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The nature of mental imagery: Beyond a basic viewAnalysis. forthcoming.Many philosophers treat mental imagery as a kind of perceptual representation – it is either a perceptual state, or a representation of a perceptual state. In the sciences, writers point to mental imagery by way of a standard gloss – mental imagery is said to be (often, early) perceptual processing not directly caused by sensory stimuli (Kosslyn et al. 1995). Philosophers sometimes adopt this gloss, which I will call the basic view. Bence Nanay endorses it, and appeals to it in a number of plac…Read more
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87Review: Wu, Wayne (2023). Movements of the Mind: A Theory of Attention, Intention and Action. Oxford University Press. (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
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66Tests for consciousness in humans and beyondTrends in Cognitive Sciences 29. 2024.Which systems/organisms are conscious? New tests for consciousness (‘C-tests’) are urgently needed. There is persisting uncertainty about when consciousness arises in human development, when it is lost due to neurological disorders and brain injury, and how it is distributed in nonhuman species. This need is amplified by recent and rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI), neural organoids, and xenobot technology. Although a number of C-tests have been proposed in recent years, most ar…Read more
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527Sentience, Vulcans, and Zombies: The Value of Phenomenal ConsciousnessAI and Society 1-11. forthcoming.Many think that a specific aspect of phenomenal consciousness – valenced or affective experience – is essential to consciousness’s moral significance (valence sentientism). They hold that valenced experience is necessary for well-being, or moral status, or psychological intrinsic value (or all three). Some think that phenomenal consciousness generally is necessary for non-derivative moral significance (broad sentientism). Few think that consciousness is unnecessary for moral significance (non-ne…Read more
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968Causation, norms, and omissions: A study of causal judgmentsPhilosophical Psychology 28 (2): 279-293. 2015.Many philosophical theories of causation are egalitarian, rejecting a distinction between causes and mere causal conditions. We sought to determine the extent to which people's causal judgments discriminate, selecting as causes counternormal events—those that violate norms of some kind—while rejecting non-violators. We found significant selectivity of this sort. Moreover, priming that encouraged more egalitarian judgments had little effect on subjects. We also found that omissions are as likely …Read more
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86Intentional action and knowledge-centered theories of controlPhilosophical Studies 180 (3): 957-977. 2023.Intentional action is, in some sense, non-accidental, and one common way action theorists have attempted to explain this is with reference to control. The idea, in short, is that intentional action implicates control, and control precludes accidentality. But in virtue of what, exactly, would exercising control over an action suffice to make it non-accidental in whatever sense is required for the action to be intentional? One interesting and prima facie plausible idea that we wish to explore in t…Read more
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994Problems and mysteries of the many languages of thoughtCognitive Science 46 (12). 2022.“What is the structure of thought?” is as central a question as any in cognitive science. A classic answer to this question has appealed to a Language of Thought (LoT). We point to emerging research from disparate branches of the field that supports the LoT hypothesis, but also uncovers diversity in LoTs across cognitive systems, stages of development, and species. Our letter formulates open research questions for cognitive science concerning the varieties of rules and representations that under…Read more
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771Intentional Action and Knowledge-Centred Theories of ControlPhilosophical Studies 1-21. 2022.Intentional action is, in some sense, non-accidental, and one common way action theorists have attempted to explain this is with reference to control. The idea, in short, is that intentional action implicates control, and control precludes accidentality. But in virtue of what, exactly, would exercising control over an action suffice to make it non-accidental in whatever sense is required for the action to be intentional? One interesting and prima facie plausible idea that we wish to explore in t…Read more
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267Conscious cognitive effort in cognitive controlWIREs Cognitive Science. forthcoming.Cognitive effort is thought to be familiar in everyday life, ubiquitous across multiple variations of task and circumstance, and integral to cost/benefit computations that are themselves central to the proper functioning of cognitive control. In particular, cognitive effort is thought to be closely related to the assessment of cognitive control’s costs. I argue here that the construct of cognitive effort, as it is deployed in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, is problematically unclear. The…Read more
