Archive for the ‘Action Theory’ Category

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Moral responsibility for coerced actions

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

I think that there are some cases where people are morally responsible for coerced actions they perform. Consider the following:

Smith owns an expensive car which he is very proud of and very much wants to keep. Smith has a friend (Jones) who is not very well off and relies on his old pickup truck to support his family. A robber threatens Smith and tells him that unless he surrenders his car to the robber, the robber will destroy Jones’s truck. Smith (out of concern for his friend) allows the robber to take his prized automobile.

In this case it seems like Smith is praiseworthy (and thus responsible) for his coerced action. What do you guys think? Is Smith responsible? Is this a case of coercion?

Posted in Action Theory, Ethical Theory, Metaphysics | 4,194 Comments »

Ginet on the Epistemic Condition for Moral Responsibility

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Carl Ginet writes the following:

Melanie shoots her gun and thereby causes the death of her enemy, fully intending to do so.  Her belief as she pulled the trigger that by firing the gun she would cause her enemy’s death was correct and justified, for she is an expert marksman and just an hour ago she checked the operation of her gun and loaded it.  But what happened was this: the bullet she fired was deflected by a flying bird; nevertheless the firing gun caused the death of her enemy because the sound of the shot startled a passing driver and caused him to lose control of his car which struck and killed her enemy.  Here I am disinclined to regard Melanie as blameworthy for the death of her enemy (though she is, of course, to be blamed for acting with the intent of killing him).  She seems no more culpable for that consequence than she would have been had she aimed her shot harmlessly into the sky and unintentionally caused her enmy’s death in a similar way. (Philosophical Perspectives 14, 2000, p. 270)

Do others feel this same inclination?  In response, you can just write ‘yes’ or ‘no’, no need for comment unless you want to.

Posted in Action Theory, Ethical Theory | 4,300 Comments »

“The Philosophic Importance of Alternative Worlds” or “Yet Another Complaint about Compatibilism”

Monday, May 7th, 2007

It seems to me that some philosophers are skeptical of the philosophical importance of what goes on in non-actual possible worlds for philosophical conclusions about what goes on in the actual world. I have in mind here the compatibilist who complains that what goes on in other possible worlds is irrelevant for questions of freedom. “What matters,” he insists, “is what happens in the actual sequence of events not what happens in alternative sequences. How could what happens in some nearby possible world affect whether or not the action in the actual world is free?”

But on reflection, what happens in other possible worlds is oftentimes extremely important for philosophical conclusions about what goes on in the actual world. I present 2 quick examples below the fold. If you have others, add to the list.

(more…)

Posted in Action Theory | 4 Comments »

A modest argument against compatibilism

Friday, April 13th, 2007

The following is a simple, modest argument against compatibilism with respect to free will and causal determinism.  As a setup, consider Alfred Mele’s “Zygote Argument” scenario:

Diana [a goddess] creates a zygote Z in Mary.  She combines Z’s atoms as she does because she wants a certain event E to occur thirty years later.  From her knowledge of the state of the universe just prior to her creating Z and the laws of nature of her deterministic universe, she deduces that a zygote with precisely Z’s constitution located in Mary will develop into an ideally self-controlled agent [Ernie] who, in thirty years, will judge, on the basis of rational deliberation, that it is best to A and will A on the basis of that judgment, thereby bringing about E.   (p 188, Free Will and Luck)

(more…)

Posted in Action Theory | 245 Comments »

Philosophers’ Carnival #42

Monday, January 29th, 2007

THE PHILOSOPHERS’ CARNIVAL, VOLUME 42: INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

NOW FULLY COLLECTED,
WITH SELECTIONS FROM ACROSS THE WEB

EDITED BY

JUSTIN MCBRAYER AND GARRETT PENDERGRAFT

ON BEHALF OF

SHOW-ME THE ARGUMENT

Preface
Philosophy is the search for reasoned answers to important, non-empirical questions. These questions include, but are not limited to, the following: Is there a God? What might God be like? If there isn’t a God, what implications does this have for human life? What does it mean to be me? Am I free? Am I responsible? Are there moral facts? What makes an action right or wrong? How ought I to live? Can we know anything? What does it mean to know something or to have a justified belief in something? What makes something beautiful? What makes something art? What is the meaning of life?

In this introductory anthology we present selections from real philosophers wrestling with real problems. With few exceptions, each of these entries was written in the last month or so and published on blogs in philosophy. In keeping with the purposes of the Philosophers’ Carnival, we have included only pieces that were nominated for publication in this issue of the Carnival. In keeping with the purposes of Show-Me the Argument (the philosophy graduate student blog of the University of Missouri), we have included only pieces that make rigorous and clear arguments concerning important philosophical questions. Political drivel and autobiographical musings didn’t make the cut.

