Kadri Vihvelin (Philosophy, USC) gave a talk on September 12th, 2024.
The recording of the talk can be found here.
Title: "Knowing Our Abilities"
Abstract:
Abilities are philosophically puzzling. No one denies that, somehow understood, we have abilities, including the kinds of abilities that provide us with some measure of control over our immediate surroundings and our lives. We have abilities to move our bodies voluntarily and intentionally in ways that help us achieve our desired ends. And we have abilities to move our minds in ways that help us form the intentions that cause the voluntary body movements that facilitate control over our lives: abilities to stop and think before we act, abilities to figure out the best means for achieving our desired ends, and abilities to – somehow – deliberate about our ends. And since abilities don’t automatically cease to exist whenever they aren’t exercised, it seems that it must also be true that we often have abilities to do things that we don’t actually do: we have abilities to do otherwise.
Our daily experience of choice reinforces this belief: when we choose to do one thing A rather than another thing B, we believe, and arguably can’t help believing, that we are able to do A and also able to do B. But we also know that we are embedded in a physical universe and subject to the same laws of cause and effect as everything else. And when we reflect on this, it is hard to resist the thought that we are no more able to do otherwise than a falling rock is able to stop falling.
It seems, then, that our commonsense beliefs about our abilities are in conflict with what philosophical reflection tells us. Incompatibilists say that the conflict is real and, depending on how the science comes out, it may turn out to be true that we don’t have the choices we think we have, that we are never able to do otherwise. Contemporary discussions of ability – whether in the free will/determinism literature or in the literature on the semantics of ability ascriptions – have done little to support the commonsense view. I defend commonsense by providing a systematic account of our abilities, an account that explains what other accounts do not: how we have the knowledge of our abilities that we actually have.
Pamela Hieronymi (Philosophy, UCLA) gave a talk on Thursday May 16th, 2024.
The recording of the talk can be found here.
Title: “Strawson’s Ethical Naturalism: a Defense”
Abstract:
I first present what Peter Strawson calls his “Social Naturalism,” as applied to ethics. I then briefly present the way in which his Naturalism allows Strawson to resist skepticism about moral responsibility and free will, as argued in “Freedom and Resentment." His way of resisting this kind of skepticism opens his Naturalism to another challenge: it can seem objectionably relativistic. I have provided a response to this challenge, on Strawson’s behalf, in the final chapter of Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals (2020). In this paper I will expand upon that response, in particular on the way in which the introduction of admittedly contested ideals might provide sufficient critical purchase to avoid objectionable relativism while remaining broadly naturalistic.
Helen Steward (Philosophy, University of Leeds) gave a talk on February 19, 2024.
The recording of the talk can be found here.
Title: Knowing We’re Free
Abstract:
Can we know we are agents (i.e. things which have the ability to act) if, as I’ve argued elsewhere, the power to act constitutively involves the capacity not to have acted as one did? It might be thought that if the power to act did indeed involve that capacity, it would be impossible, given the thesis I have called Agency Incompatibilism, to know that we’re agents at all. For if determinism is an empirical thesis whose truth must be settled by science, then, unless we embrace compatibilism, it might be inferred that we aren’t currently in a position to know whether anyone has ever had the capacity to do otherwise, and hence, that we aren’t currently in a position to know whether anyone has ever acted, thereby exercising their power of agency. Is there really space for an incompatibilist account of agency which also accords us the possibility of knowing that we’re agents?
In this paper, I shall address the question of how we should think about the knowledge we have of our ability to act, if we are to accept both the claim that the very idea of agency involves the idea of a capacity to ø or not to ø and the idea that such a capacity would be incompatible with determinism.
David Shoemaker (Philosophy, Cornell) gave a talk on November 29th, 2023.
The recording of the event can be found here.
