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  1. Moral Luck and The Unfairness of Morality.Robert Hartman - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (12):3179-3197.
    Moral luck occurs when factors beyond an agent’s control positively affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Kinds of moral luck are differentiated by the source of lack of control such as the results of her actions, the circumstances in which she finds herself, and the way in which she is constituted. Many philosophers accept the existence of some of these kinds of moral luck but not others, because, in their view, the existence of only some of them would (...)
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  2. Moral Luck and the Imperfect Duty to Spare Blame.Robert J. Hartman - forthcoming - Erkenntnis.
    It is conventional wisdom that appreciating the role of luck in our moral lives should make us more sparing with blame. But views of moral responsibility that allow luck to augment a person’s blameworthiness are in tension with this wisdom. I resolve this tension: our common moral luck partially generates a duty to forgo retributively blaming the blameworthy person at least sometimes. So, although luck can amplify the blame that a person deserves, luck also partially generates a duty not to (...)
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  3. Free Will and the Moral Vice Explanation of Hell's Finality.Robert J. Hartman - 2023 - Religious Studies 59 (4):714-728.
    According to the Free Will Explanation of a traditional view of hell, human freedom explains why some people are in hell. It also explains hell’s punishment and finality: persons in hell have freely developed moral vices that are their own punishment and that make repentance psychologically impossible. So, even though God continues to desire reconciliation with persons in hell, damned persons do not want reconciliation with God. But this moral vice explanation of hell’s finality is implausible. I argue that God (...)
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  4. Against Luck-Free Moral Responsibility.Robert J. Hartman - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (10):2845-2865.
    Every account of moral responsibility has conditions that distinguish between the consequences, actions, or traits that warrant praise or blame and those that do not. One intuitive condition is that praiseworthiness and blameworthiness cannot be affected by luck, that is, by factors beyond the agent’s control. Several philosophers build their accounts of moral responsibility on this luck-free condition, and we may call their views Luck-Free Moral Responsibility (LFMR). I offer moral and metaphysical arguments against LFMR. First, I maintain that considerations (...)
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  5. Free Will and Moral Luck.Robert J. Hartman - 2022 - In Joseph Keim Campbell, Kristin M. Mickelson & V. Alan White (eds.), A Companion to Free Will. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 378-392.
    Philosophers often consider problems of free will and moral luck in isolation from one another, but both are about control and moral responsibility. One problem of free will concerns the difficult task of specifying the kind of control over our actions that is necessary and sufficient to act freely. One problem of moral luck refers to the puzzling task of explaining whether and how people can be morally responsible for actions permeated by factors beyond their control. This chapter explicates and (...)
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  6. Indirectly Free Actions, Libertarianism, and Resultant Moral Luck.Robert J. Hartman - 2020 - Erkenntnis 85 (6):1417-1436.
    Martin Luther affirms his theological position by saying “Here I stand. I can do no other.” Supposing that Luther’s claim is true, he lacks alternative possibilities at the moment of choice. Even so, many libertarians have the intuition that he is morally responsible for his action. One way to make sense of this intuition is to assert that Luther’s action is indirectly free, because his action inherits its freedom and moral responsibility from earlier actions when he had alternative possibilities and (...)
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  7. Constitutive Moral Luck and Strawson's Argument for the Impossibility of Moral Responsibility.Robert J. Hartman - 2018 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (2):165-183.
    Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument is that because self-creation is required to be truly morally responsible and self-creation is impossible, it is impossible to be truly morally responsible for anything. I contend that the Basic Argument is unpersuasive and unsound. First, I argue that the moral luck debate shows that the self-creation requirement appears to be contradicted and supported by various parts of our commonsense ideas about moral responsibility, and that this ambivalence undermines the only reason that Strawson gives for the (...)
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  8. Against the Character Solution to the Problem of Moral Luck.Robert J. Hartman - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (1):105-118.
    One way to frame the problem of moral luck is as a contradiction in our ordinary ideas about moral responsibility. In the case of two identical reckless drivers where one kills a pedestrian and the other does not, we tend to intuit that they are and are not equally blameworthy. The Character Response sorts these intuitions in part by providing an account of moral responsibility: the drivers must be equally blameworthy, because they have identical character traits and people are originally (...)
