Olsaretti, Serena. The Concept of Voluntariness – A Reply
2008, Journal of Political Philosophy 16(1): 165-188.
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Added by: Carl Fox
Abstract: In his paper on 'The Concept of Voluntariness', Ben Colburn helpfully takes up the task of developing my view about the sense of voluntariness that is relevant for judgments of substantive responsibility, or judgments about individuals' liability to pick up some costs of their choices. On my view, a necessary condition for holding people responsible for their choices is that those choices be voluntary in the sense that they are not made because there is no acceptable alternative, where the standard for the acceptability of options is an objective standard of well-being. [...] Colburn's first point is entirely well-taken. By way of endorsing it, I ask whether we are justified in taking some but not all kinds of beliefs to affect the voluntariness of choice, as his elaboration of my view suggests. However, I find Colburn's second point less convincing, and argue that we should allow for the moral character of options to affect the voluntariness of choice.Comment : Short debate article responding to some criticisms of Olsaretti's account of voluntariness made by Ben Colburn and probably best read in conjunction with Colburn's article. Does a good job of responding to the criticisms and explaining her account. Good further reading for teaching about voluntariness and autonomy.Paul, L. A.. What You Can’t Expect When You’re Expecting2015, Res Philosophica 92 (2):1-23 (2015)-
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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist
Abstract: It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices.Comment : Good to use as a shorter introductory reading to L.A. Paul's work and how to make decisions about life choices. It could be used in a module on decision making, or imagination.Piper, Adrian. Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception2008, APRA Foundation Berlin.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Adrian M. S. Piper
Publisher's Note: The Humean conception of the self consists in the belief-desire model of motivation and the utility-maximizing model of rationality. This conception has dominated Western thought in philosophy and the social sciences ever since Hobbes' initial formulation in Leviathan and Hume's elaboration in the Treatise of Human Nature. Bentham, Freud, Ramsey, Skinner, Allais, von Neumann and Morgenstern and others have added further refinements that have brought it to a high degree of formal sophistication. Late twentieth century moral philosophers such as Rawls, Brandt, Frankfurt, Nagel and Williams have taken it for granted, and have made use of it to supply metaethical foundations for a wide variety of normative moral theories. But the Humean conception of the self also leads to seemingly insoluble problems about moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification. Can it be made to work?Reader, Soran. The Other Side of Agency2007, Philosophy 82 (4):579-604-
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Abstract:
In our philosophical tradition and our wider culture, we tend to think of persons as agents. This agential conception is flattering, but in this paper I will argue that it conceals a more complex truth about what persons are. In 1. I set the issues in context. In 2. I critically explore four features commonly presented as fundamental to personhood in versions of the agential conception: action, capability, choice and independence. In 3. I argue that each of these agential features presupposes a non-agential feature: agency presupposes patiency, capability presupposes incapability, choice presupposes necessity and independence presupposes dependency. In 4. I argue that such non-agential features, as well as being implicit within the agential conception, are as apt to be constitutive of personhood as agential features, and in 5. I conclude.
Comment : This text offers an unique perspective of personhood which aims to push against the prevailing norm, in both contemporary analytic philosophy and broader culture, of viewing persons as agent. As Reader points out, this norm has led to the embedding of unchallenged assumptions that a person as agent is one who matters, who counts, while a person as patient is one who does not. "When I am passive, incapable, constrained, dependent, I am less a person, I count less." In challenging this underlying assumption, Reader addresses common political, ethical, conceptual and metaphysical questions about the self in a new way. However, she also offers a clear and straightforward outline of the conception of person as agent, including four features which she deems as central to the conception: action, capability, freedom and independence. For this reason, the text would be useful first, in clarifying the existing agential perpsective, but also as an alternative, or a direct counter, to this perspective and the more traditional 20th century approaches to investigating the self. For example, it might be useful in a political philosophy course as a counter weight to Rawls, Taylor, Nussbaum, and their conceptions of the person as citizen.Roskies, Adina L.. Neuroscientific challenges to free will and responsibility2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10(9): 419-423.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: Recent developments in neuroscience raise the worry that understanding how brains cause behavior will undermine our views about free will and, consequently, about moral responsibility. The potential ethical consequences of such a result are sweeping. I provide three reasons to think that these worries seemingly inspired by neuroscience are misplaced. First, problems for common-sense notions of freedom exist independently of neuroscientific advances. Second, neuroscience is not in a position to undermine our intuitive notions. Third, recent empirical studies suggest that even if people do misconstrue neuroscientific results as relevant to our notion of freedom, our judgments of moral responsibility will remain largely unaffected. These considerations suggest that neuroethical concerns about challenges to our conception of freedom are misguided.Comment : Roskies offers an overview of the debate, providing useful glossary of positions related to it together with a graph representing the relations between them. This can be particularly useful when explaining the differences between the metaphysical, epistemic and ethical claims made in this debate.Sartorio, Carolina. Causation and Free Will2016, Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Jingbo Hu
