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Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Author: Gregg D. Caruso

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2013-07-05

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 073917732X

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility investigates the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications. Skepticism about free will and moral responsibility has been on the rise in recent years. In fact, a significant number of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists now either doubt or outright deny the existence of free will and/or moral responsibility—and the list of prominent skeptics appears to grow by the day. Given the profound importance that the concepts of free will and moral responsibility hold in our lives—in understanding ourselves, society, and the law—it is important that we explore what is behind this new wave of skepticism. It is also important that we explore the potential consequences of skepticism for ourselves and society. Edited by Gregg D. Caruso, this collection of new essays brings together an internationally recognized line-up of contributors, most of whom hold skeptical positions of some sort, to display and explore the leading arguments for free will skepticism and to debate their implications.

Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Author: Justin Caouette

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2013-10-03

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1443853232

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Determinism is, roughly, the thesis that facts about the past and the laws of nature entail all truths. A venerable, age-old dilemma concerning responsibility distils to this: if either determinism is true or it is not true, we lack “responsibility-grounding” control. Either determinism is true or it is not true. So, we lack responsibility-grounding control. Deprived of such control, no one is ever morally responsible for anything. A number of the freshly-minted essays in this collection address aspects of this dilemma. Responding to the horn that determinism undermines the freedom that responsibility (or moral obligation) requires, the freedom to do otherwise, some papers in this collection debate the merits of Frankfurt-style examples that purport to show that one can be responsible despite lacking alternatives. Responding to the horn that indeterminism implies luck or randomness, other papers discuss the strengths or shortcomings of libertarian free will or control. Also included in this collection are essays on the freedom requirements of moral obligation, forgiveness and free will, a “desert-free” conception of free will, and vicarious legal and moral responsibility. The authors of the essays in this volume are philosophers who have made significant contributions to debates in free will, moral responsibility, moral obligation, the reactive attitudes, philosophy of action, and philosophical psychology, and include John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, Michael McKenna, Alfred Mele, and Derk Pereboom.

Hard Luck

Author: Neil Levy

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2011-06-30

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 019161906X

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The concept of luck has played an important role in debates concerning free will and moral responsibility, yet participants in these debates have relied upon an intuitive notion of what luck is. Neil Levy develops an account of luck, which is then applied to the free will debate. He argues that the standard luck objection succeeds against common accounts of libertarian free will, but that it is possible to amend libertarian accounts so that they are no more vulnerable to luck than is compatibilism. But compatibilist accounts of luck are themselves vulnerable to a powerful luck objection: historical compatibilisms cannot satisfactorily explain how agents can take responsibility for their constitutive luck; non-historical compatibilisms run into insurmountable difficulties with the epistemic condition on control over action. Levy argues that because epistemic conditions on control are so demanding that they are rarely satisfied, agents are not blameworthy for performing actions that they take to be best in a given situation. It follows that if there are any actions for which agents are responsible, they are akratic actions; but even these are unacceptably subject to luck. Levy goes on to discuss recent non-historical compatibilisms, and argues that they do not offer a viable alternative to control-based compatibilisms. He suggests that luck undermines our freedom and moral responsibility no matter whether determinism is true or not.

Essays on Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Author: Daniel Cohen

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2009-05-05

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1443810762

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The problem of free will has fascinated philosophers since ancient times: Do we have free will, or at least the kind of free will that seems necessary for moral responsibility? Does determinism – the idea that everything that happens is necessitated to happen, given the past and the laws of nature – threaten the commonly held assumption that we are indeed free and morally responsible? Although these questions have been widely discussed in the past, the present volume offers a variety of new perspectives from philosophers who have made significant contributions to this debate over recent years, including Derk Pereboom, Robert Kane, Ishtiyaque Haji, Michael McKenna, John Martin Fischer, David Widerker and Saul Smilansky. The emphasis in these essays is not merely on free will, but on allied notions such as moral responsibility, moral obligation, fairness and meaningfulness, and on whether any room can be made for these notions in a deterministic or an indeterministic universe.

Just Deserts

Author: Daniel C. Dennett

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-01-14

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1509545778

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The concept of free will is profoundly important to our self-understanding, our interpersonal relationships, and our moral and legal practices. If it turns out that no one is ever free and morally responsible, what would that mean for society, morality, meaning, and the law? Just Deserts brings together two philosophers – Daniel C. Dennett and Gregg D. Caruso – to debate their respective views on free will, moral responsibility, and legal punishment. In three extended conversations, Dennett and Caruso present their arguments for and against the existence of free will and debate their implications. Dennett argues that the kind of free will required for moral responsibility is compatible with determinism – for him, self-control is key; we are not responsible for becoming responsible, but are responsible for staying responsible, for keeping would-be puppeteers at bay. Caruso takes the opposite view, arguing that who we are and what we do is ultimately the result of factors beyond our control, and because of this we are never morally responsible for our actions in the sense that would make us truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward. Just Deserts introduces the concepts central to the debate about free will and moral responsibility by way of an entertaining, rigorous, and sometimes heated philosophical dialogue between two leading thinkers.

