Standard epistemology takes it for granted that there is a special kind of value: epistemic value. This claim does not seem to sit well with act utilitarianism, however, since it holds that only welfare is of real value. I first develop a particularly utilitarian sense of “epistemic value”, according to which it is closely analogous to the nature of financial value. I then demonstrate the promise this approach has for two current puzzles in the intersection of epistemology and value theory: (...) first, the problem of why knowledge is better than mere true belief, and second, the relation between epistemic justification and responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to respond to the worries of the source incompatibilist, and try to sketch a naturalistically plausible, compatibilist notion of self-authorship and control that I believe captures important aspects of the folk intuitions regarding freedom and responsibility. It is my hope to thus offer those moved by source incompatibilist worries a reason not to adopt what P.F. Strawson called “the obscure and panicky metaphysics of Libertarianism” (P. F. Strawson, 1982) or the panic-inducing moral austerity of the (...) hard incompatibilist (Pereboom, 2001). I am well aware that many great minds have sunk their teeth into this problem and have not prevailed, but at the very least, I hope to become clearer on where the sticking points are. (shrink)

This paper considers the empirical evidence that we currently have for various kinds of determinism that might be relevant to the thesis that human beings possess libertarian free will. Libertarianism requires a very strong version of indeterminism, so it can be refuted not just by universal determinism, but by some much weaker theses as well. However, it is argued that at present, we have no good reason to believe even these weak deterministic views and, hence, no good reason—at least from (...) this quarter—to doubt that we are libertarian free. In particular, the paper responds to various arguments for neural and psychological determinism, arguments based on the work of people like Honderich, Tegmark, Libet, Velmans, Wegner, and Festinger. (shrink)

A sourcebook/textbook on the problem of free will and determinism. Contains a history of the free will problem, a taxonomy of current free will positions, the standard argument against free will, the physics, biology, and neuroscience of free will, the most plausible and practical solution of the problem, and reviews of the work of the leading determinist Ted Honderich, the leading libertarian Robert Kane, the well-known compatibilist Daniel Dennett, and the determinism-agnostic Alfred Mele.

It is argued here that the question of whether compatibilism is true is irrelevant to metaphysical questions about the nature of human decision‐making processes—for example, the question of whether or not humans have free will—except in a very trivial and metaphysically uninteresting way. In addition, it is argued that two other questions—namely, the conceptual‐analysis question of what free will is and the question that asks which kinds of freedom are required for moral responsibility—are also essentially irrelevant to metaphysical questions about (...) the nature of human beings. (shrink)

Robert Kane's event-causal libertarian theory of free will has been subjected to a variety of criticisms. In response to the luck objection, he has provided an ambiguous answer which results in additional criticisms that are avoidable. I explain Kane's theory, the luck objection and Kane's reply to the problem of luck. I note that in some places he suggests that the dual wantings of agents engaged in self-forming actions (SFAs) provides the key to answering the luck objection, whereas in other (...) places he suggests that the dual willings or tryings of agents is the key. Various philosophers criticize Kane's view by focusing on his concept of the dual willings/tryings involved in SFAs. I argue that despite Kane's efforts to answer these criticisms, they still hold; but I also go on to argue that Kane can avoid these criticisms and also answer the luck objection by just focusing on the important role of the dual wantings in SFAs. (shrink)

This paper argues that “free will” is vague. The argument has two steps. First, I argue that free will is a matter of degrees and, second, that there are no sharp boundaries separating free decisions and actions and non‐free ones. After presenting the argument, I focus on one significant consequence of the thesis, although others are mentioned along the way. In short, considerations of vagueness help understand the logic behind so‐called manipulation arguments, but also show why these arguments are ultimately (...) flawed. (shrink)