Table of Contents

I. WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? … 1

II. METAPHYSICS
1. Cognitive Biases and Free Will Part Two … 4
The Garden of Forking Paths

2. Presentism, Actualism, and the Triviality Objection … 8
The Alanyzer

3. A Trouble for Possible Worlds as Maximally Consistent Sets of Propositions … 11
Florida Student Philosophy Blog

4. Chalmers on Ontological Anti-realism … 22
Lemmings

III. EPISTEMOLOGY
1. May we say what we don’t know? … 26
Think Tonk

2. Disagreeing about Disagreement … 28
Thoughts, Arguments, and Rants

3. Justification, Inconsistencies, Contradictions, and Contradictories … 42
Certain Doubts

4. Epistemic ‘Ought’ Does Not Imply ‘Can’ … 73
Long Words Bother Me

6. Contradictions Rational and Justified? … 77
Knowability

IV. ETHICS
1. Desire Satisfaction Accounts of the Concept of Welfare and The Scope Problem … 80
Reflective Equilibrium

2. Philosophical Utilitarianism … 84
PEA Soup

3. Beliefs and Moral Judgments (see also Oughts and Desires on Show-Me the Argument) … 89
Atheist Ethicist

4. Infant Euthanasia and Utilitarianism … 92
Show-Me the Argument

5. Moral Intuitions and the Darwinist Dilemma (see also Moral Intuitions and Evolution on Atopian) … 105
Siris

6. Posthumous Procreation … 110
Philosophy, et cetera

V. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
1. Consciousness and the Brainstem … 116
Brains

2. Content Internalism … 120
Brain Pains

3. Human Echolocation … 155
The Splintered Mind

VI. PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
1. Uniform Experience Against Miracles … 158
Fides Quaerens Intellectum

2. Prophecy Argument Against Open Theism … 163
Show-Me the Argument

VII. PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE
1. Language and Color … 174
Language Hat

2. Talking to the Future … 177
Semantics etc.

VIII. AESTHETICS
1. Aesthetics and the Problem of Evil … 200
Prosblogion

2. The story of your life, or life as a work of art … 205
Philosophy Blog

IX. SPECIAL TOPICS
1. Thoughts about True Temp … 217
Experimental Philosophy

2. Why Truth is the Norm of Credibility … 221
Opiniatrety

3. Philosophical Failure: Peter van Inwagen and John Martin Fischer … 227
Garden of Forking Paths

4. A book review of John Searle’s Freedom and Neurobiology … 231
Show-Me the Argument

Posted in Action Theory, Aesthetics, Applied Ethics, Epistemology, Ethical Theory, History of Philosophy, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Religion, Social/Political | 5,324 Comments »

Free will animation

Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/_VxQuPBX1_U" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Check out this clip from the movie “Waking Life” — it’s David Sosa (Univ. of Texas) describing the problem of free will. Sweet animation, and Sosa does a great job. [HT: the metaphysician]

p.s., many thanks to Garrett for setting up the new video capabilities. I see some “Monty Python” clips in the future…

Posted in Action Theory, Frivolity | 69 Comments »

Duplication and Open Futures

Sunday, December 10th, 2006

Hi all. I’m wondering if the presentist libertarian is committed to the following claim:

(C) For any world that duplicates ours with respect to what is and how things are at time T1, it is possible that the duplicate world may have a different future than our world.

Here’s the idea. The presentist libertarian seems committed to the notion that the objects and properties that exist in the present don’t determine which objects and properties will exist in the future. What this amount to seems to be that a world that duplicated ours with respect what is (what objects there are) and how things are (what relational properties hold between those objects) at some time could have a different future than the original world.

In other words, if you are a presentist and you deny that some world exactly identical to ours (with respect to what exists and how things are) could have a different future than ours, then you’ve abandoned the notion of alternative possibilities, and hence abandoned libertarianism.

Sound right?

Posted in Action Theory, Metaphysics | 2 Comments »

A Molinistic Counterexample to Beta 2

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006

I happen to know that there are a few Molinists about divine foreknowledge among us who are fans of the consequence argument. I don’t think that this is a consistent position, because I think that if Molnism is true, there are counterexamples to the inference principle that the consequence argument relies upon.

(more…)

Posted in Action Theory, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion | 20 Comments »

Simultaneous overdetermination in Mele & Robb

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006

In the Frankfurt-style example proposed by Mele & Robb, Black has initiated a process P in Bob’s brain that will deterministically result in choice C at time t2, unless Bob freely, indeterministically chooses C at time t2. (Call Bob’s indeterministic deliberative process “X”) Why will P give way to X at t2? Mele & Robb just stipulate this. No good reason is given, except that it is possible. I suppose that is all they need to show. But it may be impossible. We can’t say that the neuron(s) that activate C can somehow recognize and favor an indeterministic process over a deterministic one, can we? Wouldn’t an indeterministic causal chain be empirically indistinguishable from a deterministic one? Can anyone think of a possible way for P to defer to X?

Posted in Action Theory, Metaphysics | 47 Comments »

Why care about immunity to flip-flopping?

Thursday, November 16th, 2006

Say I is the property being immune to flip-flopping. It is the case that a theory has I iff the theory is immune to flip-flopping iff the theory is immune to revising its metaphysical principles in light of later empirical discoveries.

Why care if a theory has I? I say we should care only if having I is truth-conducive. Specifically, we should only care that compatibilism has I and incompatibalism doesn’t have I only if some theory’s having I and some theory’s not having I makes the former (ceteris paribus) more likely to be true. (more…)

Posted in Action Theory, Epistemology, Metaphysics | 53 Comments »

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