredom.”
  •  414
    Responsibility and control
    Journal of Philsophy 79 (January): 24-40. 1982.
  •  406
    Death
    In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
  •  404
    Why is death bad?
    with Anthony L. Brueckner
    Philosophical Studies 50 (2): 213-221. 1986.
    It seems that, whereas a person's death needn't be a bad thing for him, it can be. In some circumstances, death isn't a "bad thing" or an "evil" for a person. For instance, if a person has a terminal and very painful disease, he might rationally regard his own death as a good thing for him, or at least, he may regard it as something whose prospective occurrence shouldn't be regretted. But the attitude of a "normal" and healthy human being - adult or child - toward the prospect of his death is di…Read more
  •  369
    Death, badness, and the impossibility of experience
    The Journal of Ethics 1 (4): 341-353. 1997.
    Some have argued (following Epicurus) that death cannot be a bad thing for an individual who dies. They contend that nothing can be a bad for an individual unless the individual is able to experience it as bad. I argue against this Epicurean view, offering examples of things that an individual cannot experience as bad but are nevertheless bad for the individual. Further, I argue that death is relevantly similar.
  •  331
    Responsibility and manipulation
    The Journal of Ethics 8 (2): 145-177. 2004.
    I address various critiques of the approach to moral responsibility sketched in previous work by Ravizza and Fischer. I especially focus on the key issues pertaining to manipulation.
  •  321
    Our stories: essays on life, death, and free will
    Oxford University Press. 2009.
    Introduction: "meaning in life and death : our stories" -- John Martin Fischer and Anthony B rueckner, "Why is death bad?", Philosophical studies, vol. 50, no. 2 (September 1986) -- "Death, badness, and the impossibility of experience," Journal of ethics -- John Martin Fischer and Daniel Speak, "Death and the psychological conception of personal identity," Midwest studies in philosophy, vol. 24 -- "Earlier birth and later death : symmetry through thick and thin," Richard Feldman, Kris McDaniel,…Read more
  •  318
    Epicureanism About Death and Immortality
    The Journal of Ethics 10 (4): 355-381. 2006.
    In this paper I discuss some of Martha Nussbaum's defenses of Epicurean views about death and immortality. Here I seek to defend the commonsense view that death can be a bad thing for an individual against the Epicurean; I also defend the claim that immortality might conceivably be a good thing. In the development of my analysis, I make certain connections between the literatures on free will and death. The intersection of these two literatures can be illuminated by reference to my notion of a D…Read more
  •  295
    Moral responsibility and the metaphysics of free will: Reply to Van Inwagen
    Philosophical Quarterly 48 (191): 215-220. 1998.
    In _The Philosophical Quarterly, 47 (1997), pp. 373-381, van Inwagen argues in a critical notice of my book _The Metaphysics of Free Will that the impression that Frankfurt-type examples show that moral responsibility need not require alternative possibilities results from insufficient analytical precision. He suggests various precise principles which imply that moral responsibility requires alternative possibilities. In reply, I seek to defend the conclusion I have drawn from Frankfurt-type exa…Read more
  •  284
    I have argued that a proponent of the Frankfurt Cases as showing that the Principle of Alternative Possibilities is false can successfully reply to the Dilemma Defense. In their 2013 paper, Widerker and Goetz offer a critique of my view, especially as regards the deterministic horn of the dilemma. Here I clarify my strategy of response to the Dilemma Defense and reply to the critique developed by Widerker and Goetz
  •  281
  •  271
    Semicompatibilism and Its Rivals
    The Journal of Ethics 16 (2): 117-143. 2012.
    In this paper I give an overview of my “framework for moral responsibility,” and I offer some reasons that commend it. I contrast my approach with indeterministic models of moral responsibility and also other compatibilist strategies, including those of Harry Frankfurt and Gary Watson
  •  268
    Free Will, Death, and Immortality: The Role of Narrative
    Philosophical Papers 34 (3): 379-403. 2005.
    In this paper I explore in a preliminary way the interconnections among narrative explanation, narrative value, free will, an immortality. I build on the fascinating an suggestive work of David Velleman. I offer the hypothesis that our acting freely is what gives our lives a distinctive kind of value - narrative value. Free Will, then, is connected to the capacity to lead a meaningful life in a quite specific way: it is the ingredient which, when aded to others, enows us with a meaning over an a…Read more