The brain disease model of addiction is widely endorsed by agencies concerned with treating behavioral disorders and combatting the stigma often associated with addiction. However, both its accuracy and its effectiveness in reducing stigma have been challenged. A proposed alternative, the “choice” model, recognizes the residual rational behavior control capacities of addicted individuals and their ability to make choices, some of which may cause harm. Since harmful choices are ordinarily perceived as blameworthy, the choice model may inadvertently help justify stigma. (...) This paper seeks to fully naturalize the choice model by highlighting the determinants of voluntary action and thus increase its potential for destigmatizing addiction. In light of a deterministic understanding of behavior, it is unreasonable to suppose that addicted individuals could have made different choices in becoming addicted and in subsequent situations. To the extent that stigma is motivated by the supposition that addicted individuals could have chosen otherwise in actual situations, a deterministic understanding of addictive behavior promises to mitigate blame and stigma. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Lewtas [2017] recently articulated an argument claiming that emergent conscious causal powers are impossible. In developing his argument, Lewtas makes several assumptions about emergence, phenomenal consciousness, categorical properties, and causation. We argue that there are plausible alternatives to these assumptions. Thus, the proponent of emergent conscious causal powers can escape Lewtas’s challenge.

The perennial fear associated with the free will problem is the prospect of hard determinism being true. Unlike prevalent attempts to reject hard determinism by defending compatibilist analyses of freedom and responsibility, this article outlines a pragmatic argument to the effect that we are justified in betting that determinism is false even though we may retain the idea that free will and determinism are incompatible. The basic argument is that as long as we accept that libertarian free will is worth (...) wanting, there is a defensible rationale, given the uncertainty which remains as to whether determinism is true or false, to refrain from acting on hard determinism, and thus to bet that libertarian free will exists. The article closes by discussing two potentially decisive objections to this pragmatic argument. (shrink)

The most popular position in the moral luck debate is to reject resultant moral luck while accepting the possibility of other types of moral luck. But it’s unclear whether this position is stable. Some argue that luck is luck and if it’s relevant for moral responsibility anywhere, it’s relevant everywhere, and vice versa. Some argue that given the similarities between circumstantial moral luck and resultant moral luck, there’s good evidence that if the former exists, so does the latter. The challenge (...) is especially pressing for the large group that exclusively deny resultant moral luck. I argue that rejecting resultant moral luck alone is a stable and plausible position. This is because, in a nutshell, the other types of luck can but the results of an action cannot affect what makes one morally responsible. (NOTE: Email me for a copy.). (shrink)

This paper proposes that we rename free will, also called libertarian free will, to the more accurate characterization of “predisposed agency.” This is needed for two reasons: First, classical compatibilists have redefined free will to mean something quite different than and in fact contrary to libertarian free will, and thus have introduced needless confusion into the concept. More importantly, even those who believe in libertarian free will recognize that our will is not so free in that we are predisposed toward (...) the decisions we make and the actions we take due to our genetics and our environment, which include our temperament, our character, our past experiences, our past decisions, our habits, the people we have been with, and the situations we find ourselves in, among other things. But the term “free will” totally ignores the fact that we are predisposed toward certain actions. The danger in this is that if we use the lexicon of free will, and believe in free will, then we are apt to judge others harshly for their actions since if they have free will then it would seem they bear both full responsibility and blame for their actions. But this seems unfair since each of us is predisposed to think, decide, and act as we do. The author proposes a distinction between having responsibility and deserving blame and praise. Specifically, it is argued that if we do have agency (or libertarian free will) then we are fully responsible for what we do, but due to our predispositions, which we necessarily and unavoidably have and are often largely out of our control, we frequently do not deserve full blame or praise. (shrink)

