Peer Reviewed Articles

"Murder on the VR Express: Studying the Impact of Thought Experiments at a Distance in Virtual Reality" (With Krzysztof Rechowicz and John Shull). Societies, 2023, Volume 13, Issue 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13030069

ABSTRACT: Hypothetical thought experiments allow researchers to gain insights into widespread moral intuitions and provide opportunities for individuals to explore their moral commitments. Previous thought experiment studies in virtual reality (VR) required participants to come to an on-site laboratory, which possibly restricted the study population, introduced an observer effect, and made internal reflection on the participants’ part more difficult. These shortcomings are particularly crucial today, as results from such studies are increasingly impacting the development of artificial intelligence systems, self-driving cars, and other technologies. This paper explores the viability of deploying thought experiments in commercially available in-home VR headsets. We conducted a study that presented the trolley problem, a life-and-death moral dilemma, through SideQuestVR, a third-party website and community that facilitates loading applications onto Oculus headsets. Thirty-three individuals were presented with one of two dilemmas: (1) a decision to save five lives at the cost of one life by pulling a switch and (2) a decision to save five lives at the cost of one life by pushing a person onto train tracks. The results were consistent with those of previous VR studies, suggesting that a “VR-at-a-distance” approach to thought experiments has a promising future while indicating lessons for future research.

"Thinking Reasonably about Indeterministic Choice Beliefs" Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2021, Volume 51, Issue 8, pages 588-601. https://doi.org/10.1017/can.2022.18

ABSTRACT: Recent research suggests that, regardless of the truth of libertarianism about free will, there appears to be a widespread belief among nonphilosopher laypersons that the choices of free agents are not causally necessitated by prior states of affairs. In this paper, I propose a new class of debunking explanation for this belief which I call ‘reasons-based accounts’ (RBAs). I start the paper by briefly recounting the failures of extant approaches to debunking explanations, and then use this as a jumping off point to articulate several alternatives, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each.

"Free will, the Self, and Video game Actions" Ethics and Information Technology, 2021, Volume 23, pages 177-183.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-020-09542-2

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I raise several concerns for what I call the willing endorsement view of moral responsibility in videogames. Briefly, the willing endorsement view holds that players are appropriate targets of moral judgments when their actions reflect their true, real-world selves. In the first section of the paper, I argue that core features of the willing endorsement view are widely implicitly accepted among philosophers engaging in discussions of morality in games. I then focus on a particularly clear recent version of the view defended by Christopher Bartel. In the second and third sections, I raise several worries for Bartel’s version of the willing endorsement view. In the fourth section, I argue that these worries are not unique to Bartel’s view, but instead result from the view of identity implicit in the willing endorsement view. I conclude by suggesting a path forward by rejecting this view of identity.

"The Cartesian Doxastic Argument for Free Will" Journal of Philosophical Research, 2020, Volume 45, pages 217-229.

ABSTRACT: This paper raises objections to what I call the Cartesian Doxastic Argument for free will, the argument that it is probably true that we are free on the grounds that there is already widespread intuitive belief in it (O’Connor 1995; Ginet 1997; Mawson 2011; Swinburne 2013).  Richard Swinburne provides the best extant defense of the argument using his principle of credulity (PoC), which holds that beliefs are probably true merely on the believer’s evidence that they believe it.  I argue that the PoC is either too liberal, justifying intuitively unjustified beliefs, or else is inapplicable in practice.  I then show that attempts to reformulate the principle to avoid liberality end up too weak to support the Cartesian Doxastic Argument.  These failures suggest that any version of the argument that relies on similar principles is likely to fail.

"On Libertarianism as an Explanatory Hypothesis" Southwest Philosophy Review, 2019, Volume 35, Issue 2, pages 91-110.

ABSTRACT: Recently, several libertarian philosophers have argued that we appear free on the basis of widespread experience, and that this appearance justifies believing that we enjoy libertarian free will (e.g. Pink 2004 and Swinburne 2013).  Such arguments have a long history in philosophy but have been easily dismissed on one of two grounds: either the appearance of freedom does not exist, or else it is an illusion.  In this paper, I argue that although presentations of the argument have been historically inadequate, non-libertarians have also seriously underappreciated the force of libertarian appeals to phenomenology.  I show that, when properly construed, the appearance of freedom constitutes a wide range of diverse phenomena in need of explanation, of which extant non-libertarian alternatives provide only partial explanations, or else fail to explain altogether.  In identifying this lacuna, I take the first step towards providing a better non-libertarian alternative. 

"Indeterministic Intuitions and the Spinozan Strategy" Mind & Language, 2018, Volume 33, Issue 3, pages 280-298.

ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on philosophical views that attempt to explain widespread belief in indeterministic choice by following a strategy that harkens back at least to Spinoza. According to this Spinozan strategy, people draw an inference from the absence of experiences of determined choice, to the belief in indeterministic choice. Accounts of this kind are historically liable to overgeneralization. The pair of accounts defended in Shaun Nichols’ recent book, Bound: Essays on Free Will and Responsibility, are the most complete and empirically plausible representatives of this strategy. I argue that both accounts ultimately fail, and overgeneralization worries remain for Spinozan strategists.

In Edited Collections

"Moral Narratives in Virtual Worlds." (2023). In Exploring Extended Realities: Metaphysical, Psychological, and Ethical Challenges. Kissel, A., & Ramirez, E. J. (Eds.) Taylor & Francis, pages 130-149.

ABSTRACT: In this chapter, the author provides a framework for determining when a user can be held accountable for their actions in simulated spaces. There has been a broad tendency to adopt one of two camps. On the amoralist view, users are never appropriate targets for moral evaluation on the basis of their virtual actions since no one is actually harmed and virtual actions do not reflect real-world desires. On the willing endorsement view, users may be appropriate targets of moral judgments for their virtual actions in those cases where the action is endorsed by the player’s real-world desires. VR technologies increase the possibility of virtually real experiences, which users treat as if they were real. Despite their differences, the amoralist and willing endorser largely agree about the ethical impact of virtually real experiences. In both cases, it is appropriate to judge users for their virtual actions in virtually real experiences. The author argues that the fundamental distinction between real and non-real-world desires is too blurry to be useful. Instead, the degree to which the user sees their virtual behavior as constitutive of their narrative identity matters. Behavior in virtual settings may be constitutive of one’s narrative identity even when the virtual reality simulation does not generate a virtually real experience. As such, the ethical impact of emerging virtual reality technologies is largely independent of their ability to generate virtually real experiences.

Edited Collections

Exploring Extended Realities: Metaphysical, Psychological, and Ethical Challenges. (2023). Kissel, A., & Ramirez, E. J. (Eds.) Taylor & Francis.

White Papers

“Philosophical Thought Experiments in Virtual Reality,” (2022). With Krzysztof Rechowicz and John Shull. National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Advancement Grant. 

Reviews

"Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will by Alfred R. Mele" Teaching Philosophy, 2015, Volume 38, Issue 3, pages 354-357. 

Work in Progress 

(Comments always welcome!  These are works in progress, please do not cite or use without permission: akissel@odu.edu)