David Friedman on Moral Luck

Although I don't share Robert Kane's metaphysical libertarianism, I do tend to be politically libertarian.  So I subscribe to David Friedman's weblog.  I only mention this because Friedman has written three posts so far on the subject of moral luck (one, two and three).  He has not cited any of the relevant literature, however (in particular, he has not cited Nagel's work; see the SEP article on moral luck).  Friedman distinguishes between two senses of moral responsibility, which remind me of Watson's distinction between self-disclosing and accounting moral responsibility (Watson, Gary, 1996,  "Two Faces of Responsibility." Philosophical Topics 24: 227-248).  Smilanksy's The Ethical Advantages of Hard Determinism makes a similar distinction between the "substantive" and "accountancy" parts of morality.  Like Smilansky, Friedman is concerned about egalitarianism (as discussed, for example, in Smilansky's On Free Will and Ultimate Injustice).  On his weblog, Friedman writes:

"The conclusion is radically egalitarian–more radically than most egalitarians would like, since it applies not only to the difference between rich people and poor people but to the difference between good people and bad people as well. Strip off everything external, everything a person is not himself responsible for--genes, wealth, upbringing, nature and nurture both--and it is hard to see what is left on which differences in desert could be based."

Gardeners, I would ask you the same question that Friedman asks: "...I think it is more interesting to try to deal with the egalitarian conclusion of the argument from moral desert on its own terms.  What, if anything, is wrong with it?"

Source Incompatibilism and God

I could probably get the answer to this question by digging a little bit at the existing literature, but I'll ask it here instead in the hopes that it will spark a bit of discussion.

Here are two different reasons one might think we aren't free -- 1) Determinism might be true, and 2) An essentially omniscient and sempiternal God might exist.  Both of these scenarios involve determination, but in different ways.  Traditionally, determinism has been formulated in terms of causation, and so if determinism is true, it's the case that we both lack alternative possibilities AND that we are caused to do what we do by factors stretching indefinitely into the past.  But God's foreknowledge need not involve (and in fact doesn't typically involve) causation.  That is, if an essentially omniscient and sempiternal God exists, then we lack alternative possibilities, but we are NOT caused to do what we do by factors stretching indefinitely into the past.

So I'm wondering a couple of things.  First, are Source Incompatibilists only worried about the kind of determination that involves causation?  And if so, what if we adopted a view of determinism (like Carl Hoefer's) according to which it has nothing to do with causation?  Would the Source Incompatibilist still have a leg to stand on?

On-line Philosophy Conference (OPC)

If you are a graduate student or junior faculty (i.e., without tenure), please consider submitting a paper to the first annual On-line Philosophy Conference (OPC).  Thomas Nadelhoffer has put together an outstanding program of "speakers" whose papers will be posted in April along with commentary and then people can post comments and questions, some of which the speakers will address.  The line-up of speakers includes:   Stephen Stich, Jonathan Kvanvig, Julia Driver, Terence Horgan, Graham Priest, R.A. Duff, Thomas Hurka, Susanna Siegel, Brian Weatherson, Uriah Kriegel,  Kit Wellman, Joshua Gert, Joshua Knobe, Brie Gertler, Jessica Wilson, Benj Hellie, Amie Thomasson, Elizabeth Harman, Noa Latham, Andy Egan, and our own Manuel Vargas, John Martin Fischer, Alfred Mele and Neil Levy. 

The deadline for submissions has been extended to January 31.  If you are interested in being a commentator, please let Thomas or I know.  In any case, I hope you will "attend" the conference.  This is a new experiment in philosophy that I think has a lot of potential.

Particularism and Responsibility

Hello all,

I'm curious about the possible ramifications for theorizing about responsibility if one accepts a particularist conception of morality-that is, one that rejects the centrality if not the relevance, of moral principles (e.g., as defended by Jonathan Dancy).    Thus far, I haven't uncovered much of any discussion of this.  Are any of you aware of something I may have overlooked?

Thanks!

SCP in San Diego

Add this to the list of upcoming conferences that will be really good --

2006 Pacific Region Society of Christian Philosophers Conference

"Selves, Souls and Survival"

16-18 February, 2006

University of San Diego

Keynotes:

Paul Churchland, "The Journey of the Spirit in a World of Matter and Energy"

Peter van Inwagen, "I Look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come"

Lynne Rudder Baker, "'But What, Then, Am I?' Persons and the Metaphysics of Resurrection"

Kevin Timpe tells us that more information (including the full schedule in about a week) can be found at this website.  The organizers are still looking for a few commentators and chairs, so if you are interested, or just have any questions at all, contact Kevin at ktimpe@sandiego.edu -- he also tells us that there will be some interesting free will papers there!

Hope to see you all there.

Scientists and such talk about free will and such

Check out The Edge where well-known academics, mostly scientists, were asked what their most dangerous idea is.  Many talk about the "amazing hypothesis" (Crick) that we have no immaterial soul (= we are just a bunch of neurons??), that there is no ultimate purpose to the universe, that we are not consciously aware of why we do what we do, etc.  In such entries as well as others, many talk about free will and responsibility, and it is interesting to see what they get right and what they get wrong.  Here's the names of the people who talk about free will, roughly in order from those I found most to least interesting (though not necessarily right):
Shirky, Metzinger, Clark, Kandel, Dawkins, Smith, Bloom, Horgan, Hauser, Ramachandran, Buss

Several social psychologists (Nisbett, Banaji, Zimbardo) talk about our limited understanding of the reasons we choose and act as we do, which I obviously think is very relevant to issues of free will.

I'd be interested to hear what our participants and readers think about some of these entries, what is right and wrong about them, etc.?  (I'll add more substantive thoughts later.)