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  9. Kant Does Not Deny Resultant Moral Luck.Robert J. Hartman - 2019 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 43 (1):136-150.
    It is almost unanimously accepted that Kant denies resultant moral luck—that is, he denies that the lucky consequence of a person’s action can affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Philosophers often point to the famous good will passage at the beginning of the Groundwork to justify this claim. I argue, however, that this passage does not support Kant’s denial of resultant moral luck. Subsequently, I argue that Kant allows agents to be morally responsible for certain kinds of lucky (...)
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  10. How to Apply Molinism to the Theological Problem of Moral Luck.Robert J. Hartman - 2014 - Faith and Philosophy 31 (1):68-90.
    The problem of moral luck is that a general fact about luck and an intuitive moral principle jointly imply the following skeptical conclusion: human beings are morally responsible for at most a tiny fraction of each action. This skeptical conclusion threatens to undermine the claim that human beings deserve their respective eternal reward and punishment. But even if this restriction on moral responsibility is compatible with the doctrine of the final judgment, the quality of one’s afterlife within heaven or hell (...)
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  11. Accepting Moral Luck.Robert J. Hartman - 2019 - In Ian M. Church & Robert J. Hartman (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Psychology of Luck. New York: Routledge.
    I argue that certain kinds of luck can partially determine an agent’s praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. To make this view clearer, consider some examples. Two identical agents drive recklessly around a curb, and one but not the other kills a pedestrian. Two identical corrupt judges would freely take a bribe if one were offered. Only one judge is offered a bribe, and so only one judge takes a bribe. Put in terms of these examples, I argue that the killer driver and (...)
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  12. Heavenly Freedom and Two Models of Character Perfection.Robert J. Hartman - 2021 - Faith and Philosophy 38 (1):45-64.
    Human persons can act with libertarian freedom in heaven according to one prominent view, because they have freely acquired perfect virtue in their pre-heavenly lives such that acting rightly in heaven is volitionally necessary. But since the character of human persons is not perfect at death, how is their character perfected? On the unilateral model, God alone completes the perfection of their character, and, on the cooperative model, God continues to work with them in purgatory to perfect their own character. (...)
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  13. Utilitarian Moral Virtue, Admiration, and Luck.Robert J. Hartman - 2015 - Philosophia 43 (1):77-95.
    Every tenable ethical theory must have an account of moral virtue and vice. Julia Driver has performed a great service for utilitarians by developing a utilitarian account of moral virtue that complements a broader act-based utilitarian ethical theory. In her view, a moral virtue is a psychological disposition that systematically produces good states of affairs in a particular possible world. My goal is to construct a more plausible version of Driver’s account that nevertheless maintains its basic integrity. I aim to (...)
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  14. The Out of Character Objection to the Character Condition on Moral Responsibility.Robert J. Hartman & Benjamin Matheson - 2022 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 11 (1):24-31.
    According to the character condition, a person is morally responsible for an action A only if a character trait of hers non-accidentally motivates her performing A. But that condition is untenable according to the out of character objection because people can be morally responsible for acting out of character. We reassess this common objection. Of the seven accounts of acting out of character that we outline, only one is even a prima facie counterexample to the character condition. And it is (...)
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  15. From Radical Evil to Constitutive Moral Luck in Kant's Religion.Robert J. Hartman - forthcoming - Religious Studies.
    The received view is that Kant denies all moral luck. But I show how Kant affirms constitutive moral luck in passages concerning radical evil from Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. First, I explicate Kant’s claims about radical evil. It is a morally evil disposition that all human beings have necessarily, at least for the first part of their lives, and for which they are blameworthy. Second, since these properties about radical evil appear to contradict Kant’s even more famous (...)
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  16. Circumstantial and constitutive moral luck in Kant's moral philosophy.Robert J. Hartman - 2024 - European Journal of Philosophy 32 (2):353-359.
    The received view of Kant’s moral philosophy is that it precludes all moral luck. But I offer a plausible interpretation according to which Kant embraces moral luck in circumstance and constitution. I interpret the unconditioned nature of transcendental freedom as a person’s ability to do the right thing no matter how she is inclined by her circumstantial and constitutive luck. I argue that various passages about degrees of difficulty relating to circumstantial and constitutive luck provide a reason to accept a (...)