Moral Psychology, Volume 4

Author: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2014-02-21

Total Pages: 493

ISBN-13: 0262321491

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Leading philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists address issues of moral responsibility and free will, drawing on new findings from empirical science. Traditional philosophers approached the issues of free will and moral responsibility through conceptual analysis that seldom incorporated findings from empirical science. In recent decades, however, striking developments in psychology and neuroscience have captured the attention of many moral philosophers. This volume of Moral Psychology offers essays, commentaries, and replies by leading philosophers and scientists who explain and use empirical findings from psychology and neuroscience to illuminate old and new problems regarding free will and moral responsibility. The contributors—who include such prominent scholars as Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett, and Michael Gazzaniga—consider issues raised by determinism, compatibilism, and libertarianism; epiphenomenalism, bypassing, and naturalism; naturalism; and rationality and situationism. These writings show that although science does not settle the issues of free will and moral responsibility, it has enlivened the field by asking novel, profound, and important questions. Contributors Roy F. Baumeister, Tim Bayne, Gunnar Björnsson, C. Daryl Cameron, Hanah A. Chapman, William A. Cunningham, Patricia S. Churchland, Christopher G. Coutlee, Daniel C. Dennett, Ellen E. Furlong, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Patrick Haggard, Brian Hare, Lasana T. Harris, John-Dylan Haynes, Richard Holton, Scott A. Huettel, Robert Kane, Victoria K. Lee, Neil Levy, Alfred R. Mele, Christian Miller, Erman Misirlisoy, P. Read Montague, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Eddy Nahmias, William T. Newsome, B. Keith Payne, Derk Pereboom, Adina L. Roskies, Laurie R. Santos, Timothy Schroeder, Michael N. Shadlen, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Chandra Sripada, Christopher L. Suhler, Manuel Vargas, Gideon Yaffe

Against Moral Responsibility

Author: Bruce N. Waller

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2011-10-14

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 0262016591

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A vigorous attack on moral responsibility in all its forms argues that the abolition of moral responsibility will be liberating and beneficial. In Against Moral Responsibility, Bruce Waller launches a spirited attack on a system that is profoundly entrenched in our society and its institutions, deeply rooted in our emotions, and vigorously defended by philosophers from ancient times to the present. Waller argues that, despite the creative defenses of it by contemporary thinkers, moral responsibility cannot survive in our naturalistic-scientific system. The scientific understanding of human behavior and the causes that shape human character, he contends, leaves no room for moral responsibility. Waller argues that moral responsibility in all its forms—including criminal justice, distributive justice, and all claims of just deserts—is fundamentally unfair and harmful and that its abolition will be liberating and beneficial. What we really want—natural human free will, moral judgments, meaningful human relationships, creative abilities—would survive and flourish without moral responsibility. In the course of his argument, Waller examines the origins of the basic belief in moral responsibility, proposes a naturalistic understanding of free will, offers a detailed argument against moral responsibility and critiques arguments in favor of it, gives a general account of what a world without moral responsibility would look like, and examines the social and psychological aspects of abolishing moral responsibility. Waller not only mounts a vigorous, and philosophically rigorous, attack on the moral responsibility system, but also celebrates the benefits that would result from its total abolition.

Relative Justice

Author: Tamler Sommers

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0691139938

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Drawing on research in anthropology, psychology, and a host of other disciplines, this book argues that cross-cultural variation raises serious problems for theories that propose universally applicable conditions for moral responsibility. It develops a way of thinking about responsibility that takes cultural diversity into account.

The Oxford Handbook of Hume

Author: Paul Russell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 833

ISBN-13: 0199742847

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The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) is widely regarded as the greatest and most significant English-speaking philosopher and often seen as having had the most influence on the way philosophy is practiced today in the West. His reputation is based not only on the quality of his philosophical thought but also on the breadth and scope of his writings, which ranged over metaphysics, epistemology, morals, politics, religion, and aesthetics. The Handbook's 38 newly commissioned chapters are divided into six parts: Central Themes; Metaphysics and Epistemology; Passion, Morality and Politics; Aesthetics, History, and Economics; Religion; Hume and the Enlightenment; and After Hume. The volume also features an introduction from editor Paul Russell and a chapter on Hume's biography.

The Limits of Free Will

Author: Paul Russell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-09-22

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 019062762X

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The Limits of Free Will presents influential articles by Paul Russell concerning free will and moral responsibility. The problems arising in this field of philosophy, which are deeply rooted in the history of the subject, are also intimately related to a wide range of other fields, such as law and criminology, moral psychology, theology, and, more recently, neuroscience. These articles were written and published over a period of three decades, although most have appeared in the past decade. Among the topics covered: the challenge of skepticism; moral sentiment and moral capacity; necessity and the metaphysics of causation; practical reason; free will and art; fatalism and the limits of agency; moral luck, and our metaphysical attitudes of optimism and pessimism. Some essays are primarily critical in character, presenting critiques and commentary on major works or contributions in the contemporary scene. Others are mainly constructive, aiming to develop and articulate a distinctive account of compatibilism. The general theory advanced by Russell, which he describes as a form of "critical compatibilism", rejects any form of unqualified or radical skepticism; but it also insists that a plausible compatibilism has significant and substantive implications about the limits of agency and argues that this licenses a metaphysical attitude of (modest) pessimism on this topic. While each essay is self-standing, there is nevertheless a core set of themes and issues that unite and link them together. The collection is arranged and organized in a format that enables the reader to appreciate and recognize these links and core themes.