Title: “More Moral Torch Fishing: The Functional Theory of Blame Revisited, Clarified, Amended, and Defended”
Abstract: In “Moral Torch Fishing: A Costly Signaling Theory of Blame,” Manuel Vargas and I argued that the extant constitutive theories of blame ran into difficulties, of the sort that required solutions contravening the original spirit of their proposals (i.e., they required “fancy dancing”). We aimed to show that the reason was that people had been taking the wrong approach to understanding blame, which is a recognizably stable social system, and we offered a functional explanation of the blame system in its place, one that appealed to the kind of costly signaling familiar from evolutionary biology and social science. The view itself was met with lots of angry blame, however, and many (wrongheaded) objections have been offered (mostly informally) since the paper was published. In this talk, I revisit, clarify, amend, and defend a functional explanation of what I now see as the blame and praise system, one that now appeals to the function of norm maintenance, and is made distinct by its costly signaling feature. In laying out the view, I’ll show why the switch in methodology is motivated, what a functional approach to blame has over standard philosophical “constitutivist” accounts, why the usual philosophical objections to functional approaches don’t land, and how this functional approach is better than possible rival functionalist accounts.
Chandra Sripada (Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Cognitive Science, The University of Michigan) gave a talk on Thursday, October 26th, 2023.
The recording of the event can be found here. [Unfortunately, I forgot to start recording until after I had already given the introduction to ARRG and to Professor Sripada.]
Title: Responsibility for Spontaneous Conduct: Computational Cognitive Science and the Primacy of the Epistemic Condition
Abstract: Recent work on moral responsibility is chock full of characters who forget dogs or babies in overheated cars (Sher, Amaya), miss friends’ birthdays (A. Smith), fail to buy the bourbon as promised (Clarke, Murray, Vargas), blurt out inappropriate things (Rosen), and the like. The challenge for theorists is to provide an account of moral responsibility for instances of spontaneous acts and omissions (“conduct”) such as these. What is notably missing in nearly all of these accounts is a detailed mechanistic theory of the psychological processes by which spontaneous conduct arises. In this talk, I do two things. First, I review the valuationist model of spontaneous conduct that has emerged in the last three decades of computational cognitive science. Second, I argue that if the valuationist model is correct, we come to appreciate a new way that (person-level) doxastic representations operate in every instance of spontaneous conduct, which in turn, I further argue, puts the epistemic condition of moral responsibility at center stage. The accuracy-based approach to responsibility for spontaneous conduct that I develop and defend contrasts sharply with current leading views. There is an additional methodological point that I’ll highlight: Philosophy stumbles when theorists make strong claims about of agency without consulting relevant results from the behavioral and brain sciences.
Hannah Tierney (Philosophy, UC Davis) gave a talk on March 30th, 2023.
Title: The Risky Business of Forgiveness
Abstract: There is a noted tension between two independently plausible features of forgiveness: (1) Forgiveness is reasoned: it is something that agents do for reasons, and (2) Forgiveness is elective: it is not something that agents can be required to do. As Per-Erik Milam (2018) has recently argued, if something is done for reasons, then those reasons can, at least sometimes, generate a requirement for an agent to do that thing. So, those who wish to defend both (1) and (2) must deny that reasons to forgive can be requiring. In this paper, I attempt to do just this. By drawing on the distinction between synchronic and diachronic blameworthiness, and focusing on the ways in forgiveness is risky, I argue that forgiveness is both reasoned and elective.
Santiago Amaya (Philosophy, Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá) gave a talk on February 2nd, 2023.
The recording of the event can be found here.
Title: The External Unity of Self-Control
Abstract: Discussions of self-control loom large in philosophy, the behavioral, and the cognitive sciences. Despite the fact that researchers from these backgrounds seem to be working on one and the same phenomenon (at least, they tend to take each other as working on the same phenomenon), integrating their approaches is surprisingly more complicated than initially thought. There are, in short, conceptual and methodological considerations suggesting that standard accounts are hard to fit together, some even affording conflicting predictions. Significantly, this lack of integration invites a dose of skepticism. According to it, self-control might not refer to a unified construct corresponding to a well-behaved psychological kind but, instead, to a collection of assorted capacities devoid of underlying unity.
Andrei Buckareff hosted a book symposium on Thursday January 12th at 2:00pm (EST) on Freedom and Responsibility in Context (Oxford University Press, 2021) by Ann Whittle (University of Manchester). Commentary was provided by Richard Feldman (University of Rochester) and Barbara Vetter (Freie Universität Berlin). The recording of the event can be found here.