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  17. Durand of St.-Pourçain on Reflex Acts and State Consciousness.Peter Hartman - 2021 - Vivarium 59 (3):215-240.
    Some of my mental states are conscious and some of them are not. Sometimes I am so focused on the wine in front of me that I am unaware that I am thinking about it; but sometimes, of course, I take a reflexive step back and become aware of my thinking about the wine in front of me. What marks the difference between a conscious mental state and an unconscious one? In this paper, I focus on Durand of St.-Pourçain’s rejection (...)
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  18. Gratitude to God for Our Own Moral Goodness.Robert J. Hartman - 2022 - Faith and Philosophy 39 (2):189-204.
    Someone owes gratitude to God for something only if God benefits her and is morally responsible for doing so. These requirements concerning benefit and moral responsibility generate reasons to doubt that human beings owe gratitude to God for their own moral goodness. First, moral character must be generated by its possessor’s own free choices, and so God cannot benefit moral character in human beings. Second, owed gratitude requires being morally responsible for providing a benefit, which rules out owed gratitude to (...)
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  19. Concomitant Ignorance Excuses from Moral Responsibility.Robert J. Hartman - 2021 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 10 (1):58-65.
    Some philosophers contend that concomitant ignorance preserves moral responsibility for wrongdoing. An agent is concomitantly ignorant with respect to wrongdoing if and only if her ignorance is non-culpable, but she would freely have performed the same action if she were not ignorant. I, however, argue that concomitant ignorance excuses. I show that leading accounts of moral responsibility imply that concomitant ignorance excuses, and I debunk the view that concomitant ignorance preserves moral responsibility.
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  20. Durand of St.-Pourçain's Theory of Modes.Peter Hartman - 2022 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (2):203-226.
    Early modern philosophers, such as Descartes and Spinoza, appeal to a theory of modes in their metaphysics. Recent commentators have argued that such a theory of modes has Francesco Suárez as its primary source. In this paper, I explore one explicit source for Suárez’s view: Durand of St.-Pourçain, an early fourteenth-century philosopher. My aim will be mainly expository: I will put forward Durand’s theory of modes, thus correcting the persistent belief that there was no well-defined theory of modes prior to (...)
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  21. Armstrong on Probabilistic Laws of Nature.Jonathan D. Jacobs & Robert J. Hartman - 2017 - Philosophical Papers 46 (3):373-387.
    D. M. Armstrong famously claims that deterministic laws of nature are contingent relations between universals and that his account can also be straightforwardly extended to irreducibly probabilistic laws of nature. For the most part, philosophers have neglected to scrutinize Armstrong’s account of probabilistic laws. This is surprising precisely because his own claims about probabilistic laws make it unclear just what he takes them to be. We offer three interpretations of what Armstrong-style probabilistic laws are, and argue that all three interpretations (...)
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  22. A Christian Ethics of Blame: Or, God says, "Vengeance is Mine".Robert J. Hartman - 2023 - Religious Studies:1-16.
    There is an ethics of blaming the person who deserves blame. The Christian scriptures imply the following no-vengeance condition: a person should not vengefully overtly blame a wrongdoer even if she gives the wrongdoer the exact negative treatment that he deserves. I explicate and defend this novel condition and argue that it demands a revolution in our blaming practices. First, I explain the no-vengeance condition. Second, I argue that the no-vengeance condition is often violated. The most common species of blame (...)
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  23. Luck: An Introduction.Ian M. Church & Robert J. Hartman - 2019 - In Ian M. Church & Robert J. Hartman (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Psychology of Luck. New York: Routledge. pp. 1-10.
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  24. Cognition and Causation: Durand of St.-Pourçain and Godfrey of Fontaines on the Cause of a Cognitive Act.Peter Hartman - 2014 - In Andreas Speer, Guy Guldentops & Thomas Jeshcke (eds.), Durand of Saint-Pourçain and His Sentences Commentary: Historical, Philosophical, and Theological Issues. pp. 229-256.
