Neal has been awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship by the Mellon Foundation. The Fellowships are administered by Mellon and the ACLS. He'll use the fellowship to finish up his dissertation on moral responsibility. He'll also have the opportunity to work on a planned book on Harry Frankfurt's philosophy.
Congratulations on this richly deserved award!
Well, you've heard of "action films," how about "action theory films"?
First, I would recommend "Stranger Than Fiction." Remember, I told you that the value of acting freely is the value of writing a sentence in the narrative of one's life. Here Will Ferrell is a character in someone's novel...
Also, I'd recommend "Deja Vu," for interesting metaphysical reflections on changing the past, and so forth. But to understand it, I think I'll have to see it again...
Have fun!
I highly recommend the outstanding collection of essays by Andrews Reath, *Agency and Autonomy In Kant's Moral Theory* (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006). I think these essays will be of wide interest to readers of the Garden of Forking Paths, even though the terms "Frankfurt-style Counterexamples," "Source Incompatibilism," "Free Will Skepticism," and so forth do not appear (or at least, I don't think they do).
Congratulations to Andy Reath for a superb volume! One of the things I like about Reath's essays is that they are genuinely engaging with Kant's texts while at the same time achieving a surprising (some might say miraculous) level of clarity. I'm not fully a compatibilist about fidelity to Kant's texts and clarity, but I'm a semicompatibilist, especially in the context of Reath's essays.
Did anyone out there go to the Bled Conference? Any experiences you want to share? Was everyone singing the praises of Semicompatibilism? No, seriously, do you mind sharing some thoughts about this conference? What is the venue like?
Congratulations to Neal Tognazzini on winning UC Riverside's Excellence in Teaching Award. His course, "God", is, well, "awesome". This is a well-deserved honor.
Also, check out Neal's article in the current Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Neal is a great "role-model"--for us faculty!
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.
On November 17th at 3pm, Ted A. Warfield will give the Marshall Weinberg
Professor lecture at the Universitiy of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The title of the
lecture is:
"Ecumenical Necessary Conditions on Free Action (and other problems for
compatibilists)"
As you know, Ted, aka, "Fritz," is a regular contributor to the blog, and I'm sure he'll
uncover many problems for (traditional!) compatibilism.
Hi Friends,
Sorry for what might seem like shameless self-promotion, but I figure, why change now?? Routledge has just published a four-volume reference work in their "Critical Concepts in Philosophy" Series, FREE WILL, which I edited (with a new introduction and also short introductions to each volume). It also has a nifty "chronology", which might be of some interest.
Unfortunately, as this is designed as a reference book for libraries, it is not published in paperback and is exorbitantly expensive. I wish that were otherwise, but perhaps in the future a truncated version can be published in paperback.
I would ask you to consider recommending to your home-institution libraries that they acquire this set of volumes. If libraries do not purchase it, I fear no one will see or have access to it, as it is too expensive even for my mother and father to buy it!
If you would like a brochure describing the volumes, let me know.
Have a great summer!
PS I believe the ISBN number, or some sort of identifying number, is:
Set: 0-415-32726-1
Robert Kane has just published an introductory book on Free Will in Oxford University Press's new series, Fundamentals of Philosophy (of which John Perry and I are general editors). This is, not surprisingly, an outstanding book, and highly recommended.
Congratulations to Robert Kane for this excellent book!
Peter Van Inwagen has been selected for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This is a distinguished honor, and obviously richly deserved.
Congratulations, Peter!
For more, see the Notre Dame University homepage: www.nd.edu
Dan Speak has been awarded a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame for 2005-06! Congratulations, Dan! (He will be on leave from Azusa Pacific University for the year.)
Eleonore Stump has criticized the Fischer/Ravizza approach to moral responsibility in various interesting articles. In some of these she invokes Raymond, the main character in the Manchurian Candidate. She first discusses Manchurian Candidate type manipulation in her piece, "Intellect, Will, and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities." reprinted in Fischer and Ravizza, eds., Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (Cornell 1993). She further develops this critique in her contribution to the Buss/Overton volume in honor of Harry Frankfurt. There Harry Frankfurt pronounces his agreement with Stump's critique.
Mark Ravizza and I are certainly aware of many difficulties with our theory, and I find the problem of manipulation particularly vexing. I do however make a stab at defending our view in my recent paper in Journal of Ethics (Kluwer), "Responsibility and Manipulation". (The paper is also posted online here at the Garden of Forking Paths.)
I was just wondering whether anyone had any thoughts about this debate, or, perhaps more interestingly, about how to handle manipulation cases in general. Of course, it would be much easier if I could take the "Dennett" way out and say that the cases are too crazy, or that they are not possible (one can't induce mental states electronically), and so forth. That would solve the problem, but I am not convinced by the move, and I (and my coauthor, Mark Ravizza) have at least tackled this nasty problem head-on.
Finally, have people seen the new version of the film? How would you compare it with the original film?
