19 research outputs found
Understanding Source Incompatibilism
Source incompatibilism is an increasingly popular version of incompatibilism about determinism and moral responsibility. However, many self-described source incompatibilists formulate the thesis differently, resulting in conceptual confusion that can obscure the relationship between source incompatibilism and other views in the neighborhood. In this paper I canvas various formulations of the thesis in the literature and argue in favor of one as the least likely to lead to conceptual confusion. It turns out that accepting my formulation has some surprising taxonomical consequence
Responsibility
In this encyclopedia entry I sketch the way contemporary theorists understand moral responsibility -- its varieties, its requirements, and its puzzles
The Strains of Involvement
Analytic philosophers have a tendency to forget that they are human beings, and one of the reasons that P. F. Strawsonâs 1962 essay, âFreedom and Resentmentâ, has been so influential is that it promises to bring discussions of moral responsibility back down to earth. Strawson encouraged us to âkeep before our minds...what it is actually like to be involved in ordinary interpersonal relationshipsâ, which is, after all, the context in which questions about responsibility arise in the first place. In this essay I explore what we can learn about ordinary interpersonal relationships from three works of literature â Shakespeareâs King Lear, Jane Austenâs Persuasion, and Graham Greeneâs The End of the Affair. My intention is to try to heed Strawsonâs advice without imposing upon the data any particular theoretical agenda, and my hope is that the data collected will prove useful for future theorizing about responsibility
Free Will and Time Travel
In this chapter I articulate the threat that time travel to the past allegedly poses to the free will of the time traveler, and I argue that on the traditional way of thinking about free will, the incompatibilist about time travel and free will wins the day. However, a residual worry about the incompatibilist view points the way toward a novel way of thinking about free will, one that I tentatively explore toward the end of the chapter
Exploring Evil and Philosophical Failure: A Critical Notice of Peter Van Inwagen\u27s THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Incompatibilism and the Fixity of the Past
A style of argument that calls into question our freedom (in the sense that involves freedom to do otherwise) has been around for millennia; it can be traced back to Origen. The argument-form makes use of the crucial idea that the past is over-and-done-with and thus fixed; we cannot now do anything about the distant past (or, for that matter, the recent past)âit is now too late. Peter van Inwagen has presented this argument (what he calls the Consequence Argument) in perhaps its clearest and most forceful way, but debate over the argument has arguably reached a stalemate.
Recently, however, Wes Holliday has attempted to break this seeming stalemate by presenting a new argument for the Principle of the Fixity of the Past. Hollidayâs argument is subtle and ingenious, and worthy of serious consideration, especially given the promise it holds for genuinely advancing this old debate. In what follows, however, we argue that despite its considerable ingenuity, Hollidayâs argument fails to convince, and the stalemate appears to remain