    We are affected by the world: when I place my hand next to the fire, it becomes hot, and when I plunge it into the bucket of ice water, it becomes cold. What goes for physical changes also goes for at least some mental changes: when Felix the Cat leaps upon my lap, my lap not only becomes warm, but I also feel this warmth, and when he purrs, I hear his purr. It seems obvious, in other words, that perception (...)
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  25. Counterfactuals of Freedom and the Luck Objection to Libertarianism.Robert J. Hartman - 2017 - Journal of Philosophical Research 42 (1):301-312.
    Peter van Inwagen famously offers a version of the luck objection to libertarianism called the ‘Rollback Argument.’ It involves a thought experiment in which God repeatedly rolls time backward to provide an agent with many opportunities to act in the same circumstance. Because the agent has the kind of freedom that affords her alternative possibilities at the moment of choice, she performs different actions in some of these opportunities. The upshot is that whichever action she performs in the actual-sequence is (...)
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  26. The Relation-Theory of Mental Acts: Durand of St.-Pourcain on the Ontological Status of Mental Acts.Peter Hartman - 2019 - Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 7:186-211.
    The relation-theory of mental acts proposes that a mental act is a kind of relative entity founded upon the mind and directed at the object of perception or thought. While most medieval philosophers recognized that there is something importantly relational about thought, they nevertheless rejected the view that mental acts are wholly relations. Rather, the dominant view was that a mental act is either in whole or part an Aristotelian quality added to the mind upon which such a relation to (...)
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  27. Durand of St.-Pourçain’s Moderate Reductionism about Hylomorphic Composites.Peter John Hartman - 2023 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 97 (4):441-462.
    According to a standard interpretation of Aristotle, a material substance, like a dog, is a hylomorphic composite of matter and form, its “essential” parts. Is such a composite some thing in addition to its essential parts as united? The moderate reductionist says “no,” whereas the anti-reductionist says “yes.” In this paper, I will clarify and defend Durand of St.-Pourçain’s surprisingly influential version of moderate reductionism, according to which hylomorphic composites are nothing over and above their essential parts and the union (...)
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  28. Mirecourt, Mental Modes, and Mental Motions.Peter John Hartman - 2023 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 97 (2):227-248.
    What is an occurrent mental state? According to a common scholastic answer such a state is at least in part a quality of the mind. When I newly think about a machiatto, say, my mind acquires a new quality. However, according to a view discussed by John Buridan (who rejects it) and John of Mirecourt (who is condemned in 1347 for considering it “plausible”), an occurrent mental state is not even in part a quality. After sketching some of the history (...)
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  29. John Pouilly and John Baconthorpe on Reflex Acts.Peter Hartman - 2023 - In José Higuera Rubio (ed.), Per cognitionem visualem. The Visualization of Cognitive and Natural Processes in the Middle Ages Acts of the XXV Annual Colloquium of the Société Internationale pour l'Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, Porto, 14–15 and 21–22 June 2021.
    When I think that I am now thinking about a rose, are there two mental acts present in the intellect at once, the one direct (about the rose) and the other reflex (about the thought about the rose)? According to a generally accepted principle in medieval psychology, a given mental power cannot have or elicit multiple mental acts at the same time. Hence, many medieval thinkers were unwilling to admit that during such a case of mental reflection there are two (...)
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  30. Direct Realism with and without Representation: John Buridan and Durand of St.-Pourçain on Species.Peter Hartman - 2017 - In Gyula Klima (ed.), Questions on the soul by John Buridan and others. Berlin, Germany: Springer. pp. 107-129.
    As we now know, most, if not all, philosophers in the High Middle Ages agreed that what we immediately perceive are external objects and that the immediate object of perception must not be some image present to the mind. Yet most — but not all — philosophers in the High Middle Ages also held, following Aristotle, that perception is a process wherein the percipient takes on the likeness of the external object. This likeness — called a species — is a (...)
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  31. Thomas Aquinas and Durand of St.-Pourçain on Mental Representation.Peter Hartman - 2013 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 30 (1):19-34.
    Most philosophers in the High Middle Ages agreed that what we immediately perceive are external objects. Yet most philosophers in the High Middle Ages also held, following Aristotle, that perception is a process wherein the perceiver takes on the form or likeness of the external object. This form or likeness — called a species — is a representation by means of which we immediately perceive the external object. Thomas Aquinas defended this thesis in one form, and Durand of St.-Pourçain, his (...)