Samuel Murray (Providence College) gave a talk on Thursday November 17th, 2022. The recording of the talk is here.
Title: The aspirational and the imperative: An empirical case for moral dualism
Abstract: Some moral norms are imperative: we must not steal or murder. But not every moral norm is an imperative; instead, some norms are aspirational, such as reducing waste or helping others in need. Across five preregistered studies (N = 839), we identified differences in moral judgment that track the distinction between imperatival and aspirational norms. Our results support the claim that there are two different kinds of moral norms that differentially affect moral appraisals of different situations. In Study 1, participants judged that aspirational norms were more conditional than imperatival norms, but less conditional than social norms. Further, complying with social norms was considered more a matter of personal preference than complying with aspirational norms, although participants equally expected compliance with aspirational and social norms. In Study 2, participants judged that violating imperatival and aspirational norms are both wrong and deserving of blame, though people have a right to violate aspirational, but not imperatival, norms. In Study 3, participants judged complying with aspirational norms to be more praiseworthy and creditworthy, even though compliance with imperatival norms is considered equally right and equally socially desirable. In Study 4, we replicated the results of Study 2 and found that participants judge aspirational violations to cause some degree of harm. In Study 5, we found that aspirational and imperatival norms differentially regulate intra- and interpersonal relationships. Whereas compliance with aspirational norms impacts self-image more positively than compliance with imperatival norms, the opposite pattern is observed for violations. Likewise, compliance with the aspirational is better associated with dispositions to befriend, while violations of imperatival norms is better associated with dispositions to avoid. Our results suggest that aspirational norms stem from the way individual rights are represented in folk moral psychology. In addition to duties and obligations, how people think about the rights of others partly explains how they attribute wrongness, blame, and sanction for moral violations.
Kristin M. Mickelson (Independent Researcher) gave a talk on October 20th 2022. The recording of the talk is here [starts at 9 minutes mark].
Title: Free Will and Determinism: Can we make progress without a paradigm shift?
Abstract: What should we make of the suggestion that the age-old debate over the relationship between free will and determinism is puttering out in a stalemate between compatibilists and incompatibilists? Admittedly, our best arguments, including the Consequence Argument and the Manipulation Argument, seem to be cementing deadlock rather than resolving it. That said, it is unclear what the stalemate charge amounts to, partly because the complaint is stated in ambiguous technical jargon borrowed from the classical analytic paradigm (CAP), a research paradigm which most contemporary philosophers reject (cf. Peter van Inwagen). CAP was dominant during the 1960s to 1980s, but its popularity waned in the wake of Harry Frankfurt’s attacks on the classical “ability to do otherwise” characterization of free will and the uptake of Derk Pereboom’s proposal to use the term ‘free will’ to refer to the control condition on basic-desert moral responsibility. In this talk, I step back from CAP-based jargon and its “compatibility problem” narrative. I propose a new characterization of the problem of free will and determinism which better maps onto the dialectical contours of the contemporary debate, and also explains why CAP theorists believed there were only two viable solutions to this problem. To demonstrate the fruitfulness of this alternative framework, I use it to answer outstanding questions about what the Consequence Argument is an argument for, to explain why it matters that Alfred Mele’s Zygote Argument does not have the same conclusion as Pereboom’s Four-Case Argument, and to highlight largely unexplored connections between the problem of free will and the paradox of moral luck.
Daniel Coren (Philosophy, Skidmore College) gave a talk on October 20th 2022. The recording of the talk is here [starts at roughly 1 hr. 13 min. mark].
Title: A New Strawsonian Semicompatibilism
Abstract: I will present and briefly defend a new semicompatibilism: (1) the degrees-sensitive and non-rational concerns that constitute moral responsibility are basic in human life; (2) determinism is irrelevant to those concerns; and, so, (3) moral responsibility is compatible with determinism. The starting-points of this theory are in my reading of Peter Strawson’s famous paper “Freedom and Resentment” together with distinctions from Aristotle, John Martin Fischer, Susan Wolf, Harry Frankfurt, Dana Nelkin, Michael McKenna, Patrick Todd, David Beglin, David Shoemaker, Carolina Sartorio, Pamela Hieronymi, and my prior work. I distinguish it from neighbouring theories such as Fischer’s reasons-responsiveness, Wallace’s moral reasons-responsiveness, and accounts of Strawsonian compatibilism. In short, our responsibility requires neither rational reflection nor access to alternate possibilities.