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433Non-Human Moral Status: Problems with Phenomenal ConsciousnessAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2): 148-157. 2023.Consciousness-based approaches to non-human moral status maintain that consciousness is necessary for (some degree or level of) moral status. While these approaches are intuitive to many, in this paper I argue that the judgment that consciousness is necessary for moral status is not secure enough to guide policy regarding non-humans, that policies responsive to the moral status of non-humans should take seriously the possibility that psychological features independent of consciousness are suffic…Read more
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222Bodily SkillIn Adrian Alsmith & Matthew Longo (eds.), Routledge Handbook of body awareness, Routledge. 2022.To a first approximation, ‘bodily skill’ refers to the capacity to successfully utilize the body in the world to achieve goals. But the body is complex, and bodily skill manifests in many different ways. Further, work on bodily skill spans the philosophy of mind, action, and cognitive science, as well as the sciences of motor control and perception. This chapter aims to provide an overview of recent themes and key ideas. First, we review work on the nature of skill as such. Second, we discuss wa…Read more
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290Disappearing agents, mental action, rational glueIn Michael Brent & Lisa Miracchi Titus (eds.), Mental action and the conscious mind, Routledge. pp. 14-30. forthcoming.This chapter revolves around the problem of the disappearing agent. Shepherd suggests that as typically formulated, the problem relies on an improper focus upon the causation of action, and an inadequate characterization of agency. One result is that a key function of mental action for human agents tends to be misconstrued. Furthermore, Shepherd argues that an adequate characterization of agency illuminates why agents may seem (misleadingly) to disappear in some cases of action, and illuminates …Read more
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67Human Brain Organoids and ConsciousnessNeuroethics 15 (1): 1-16. 2022.This article proposes a methodological schema for engaging in a productive discussion of ethical issues regarding human brain organoids, which are three-dimensional cortical neural tissues created using human pluripotent stem cells. Although moral consideration of HBOs significantly involves the possibility that they have consciousness, there is no widely accepted procedure to determine whether HBOs are conscious. Given that this is the case, it has been argued that we should adopt a precautiona…Read more
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278These comments, which take the form of criticism and response, were the basis of a zoom conversation at the Eastern APA, January 2021. Josh is putting them up on philpapers (with permission from all involved) in case they are helpful to people interested in the themes of this book.
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492Knowledge, practical knowledge, and intentional actionErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9 (n/a): 556-583. 2023.We argue that any strong version of a knowledge condition on intentional action, the practical knowledge principle, on which knowledge of what I am doing (under some description: call it A-ing) is necessary for that A-ing to qualify as an intentional action, is false. Our argument involves a new kind of case, one that centers the agent’s control appropriately and thus improves upon Davidson’s well-known carbon copier case. After discussing this case, offering an initial argument against the know…Read more
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409Flow and the dynamics of conscious thoughtPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 21 (4): 969-988. 2022.The flow construct has been influential within positive psychology, sport psychology, the science of consciousness, the philosophy of agency, and popular culture. In spite of its longstanding influence, it remains unclear [a] how the constituents of the flow state ‘hang together’—how they relate to each other causally and functionally—[b] in what sense flow is an ‘optimal experience,’ and [c] how best to describe the unique phenomenology of the flow state. As a result, difficulties persist for a…Read more
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431Practical Structure and Moral SkillPhilosophical Quarterly 72 (3): 713-732. 2022.I argue that moral skill is limited and precarious. It is limited because global moral skill—the capacity for morally excellent behaviour within an über action domain, such as the domain of living, or of all-things-considered decisions, or the same kind of capacity applied across a superset of more specific action domains—is not to be found in humans. It is precarious because relatively local moral skill, while possible, is prone to misfire. My arguments depend upon the diversity of practical st…Read more
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60Mapping the Ethical Issues of Brain Organoid Research and ApplicationAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 13 (2): 81-94. 2022.