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  32. Durand of St.-Pourçain on Cognitive Habits: Sent. Bk. 3, D. 23, QQ. 1-2.Peter Hartman - 2017 - In Magali E. Roques & Jennifer Pelletier (eds.), The Language of Thought in Late Medieval Philosophy. Cham: Springer. pp. 331-368.
    Durand of Saint-Pourçain's earliest treatment of cognitive habits is contained in his Sentences Commentary, Book 3, Distinction 23. In the first two questions, he discusses the ontological status of habits and their causal role, establishing his own unique view alongside the views of Godfrey of Fontaines and Hervaeus Natalis. What follows is the Latin text and an English translation of Durand's Sentences (A/B) III, d. 23, qq. 1-2.
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  33. The Knowledge of Good: Critique of Axiological Reason.Robert S. Hartman, Arthur R. Ellis & Rem B. Edwards (eds.) - 2002 - BRILL.
    This book presents Robert S. Hartman’s formal theory of value and critically examines many other twentieth century value theorists in its light, including A.J. Ayer, Kurt Baier, Brand Blanshard, Paul Edwards, Albert Einstein, William K. Frankena, R.M. Hare, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, G.E. Moore, P.H. Nowell-Smith, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Charles Stevenson, Paul W. Taylor, Stephen E. Toulmin, and J.O. Urmson.
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  34. Durand of St.-Pourçain on Cognitive Acts: Their Cause, Ontological Status, and Intentional Character.Peter Hartman - 2012 - Dissertation, University of Toronto
    The present dissertation concerns cognitive psychology—theories about the nature and mechanism of perception and thought—during the High Middle Ages (1250–1350). Many of the issues at the heart of philosophy of mind today—intentionality, mental representation, the active/passive nature of perception—were also the subject of intense investigation during this period. I provide an analysis of these debates with a special focus on Durand of St.-Pourçain, a contemporary of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. Durand was widely recognized as a leading philosopher (...)
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  35. Rik Peels, Responsible Belief: A Theory in Ethics and Epistemology. [REVIEW]Robert J. Hartman - 2018 - Ethics 128 (3):646-651.
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  36. Are Cognitive Habits in the Intellect? Durand of St.-Pourçain and Prosper de Reggio Emilia on Cognitive Habits.Peter John Hartman - 2018 - In Nicolas Faucher & Magali Roques (eds.), The Ontology, Psychology and Axiology of Habits (Habitus) in Medieval Philosophy. Cham: Springer. pp. 229-244.
    Once Socrates has thought something, he comes to acquire an item such that he is then able to think such thoughts again when he wants, and he can, all other things being equal, do this with more ease than he could before. This item that he comes to acquire medieval philosophers called a cognitive habit which most medieval philosophers maintained was a new quality added to Socrates' intellect. However, some disagreed. In this paper, I will examine an interesting alternative theory (...)
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  37. Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming. [REVIEW]Robert J. Hartman - 2019 - Philosophical Quarterly 69 (275):427-429.
    Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming. By Callard Agnes.
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  38.  34
    Are Cognitive Habits in the Intellect? Durand of St.-Pourçain and Prosper de Reggio Emilia on Cognitive Habits.Peter John Hartman - 2018 - In Nicolas Faucher & Magali Roques (eds.), The Ontology, Psychology and Axiology of Habits (Habitus) in Medieval Philosophy. Cham: Springer. pp. 229-244.
    Once Socrates has thought something, he comes to acquire an item such that he is then able to think such thoughts again when he wants, and he can, all other things being equal, do this with more ease than he could before. This item that he comes to acquire medieval philosophers called a cognitive habit. Most medieval philosophers maintained this item was a new quality added to Socrates’s intellect. However, some disagreed. In this paper, I will examine an interesting alternative (...)
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  39. Alfred Mele, Manipulated Agents: A Window into Moral Responsibility. [REVIEW]Robert J. Hartman - 2020 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 17 (5):563-566.
    Review of Manipulated Agents: A Window into Moral Responsibility. By Alfred R. Mele .
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