This paper aims to challenge the view that the sign present in many Frankfurt-style scenarios is insufficiently robust to constitute evidence for the possibility of an alternate decision, and therefore inadequate as a means of determining moral responsibility. I have amended Frankfurt’s original scenario, so as to allow Jones, as well as Black, the opportunity to monitor his (Jones’s) own inclination towards a particular decision (the sign). Different outcome possibilities are presented, to the effect that Jones’s awareness of his own (...) inclinations leads to the conclusion that the sign must be either (a) a prior determinate of the decision about to be made, (b) prior and indeterminate (therefore allowing for a contra-inclination decision to be made), or (c) constitutive of a decision that Jones has made but is not yet aware of. In effect, this means that, prior to the intervention of Black, Jones must have decided to do otherwise or could have so decided. Either way, although Frankfurt’s conclusion, that Jones could not have done other than he did, is upheld, the idea that he could not have decided otherwise must be rejected, and with it the view that the sign is nothing more than a flicker of freedom insufficient for assigning morally responsibility. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to contribute to the clarification of the dialectics between compatibilists and incompatibilists on free action. I describe a new incompatibilist position that has been neglected in the literature. I also provide a proper rationale for such a position. First, I present a justification for incompatibilism that is composed of an old idea and a new one. The old idea is the FRAP principle: freedom requires alternative possibilities. Compatibilists and incompatibilists alike usually share a (...) Key Assumption about how the open alternative possibilities allowed by indeterminism are supposed to support the libertarian case: the existence of alternative possibilities should make a metaphysically relevant difference concerning the control and/or the authorship of the agent over the action. The other component in the justification for incompatibilism is the rejection of the Key Assumption. Why to preserve FRAP when the Key Assumption is dropped? The answer has three parts: we have a strong pre-theoretical intuition in favour of FRAP; a crucial anti-libertarian argument, known as the Luck Argument, can be interpreted as showing that FRAP and the Key Assumption cannot both be true; the Luck Argument doesn't work when directed against FRAP itself. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to challenge libertarian accounts of free will. It is argued that there is an irreconcilable tension between the way in which philosophers motivate the incompatibilist ability to do otherwise and the way in which they formally express it. Potential incompatibilist responses in the face of this tension are canvassed, and it is argued that each response is problematic. It is not claimed that incompatibilist accounts in general are incoherent, but rather that any incompatibilist account (...) that requires that an agent have alternative possibilities at the point of a free action fails. (shrink)

Dwayne Moore raises the physical indeterminism luck objection to libertarian theories of free will, which claims that because agents lack control over the indeterministic physical processes that cause choices, agents lack control over those choices. Moore considers the libertarian strategy of identifying these processes with agential states, such as efforts of will, in order to secure agential control over the outcome of these processes. According to Moore, this strategy faces an insurmountable obstacle in the form of a quausation problem. He (...) argues that naturalistically minded libertarians like Kane are committed to the idea that agential states cause what they do only in virtue of their physical properties. This implies that the agential properties are causally irrelevant to the outcome of these indeterministic processes in which case they cannot help to secure agential control over the outcome. I argue that if Kane is a nonreductive physicalist, he has a way of dealing with the quausation problem. (shrink)

This book aims to show that recent developments in neuroscience permit a defense of free will. Through language, human beings can escape strict biological determinism.

Cases involving clandestine manipulation pose a significant challenge to compatibilist conceptions of free will. But compatibilists often argue that they are not alone and that modest libertarian conceptions of free will are also susceptible to the problem. I take issue with this claim. I argue that agent-causal libertarian views are not susceptible to the problem. I then argue that the compatibilist cannot cite a relevant difference between agent-causal libertarian views and modest libertarian views. Therefore from a compatibilist's perspective modest libertarian (...) views are impervious to the problem of clandestine manipulation. (shrink)

Any satisfactory account of freedom must capture, or at least permit, the mysteriousness of freedom—a “sweet” mystery involving a certain kind of ignorance rather than a “sour” mystery of unintelligibility, incoherence, or unjustifiedness. I argue that compatibilism can capture the sweet mystery of freedom. I argue first that an action is free if and only if a certain “rationality constraint” is satisfied, and that nothing in standard libertarian accounts of freedom entails its satisfaction. Satisfaction of this constraint is consistent with (...) the universal causal predetermination of action (UCP). If UCP is true and the rationality constraint satisfied, there’s a sense in which our actions are explanatorily (though not necessarily causally) overdetermined. While it seems plausible (given UCP) that our actions are so overdetermined, it seems utterly mysterious why they should be so overdetermined. Compatibilism’s capacity to accommodate this mystery is a mark in its favor. (shrink)