Abstract
In his response to my essay “Out of Control,” Neil Levy contests my claims that (1) we are often responsible for acts that we do not consciously choose to perform, and that (2) despite the absence of conscious choice, there remains a relevant sense in which these actions are within our control. In this reply to Levy, I concede that claim (2) is linguistically awkward but defend the thought that it expresses, and I clarify my defense of claim (1) by distinguishing my position from attributionism.
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Notes
George Sher, “Out of Control,” Ethics 116 (January 2006), pp. 285–301.
George Sher, “Out of Control,” Ethics 116 (January 2006), p. 298.
Neil Levy, “Restoring Control,” doi:10.1007/s11406-007-9090-8.
Neil Levy, “The Good, the Bad and the Blameworthy,” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 1, 2 (June 2005), p. 4.
See George Sher, “Kantian Fairness,” Philosophical Issues, 2005, pp. 179–92, and “Responsibility and Practical Reason,” in Joseph Campbell, Michael O’Rourke and Harry Silverstein, eds., Responsibility, Ethics, and Action (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, forthcoming). I discuss the questions at greater length in my book Who Knew? Responsibility Without Awareness, which at the time of this writing is still in progress, but is nearing completion.
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Sher, G. Who’s in Charge Here?: Reply to Neil Levy. Philosophia 36, 223–226 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9101-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9101-9