Manuel Vargas (Philosophy, UCSD) gave a talk on September 15th 2022. The recording of the talk is here.
Title: Echoes of Agency
Abstract: The arrangement of the social world seems to matter for moral responsibility, and in general, how we think about the nature of other people’s actions. Whether someone is acting under coercion, under oppression, or under conditions of widespread institutional corruption affects our assessments of moral culpability. We can better understand why these phenomena matter for culpability by drawing on some resources from the nearly forgotten history of Mexican existentialism. In particular, the idea that we rely upon a particular kind of “echo” in acting helps explain an important aspect of the social dimension of agency.
Cory J Clark (Psychology, University of Pennsylvania) gave a talk on March 17th, 2022. The recording of the talk is here.
Title: Don Corleone and the Rational Irrationality of Blame
Abstract: People have a pro-blame bias, more readily doling out judgments of blame, bad intentions, and bad moral character than judgments of praise, good intentions, and good moral character. This pro-blame bias extends to numerous attributions of responsibility, but also to broad beliefs in human free will—when people wish to punish others, they report higher beliefs in free will and are more skeptical of science that challenges free will. In other words, beliefs about responsibility are “motivated” by desires to hold others morally accountable for their harmful actions. I will review this work and propose an evolutionary explanation for pro-blame bias, termed ‘The Don Corleone Principle.’ When evaluating harmful behaviors, people may err on the side of assuming a person is morally culpable to minimize the costly error of underblaming and gaining a reputation as easily exploitable.
John Martin Fischer (Philosophy, UC Riverside) gave a talk on January 27th, 2022. The recording of the talk is here.
Title: Rethinking Free Will Debates
Abstract: I'll suggest that the kinds of freedom implicated in moral responsibility, autonomy, and authenticity build on the core notion of guidance-control. These three freedom-implicating notions are thus unified at their core, but also different in important ways. Seeing the differences will help us to "re-think" various debates at the core of Agency Theory. I will of course only be able to present this package of ideas in a programmatic way, hoping to suggest some fruitful directions for future reflection.
Carolina Sartorio (Philosophy, Rutgers) gave a talk to ARRG on Friday December 3rd, 2021. Justin Capes (Philosophy, Flagler) provided commentary. The recording of the talk is here.
Title: What is the default view of free will?
Abstract: I argue that it’s not what you might think (the “classical” model in terms of alternative possibilities), but a simpler “causalist” model that works as an extension of the causalist view of action. This means that, unless given good reason to think otherwise, we should prefer the causalist view to the classical view. I then discuss an interesting defense of the classical view recently put forth by (among others) my critic today, Justin Capes. He defends the classical view from the famous objection in terms of Frankfurt-style cases. A central part of that defense consists in the claim that agents in Frankfurt-style cases are not responsible for acting in the way they do (since they couldn’t have acted otherwise), but only for acting on their own. I offer a counter-reply.
Christian List gave a talk on Wednesday October 27th, 2021. The recording of the talk is here.
Title: A Case for Scientific Realism about Free Will
Abstract: In this talk, I will present a case for scientific realism about free will. I will begin by summarizing some of the main scientifically motivated challenges for free will and will then respond to them by presenting a naturalistic indispensability argument for free will. The argument supports the reality of free will as an emergent higher-level phenomenon. I will also explain why the resulting picture of free will does not conflict with the possibility that the fundamental laws of nature are deterministic.
Derk Pereboom gave the inaugural ARRG talk on September 30th, 2021. The recording of the talk is here.
Title: Forward-looking responsibility, moral anger, and the backfire effect
Abstract: I defend a forward-looking account of moral responsibility in which the ground-level practice is directly sensitive to aims such as moral formation and reconciliation, and does not feature an intervening level of desert claims. An advantage for this view is that the practice of holding responsible is more sensitive to the forward-looking aims that justify it. I discuss the implication this position has for moral anger in light of the backfire effect, which occurs when interventions result in higher credence in targeted beliefs, and higher incidence of targeted actions.