Philosophy of Action Papers

In the comments of Manuel's post, there's some interest in doing for philosophy of action what Leiter has done for philosophy more generally: attempt to construct a "Best of the Decade" list.  So rather than hijack Manuel's post, I thought I'd start a thread just for coming up with this list. 

My list below the fold:

Free Will makes the top 10 philosophy problems for the 21st century

Continuing its multi-century (perhaps multi-millenial) position in the top 10 of philosophical problems, free will keeps on trucking for another century. 

This time, the challenge is the onslaught from science. 

So sez PhilosophyTalk. 

For the record, free will beat out the mind-body problem. Which suggests to me that it is time for Rutgers and any other phil mind-heavy places to start hiring all the free will folks to replace all their phil mind folks, as this will surely increase their rankings in the Gourmet Report. Of course, if we followed the PhilTalk list, the sure-fire way to get to the top of the pile would be to hire lots of environmental ethicists and global justice-types. Something for you job marketeers to keep in mind for your interviews. 

(See how I subtly snuck in the annual implication of special job market woes for phil action peeps? You job marketeers are most welcome. Really though, to all Gardeners on the market, may you have incredibly good luck over the next week and months.) 

Gazzaniga and the Gifford Lectures

Michael Gazzaniga was recently honored with the opportunity to give the prestigious Gifford Lectures.  Fortunately for those of us who were not there to see his exciting series of talks, the good folks at the University of Edinburgh were kind enough to make them available on-line.  I have posted the lectures over at the Law and Neuroscience Blog (see here) where you can now watch all five talks.  Having watched through them in the past few days, I strongly encourage you to check them out--especially if you happen to be unfamiliar with his groundbreaking work on split brains and the interpreter module.  If you don't have time to watch them all, Gazzaniga talks about the relevance of his work to the free will problem in the fourth talk.

FSU Experimental Philosophy Conference

The Florida State University Department of Philosophy presents The William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Conference on Experimental Philosophy on 15-17 January 2010. The topic of this year’s conference is Experimental Philosophy. Speakers will include Roy Baumeister, John Doris, Joshua Knobe, Shaun Nichols, Laurie Paul, David Pizarro, and Kathleen Vohs.

More details are available here.

Follow up on the Survey

For those who haven't seen it, there is a discussion over at Leiter on the survey, with special reference to the (alleged) connection between libertarianism and theism. This is a topic worth its own thread, I think.

My observation, for what it's worth, slightly orthogonal to the theism causes/correlates with libertarianism. Free will is a mainly US debate. There are few people in Australia and the UK, or on the continent, who have it as a major research interest. The US is also an outlier on reliigous world among developed countries. I suspect there is a connection. Two hypotheses: Christians, in particular, often think that libertarian free will is needed to justify divine reward and punishment (heaven and hell are pretty heavy duty sanctions). That keeps the debate going in the US, making it a focus in undergraduate courses and interesting both theists and atheists. Second hypothesis: if religion is personally gripping for a person, so is the problem of evil. This problem motivates interest in free will as a solution (and we get the extra US interest in the topic).

Philpapers Survey Results

The results of the philpapers survey are here. I was surprised by how low the proportion of compatibilists turned out to be: 59%. Libertarianism, no free will and 'other' don't differ significantly from each other, which is also surprising. Thoughts? In particular, what is the 'other' view which is so popular? Some kind of Double-style subjectivism? Or is this the result of over-scrupulousness on the part of semi-compatibilists? C'mon guys, John wrote the chapter on compatibilism in the Four Views book...

Does It Matter What Probabilistic Causation Is?

Here are two very different conceptions of what probabilistic causation is.

(1) It is the probability of causation. When e1 probabilistically causes e2, e1 stands to e2 in the same relation in which one event stands to another when the first deterministically causes the second. The difference between probabilitistic and deterministic causation is just a difference in whether there is (before the effect occurs) a chance that the causal relation will not obtain.

(2) It is the causation of probability. A probabilistic cause causes there to be a certain probability that a certain subsequent event will occur. Nothing else causal happens. It's then a matter of pure chance whether or not that subsequent event occurs. If it does, then, in a plain sense, nothing causes it.

In Libertarian Accounts of Free Will, I suggested that event-causal libertarians had better favor the first of these views, that the truth of the second would be fatal for their position. Indeed, it seems to me that if the second view is correct, and if intentional actions must be caused by psychological states, then events that are "probabilistically caused" cannot be intentional actions.

I haven't seen much discussion of this issue. I wonder if different conceptions of probabilistic causation are sometimes behind different responses to the problem of luck. What do folks think? (I mean you folks!)

Macnamara's Map of Moral Responsibility

Philosophical Studies is definitely on a roll lately with cool papers relevant to the Garden: Patrick Todd's on manipulation arguments that I brought up in my last post, a newer one on Frankfurt-examples by Chris Franklin, and also one on the nature of holding responsible by Coleen Macnamara. (I can't resist pointing out that all three of these fine individuals are in the department at UC Riverside. The people affiliated with that department sure are smart!)

Although you should definitely read all of the above articles, here I just want to talk a bit about Coleen's paper, and then ask a question for all you readers out there.

In her paper, Macnamara gives "a topology of the terrain of holding others responsible" (p. 3), and it turns out to be quite complex and fascinating. She argues that accepting her map helps both to rectify certain confusions in the literature and to "clarify the scope and nature of our practices of holding responsible" (p. 3). A thumbnail sketch of her map, along with a question, appears below the fold:

Time to talk about your experience publishing

Sally Haslanger (MIT) wants to know about your experience publishing, regardless of your career stage (grad student, pre-tenure prof, post-tenure prof). Please help her out. As many of you may know, she's been (among many other things) trying to get the profession to think about the conditions under which we practice philosophy, hire new professors, and develop careers. So, the answers to this survey could be helpful in getting a snapshot of publication experiences in the profession. Original email message below.

(Two notes: I can report that the advice below is accurate: it is very useful to have your CV available when you do the survey. Also, this is an opportunity to help raise the visibility of Philosophy of Action/Agency. It isn't listed as an area of specialization, but you can write it in under "Other." Please do so, so Sally and others will say "Wow, I hadn't realized there were so many people working in Philosophy of Action" or "Wow, philosophers of action have lots of effective mentors" or what have you.)

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All professional philosophers are invited to participate in a survey on publishing in philosophy.  

It should take about 10 minutes.  It will be useful to have your CV handy as you fill it out.  Please go here to find it:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=TXA9uBYCaq4MtU_2bwLhLADQ_3d_3d
If all goes well, Sally Haslanger will report on the results at the December APA in the symposium on philosophy publishing (Wednesday December 30th, 11:15-1:15).
Thanks for your help.  Please spread the word.
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Funny Quips about Philosophy from Jerry Dworkin

I highly recommend Jerry Dworkin's "quips about philosophy", to which there is a link from Brian Leiter's blog (today--Nov 12): http:/leiterreports.typepad.com

As would be expected, they are very funny.  What are your favorites?