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686Unconscious perception and central coordinating agencyPhilosophical Studies 178 (12): 3869-3893. 2021.One necessary condition on any adequate account of perception is clarity regarding whether unconscious perception exists. The issue is complicated, and the debate is growing in both philosophy and science. In this paper we consider the case for unconscious perception, offering three primary achievements. First, we offer a discussion of the underspecified notion of central coordinating agency, a notion that is critical for arguments that purportedly perceptual states are not attributable to the i…Read more
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403The moral status of conscious subjectsIn Stephen Clarke, Hazem Zohny & Julian Savulescu (eds.), Rethinking Moral Status. forthcoming.The chief themes of this discussion are as follows. First, we need a theory of the grounds of moral status that could guide practical considerations regarding how to treat the wide range of potentially conscious entities with which we are acquainted – injured humans, cerebral organoids, chimeras, artificially intelligent machines, and non-human animals. I offer an account of phenomenal value that focuses on the structure and sophistication of phenomenally conscious states at a time and over time…Read more
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Disabilities and wellbeing: The bad and the neutralIn Adam Cureton & David Wasserman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability, Oxford University Press, Usa. 2018.This chapter argues for a normative distinction between disabilities that are inherently negative with respect to wellbeing and disabilities that are inherently neutral with respect to wellbeing. First, after clarifying terms I discuss recent arguments according to which possession of a disability is inherently neutral with respect to wellbeing. I note that though these arguments are compelling, they are only intended to cover certain disabilities, and in fact there exists a broad class regardin…Read more
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631The shape of agency: Control, action, skill, knowledgeOxford University Press. 2021.The Shape of Agency offers interlinked explanations of the basic building blocks of agency, as well as its exemplary instances. The first part offers accounts of a collection of related phenomena that have long troubled philosophers of action: control over behaviour, non-deviant causation, and intentional action. These accounts build on earlier work in the causalist tradition, and undermine the claims made by many that causalism cannot offer a satisfying account of non-deviant causation, and the…Read more
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218The targets of skill and their importanceIn Ellen Fridland & Carlotta Pavese (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Skill and Expertise, Routledge. 2020.
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583Skill and Sensitivity to ReasonsReview of Philosophy and Psychology 12 (3): 669-681. 2021.In this paper I explore the relationship between skill and sensitivity to reasons for action. I want to know to what degree we can explain the fact that the skilled agent is very good at performing a cluster of actions within some domain in terms of the fact that the skilled agent has a refined sensitivity to the reasons for action common to the cluster. The picture is a little bit complex. While skill can be partially explained by sensitivity to reasons – a sensitivity often produced by rationa…Read more
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727Determinism and attributions of consciousnessPhilosophical Psychology 33 (4): 549-568. 2020.The studies we report indicate that it is possible to manipulate explicit ascriptions of consciousness by manipulating whether an agent’s behavior is deterministically caused. In addition, we explore whether this impact of determinism on consciousness is direct, or mediated by notions linked to agency – notions like moral responsibility, free will, deliberate choice, and sensitivity to moral reasons. We provide evidence of mediation. This result extends work on attributions of consciousness and …Read more
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423Why does the mind wander?Neuroscience of Consciousness. forthcoming.I seek an explanation for the etiology and the function of mind wandering episodes. My proposal – which I call the cognitive control proposal – is that mind wandering is a form of non-conscious guidance due to cognitive control. When the agent’s current goal is deemed insufficiently rewarding, the cognitive control system initiates a search for a new, more rewarding goal. This search is the process of unintentional mind wandering. After developing the proposal, and relating it to literature on m…Read more
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47Self-Association and Attentional Processing Regarding Perceptually Salient ItemsReview of Philosophy and Psychology 10 (4): 735-746. 2019.Earlier work has demonstrated that attention is indirectly cognitively malleable by processes of self-association – processes by which agents explicitly associate an item with the self. We extend this work by considering the manipulation of attention to both salient and non-salient objects. We demonstrate that self-association impacts attentional processing not only of non-salient objects, but also regarding salient items known to command attention. This result indicates the flexibility and susc…Read more
Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, Spain
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Mind |
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
PhilPapers Editorships
Motivation and Will |