Publisher's Note: Carolina Sartorio argues that only the actual causes of our behaviour matter to our freedom. The key, she claims, lies in a correct understanding of the role played by causation in a view of that kind. Causation has some important features that make it a responsibility-grounding relation, and this contributes to the success of the view. Also, when agents act freely, the actual causes are richer than they appear to be at first sight; in particular, they reflect the agents' sensitivity to reasons, where this includes both the existence of actual reasons and the absence of other reasons. So acting freely requires more causes and quite complex causes, as opposed to fewer causes and simpler causes, and is compatible with those causes being deterministic. The book connects two different debates, the one on causation and the one on the problem of free will, in new and illuminating ways.Comment : This book provides an interesting compatibilist theory for free will and moral responsibility. Chapter One can be used as an introductory material about the Frankfurt-style cases as well as the motivations for compatibilism. Chapter Four can be used as an auxiliary reading for Fischer and Ravizza's reasons-responsiveness theory for it points out some problem of their theory and provides an alternative proposal.Sherman, Nancy. The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue1989, Oxford: Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: John BaldariPublisher’s Note:
Publisher: Most traditional accounts of Aristotle's theory of ethical education neglect its cognitive aspects. This book asserts that, in Aristotle's view, excellence of character comprises both the sentiments and practical reason. Sherman focuses particularly on four aspects of practical reason as they relate to character: moral perception, choicemaking, collaboration, and the development of those capacities in moral education. Throughout the book, she is sensitive to contemporary moral debates, and indicates the extent to which Aristotle's account of practical reason provides an alternative to theories of impartial reason.Comment : This book is useful for ethics curriculum that focus on virtue or Aristotelian focused ethics courses.Steele, Katie Siobhan. The Scientist qua Policy Advisor Makes Value Judgments2012, Philosophy of Science, 79(5): 893-904-
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Added by: Björn Freter, Contributed by: Johanna ThomaAbstract:
Richard Rudner famously argues that the communication of scientific advice to policy makers involves ethical value judgments. His argument has, however, been rightly criticized. This article revives Rudner’s conclusion, by strengthening both his lines of argument: we generalize his initial assumption regarding the form in which scientists must communicate their results and complete his ‘backup’ argument by appealing to the difference between private and public decisions. Our conclusion that science advisors must, for deep-seated pragmatic reasons, make value judgments is further bolstered by reflections on how the scientific contribution to policy is far less straightforward than the Rudner-style model suggests.
Comment : A major contribution to the values in science debate, focusing in particular on the role of scientists as policy advisers. The text is accessible for advanced students and can be used as the central text for a session on values in science in a philosophy of science course, or a more specialised course on related topics.Steward, Helen. The Ontology of Mind: Events, Processes, and States2000, Oxford: Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Jie Gao
Publisher's Note: This book puts forward a radical critique of the foundations of contemporary philosophy of mind, arguing that it relies too heavily on insecure assumptions about the nature of some of the sorts of mental entities it postulates: the nature of events, processes, and states. The book offers an investigation of these three categories, clarifying the distinction between them, and argues specifically that the assumption that states can be treated as particular, event-like entities has been a huge and serious mistake. The book argues that the category of token state should be rejected, and develops an alternative way of understanding those varieties of causal explanation which have sometimes been thought to require an ontology of token states for their elucidation. The book contends that many current theories of mind are rendered unintelligible once it is seen how these explanations really work. A number of prominent features of contemporary philosophy of mind token identity theories, the functionalists conception of causal role, a common form of argument for eliminative materialism, and the structure of the debate about the efficacy of mental content are impugned by the book's arguments. The book concludes that the modern mind-body problem needs to be substantially rethought.Comment : The aim of this book is to argue that issues in metaphysics - in particular issues about the nature of states and causation - have a significant impact in philosophy of mind.The book has three parts and each part can be used for different purposes for courses on metaphysics or philosophy of mind. The first part constitutes an attack to three highly influential theories of events (the views of Jaegwon Kim, Jonathan Bennett and Lawrence Lombard) and a defence of the view that events are "proper particulars". This part can be used as the main or secondary reading material in an upper-level course on metaphysics on topics of events. The second part defends the view that states are fundamentally different from events, which can be used for teaching on metaphysical theories of states or causal relation. The third part critically examines positions in philosophy of mind - in particular arguments for token-identity, epiphenomenalism, and eliminativism - need reconsideration. This part can be used as further reading materials on debates about those positions in philosophy of mind.Steward, Helen. A Metaphysics for Freedom2012, Oxford: Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Emily Paul
Publisher's note: A metaphysics for freedom argues that determinism is incompatible with agency itself--not only the special human variety of agency, but also powers which can be accorded to animal agents. It offers a distinctive, non-dualistic version of libertarianism, rooted in a conception of what biological forms of organisation might make possible in the way of freedom.Comment : Specific chapters (e.g. 1 and 4) would be useful for an advanced philosophy of mind/action course, but also it could be really nice to read the whole book in a dedicated Masters course - reading and discussing one chapter per seminar. Chapter 1 is especially useful because it outlines Steward's position, 'agency incompatibilism' which it could be useful to have students discuss and compare with classical compatibilism and incompatibilism. Chapter 4 is also a great one to use because it discusses animal agency - this could perhaps come towards the end of an intermediate philosophy of mind course - once students have already learned something about agency when considered in relation to humans.Can’t find it?Contribute the texts you think should be here and we’ll add them soon!
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