INPC Grad Students

An announcement for those graduate students who will be attending the INPC, and who will be in town on Thursday evening, March 30th.

Zac Cogley, a graduate student at Ohio State, is trying to organize a get-together on Thursday evening for the INPC graduate students -- just some drinks or something like that.  If you are interested, get in touch with Zac by clicking here.  I'm not sure what the time frame is, but probably after dinnertime, maybe 7 or 8pm.  You can also respond in the comments here if you are interested.

APA: Cultivating the Garden

Our very Neal Tognazzini has been awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Prize at the APA for his paper "On Being a Morally Responsible Stage."

Let me shout a juvenile Yay!, and extend my warmest congratulations on behalf of everyone here at the Garden.

On the Pacific APA

Welcome home to everyone who attended the Pacific APA -- I just got home a short while ago myself.  I had an excellent time and saw some really interesting papers presented.  But, as always, I had to miss a few sessions that I really wanted to go to, so let me take this opportunity to invite others to report back about interesting sessions that they heard at the APA.

I'd be especially interested to hear about two sessions in particular that I had to miss -- the Author-Meets-Critics session on Randy Clarke's book, and Kevin Timpe's symposium on source incompatibilism.  (Although, since Kevin will be giving that paper at the INPC this weekend, maybe he wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.)

P.S. -- On Thursday night I got to attend a live taping of John Perry and Ken Taylor's radio show, Philosophy Talk, and it was quite interesting.  The topic was The Future of Philosophy with guests Brian Weatherson, Liz Harman, and Sean Kelly.  Hopefully they'll have the show up on their website soon.  When they do, I highly recommend it.

Cohen on the Impossibility of Responsibility

In a recent article in Philosophical Studies ("Openness, Accidentality, and Responsibility", Feb. 2006, pages 581-597), Daniel Cohen puts forth a novel argument for the conclusion that moral responsibility is impossible because the necessary conditions for morally responsible agency cannot all be satisfied at the same time.  But I'm not convinced.  And here's why.

Mapping the Terrain

Sometimes I have a hard time keeping track of just what the different positions in the free will debate are.  To help clarify a little, I offer the following map of the terrain.  I'm interested to hear whether this seems like an appropriate breakdown.

The basic terminology will be 'compatibilism' and 'incompatibilism', but I think it's important to be clear about what thesis is supposedly compatible or incompatible with what other thesis.  To that end, I think there should be three different compatibility questions -- 1) Is determinism compatible with the ability to do otherwise?, 2) Is determinism compatible with moral responsibility?, and 3) Is indeterminism compatible with moral responsibility?  There's also a fourth question that's not about compatibility, but which seems equally important, namely: 4) Does moral responsibility require the ability to do otherwise?

Call someone who answers (1) with a 'Yes' an APCompatibilist and someone who answers (1) with a 'No' an APIncompatibilist.  Call someone who answers (2) with a 'Yes' a D-MRCompatibilist and someone who answers (2) with a 'No' a D-MRIncompatibilist.  Call someone who answers (3) with a 'Yes' an I-MRCompatibilist and someone who answers (3) with a 'No' an I-MRIncompatibilist.  Finally, call someone who answers (4) with a 'Yes' a PAPist and someone who answers (4) with a 'No' a PAP-denier.  Now, with these positions staked out, we can start to see the different combinations and how they map onto the views people actually hold.

More on Velleman on X-Phi

See here at the Leiter Reports for more discussion about Velleman's remarks on Experimental Philosophy, including a response letter from some of the experimental philosophers themselves.  Leiter has opened comments on the thread.

Civility

We have always had a policy of requiring civil discourse here at the Garden of Forking Paths, while at the same time (obviously) encouraging vigorous and lively debate. Recently, we have had to take action to block access to the blog by an individual who has repeatedly put his points in needlessly strong and offensive ways. In our view, rude and gratuitously insulting expression goes against the sprit of tolerance and mutual respect that is absolutely essential for productive and enjoyable discussion on this blog.

We continue to welcome proponents of all views and methodologies, and we insist on basic civility.

INPC Program

Most of you have probably already seen this, but for those who haven't -- the program for this year's Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference is now online.  Needless to say, this is going to be one excellent conference.

Velleman on Experimental Philosophy

Over at Left2Right, David Velleman has a post arguing that experimental philosophy will not be a helpful method in trying to understand either the nature of intentional action or the problem of free will.  His concluding paragraphs are:

Of course, it's useful to know what most people think about intentional action and moral responsibility.  In philosophizing on these topics, we can't stray too far from what people think, lest we end up changing the subject, talking about things that won't be recognizable as intentional action or moral responsibility at all.  Even Aristotle relied on endoxa — received opinions — as a starting point of his inquiries. 

Maybe Aristotle was the first "experimental philosopher", then?  No.  Aristotle knew that the real philosophizing starts after the endoxa have been surveyed. 

His view remains true today.

I think that Velleman's own philosophical work has been consistently excellent, and I'm a bit surprised that his reaction to experimental philosophy was so negative.  I'd be curious to hear what readers of this blog think of his argument. 

Free Will and Luck

2006 is shaping up to be a great year for books on free will and moral responsibility.  Al Mele has just notified me that his new book, Free Will and Luck, is now in print.  (Click here for information about the book from OUP.)  Happy reading!