The Thursday, April 15, 2004 USA Today (who says I'm not a historian of philosophy?) has a wonderful article on the Donald Trump TV program, "The Apprentice." I noted this especially, "In general, contestants have been encouraged to go after each other; it's good for ratings. As losing project managers were hauled before The Donald with subordinates, the best hide-saving strategy was to blame someone else. In one telling boardroom session, Kristi Frank made a fatal mistake. She accepted responsibilty for her actions."
I will be teaching a graduate seminar this Fall, Tuesdays 2-5 pm. We will read Randolph Clarke's recent OUP book on libertarianism. I believe that both Randy Clarke and Harry Frankfurt will attend the seminar on Tuesday, Nov. 30. I warmly invite all Gardeners in the Southern California region to come for any or all of the sessions!
Well, not quite. But you might want to have a look at an interesting post by our very own Jonathan Kvanvig on, "Certain Doubts" (http://www.missouri.edu/~kvanvigj/certain_doubts/), called "Peeve and Proposal." The comments thread makes connections to general problems throughout philosophy, as noted by such philosohers as Shope. I raised some of these issues in a preliminary way in my book, The Metaphysics of Free Will; there I pointed out that Frankfurt-type cases are a special case of a much wider phenomenon--Schizophrenic Situations. Schizophrenic Situations are a kind of Swerve in Metaphysical Space, where counterfacutal analyses have troubles. It is interesting to note that formally the same, or similar, issues come up whenever one seeks to analyze some notion counterfactually (or in terms of certain sorts of subjunctive conditionals).
I've seen two interesting films recently that raise issues related to those in which we Gardeners are all interested: "Dogville" and "Man on Fire". Revenge is treated in both films in particularly striking ways. The character played by Denzel Washington in "Man on Fire" says, "Revenge is a dish best served cold."
What did you think of these films? Any comments or thoughts?
I'm not sure that the following has much to do with "agency," except that "acts" and "vaues" are typically involved. It is a true story.
My daughter's swim coach is also a seventh-grade teacher in Riverside. He was recently grading papers, and he showed me a student's answer to the question, "What is sexual reproduction?" The student's answer: "Sexual reproduction is when two people get together and share an organism."
For some time I've been fascinated by, and to some degree puzzled by, certain cases of individuals "at the margins of sanity". More specifically, it is interesting to consider how these individuals cast light on the relationship between moral (and criminal) responsibility and responsiveness to reasons (including moral reasons). My inclination is to say that an agent or individual who is not suitably reasons-responsive is not morally responsible. Further, there are some who meet this a minimal level or threshhold of reasons-responsivenss and thus are, in the relevant sense, in control of their behavior and thus morally responsible, but not fully blameworthy (perhaps because of their social circumstances or early childhood circumstances, and so forth). There are lots of interesting cases, such as Robert Alton Harris (discussed so admirably by Gary Watson), the Saddam Fedayeen, and so forth. Here are some excerpts from a very bizarre and disturbing article in the Riverside Press Enterprise yesterday (Wed. June 2):
"A Highland man was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibiity of parole after admitting he beat a female friend to death with a tree branch two years ago, and then had sex with her lifeless body and dumped it down a well.
Jonathan Lee Stephens, 20, pleaded guilty last month to first-degree murder and other charges in connection with the April 2002 slaying of Christy McKendall, 16, of Highland.
McKendall, a friend os Stephens, agreed to go to a remote canyon in the San Bernardino foothills with Stephens and two other Highland boys to hang out and smoke marijuana, police said.
Once there, Stephens grabbed McKendall and choked her until she was unconscious, according to police. Hen then took a eucalyptus branch that was lying nearby and smashed McKendall in the face and head several times, wielding the branch over his head with both hands, plice said.
He then removed McKendall's clothing and sexually assaulted her body. Then, along with the help of his two friends, he dumped her down a well, where a hiker found her five days later.
...Stephens sat slumped in his seat at the courtroom's defense table and showed no emotion as McKendall [the mother of the victim] delivered her brief comments to the court.
In an unusal move, courtroom deputies allowed him to embrace his mother, father, and older sister as he was led from the courtroom in shackles.
Stephens left the courtroom sobbing, his face red from tears.
He did not address the court before his sentence was imposed, but in a recent interview with a San Bernardino County probation officer, he said he still struggles with his bizarre actions the day he killed McKendall.
"I've never been able to think of a reason why I did it," Stephens said of the killing, according to a written probation report of the interview. "The thought just popped into my head to do it that day. I didn't not like her, she's cool. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Stephens, who told the probabtion officer that he had hoped to work as a baker or join the Navy before his arrest, said he understands that killing McKendall was wrong, but that he didn't understand that when he killed her, according to the probation report.
"It was a really bad mistake on my part and I feel sorry for what I've done," he said. "If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have killed her. It bothers me now."
Very puzzling and disturbing; any thoughts?
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