This essay presents an argument, which it calls the Bias Argument, with the dismaying conclusion that (almost) everyone should significantly reduce her confidence in (too many) philosophical beliefs. More precisely, the argument attempts to show that the most precious philosophical beliefs are biased, as the pervasive and permanent disagreement among the leading experts in philosophy cannot be explained by the differences between their evidence bases and competences. After a short introduction, the premises of the Bias Argument are spelled out in (...) the first part. The second part explains why the objections to the Bias Argument are not compelling. Even though the essay does not adopt the conclusion of the Bias Argument, partly because it seems to be self-defeating, the authors know no plausible way to refute its premises. Thus, the primary aim of the essay is to clarify why the aporetic situation of the Bias Argument arises. (shrink)

It is an increasingly popular view among philosophers that moral responsibility can, in principle, be attributed to unconscious autonomous agents. This trend is already remarkable in itself, but it is even more interesting that most proponents of this view provide more or less the same argument to support their position. I argue that as it stands, the Extension Argument, as I call it, is not sufficient to establish the thesis that unconscious autonomous agents can be morally responsible. I attempt to (...) show that the Extension Argument should overcome especially strong ethical considerations; moreover, its epistemological grounds are not too solid, partly because the justifications of its premises are in conflict. (shrink)

By means of the Rollback Argument, this paper argues that metaphysically robust probabilities are incompatible with a kind of control which can ensure that free actions are not a matter of chance. Our main objection to those (typically agent-causal) theories which both attribute a kind of control to agents that eliminates the role of chance concerning free actions and ascribe probabilities to options of decisions is that metaphysically robust probabilities should be posited only if they can have a metaphysical explanatory (...) role but probabilities can explain anything only if chance has a role. First, we reconstruct the Rollback Argument. Second, we criticize the standard ways of reconciling non-chancy control with metaphysically robust probabilities. Finally, we respond to those worries that are related to the thought experiment of the Rollback Argument. (shrink)

The evidential problem of evil involves a rarely discussed challenge, namely the challenge of defending theism against the hypothesis of a morally indifferent creator. Our argument uses a Bayesian framework and it starts by showing that if the only alternative to classical theism is naturalistic atheism, then fine-tuning can render theism virtually certain, even in the face of evil. But if the alternatives include the hypothesis of a morally indifferent creator, theism is defeated even if the fine-tuning premise is accepted. (...) The resulting version of the evidential problem is unsolvable using the tools that are currently deployed by theists against evil. (shrink)

This paper outlines a new conative theory of blame. I argue that the best-known conative approaches to blame (Scanlon 1998, 2008, Sher 2006a) misrepresent the cognitive and dispositional components of blame. Section 1 argues, against Scanlon and Sher, that blaming involves the judgment that an act or state is the fault of the blamed. I also propose an alternative dispositional condition on which blaming only occurs if it matters to the blamer whether the blamed gets the punishment that she deserves. (...) In Section 2, I discuss objections to judgment-based accounts of blame (that they cannot tell the difference between blaming and judging to be blameworthy, that they cannot explain why blame is often accompanied by emotion, and that they cannot make sense of irrational blame), and I argue that my proposal can handle all of them. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue against eternalism on the basis of certain phenomenological considerations regarding our experiential life in a relatively novel way. Contrary to well-known phenomenological arguments that attempt to refute tenseless theories of time, our argument that we call the Transcendental Phenomenological Argument against Eternalism is against both tenseless and tensed versions of eternalism. The argument is based on the fact that one experiences a phenomenologicalsuccessionof experiences, and it shows that perdurantist forms of eternalism have to either deny (...) this fact or should embracead hocand metaphysically implausible assumptions about the nature of the mind. As we argue, neither of these options seems to be too promising. (shrink)

In my paper, I spell out which types of libertarian theories can be refuted by Libet-style experiments and which cannot. I claim that, on the one hand, some forms of deliberative libertarianism and restrictive libertarianism cannot even in principle be denied on the basis of these experiments; and on the other hand, standard libertarianism, along with some versions of restrictive and deliberative libertarianism, can in principle be refuted by these experiments. However, any form of restrictive libertarianism can be refuted in (...) the future only if researchers perform new and “untraditional” Libet-style experiments. This is because “traditional” Libet-style experiments investigate decisions in Buridan-type situations. But these decisions are irrelevant with regard to free will, according to the restrictivists. -/- In the first section, I clarify some terminological issues in order to set the stage for a precise analysis. In the second, I attempt to show what the main reason is for thinking that Libet-style experiments seem to be problematic for libertarian theories. Although showing that actions are unconsciously initiated does not pose a real challenge for the elaborated philosophical theories of free will, Libet-style experiments may be problematic for most libertarian theories because, pace Roskies and Nahmias, libertarians have good reasons for saying that local determinism and free will are incompatible. In the third section, I argue that because some versions of deliberative libertarianism do not claim that decisions about actions are the center of freedom-relevant indeterminism, Libet-style experiments are unable to refute them after all. In the fourth, I attempt to show why standard centered libertarianism according to which there are no relevant metaphysical differences between different types of conscious decisions is in principle vulnerable to Libet-style experiments to a greater extent. Fifth, I point out the reasons why restrictivist centered libertarianism is less vulnerable to these experiments. Still, I argue that moderate-restrictivism can in principle be denied by Libet-style experiments if these experiments are modified in an important respect. However, proponents of hard-restrictivism should not worry about the possible results of these experiments because these theories restrict the set of free decisions to such a great extent that they cannot be subjected to a proper empirical test. (shrink)

Although the free will debate of contemporary analytic philosophy lacks almost any kind of historical perspective, some scholars have pointed out a striking similarity between Stoic approaches to free will and Frankfurt’s well-known hierarchical theory. However, the scholarly agreement is only apparent because they disagree about the kind of similarity between the Stoic and the Frankfurtian theories. The main thesis of my paper is that so far, commentators have missed the crucial difference between the Stoics’ approach to free will and (...) Frankfurt’s, a difference that makes the former the superior approach. (shrink)

Our paper consists of four parts. In the first part, we describe the challenge of the pervasive and permanent philosophical disagreement over philosophers’ epistemic self-esteem. In the second part, we investigate the attitude of philosophers who have high epistemic self-esteem even in the face of philosophical disagreement and who believe they have well-grounded philosophical knowledge. In the third section, we focus on the attitude of philosophers who maintain a moderate level of epistemic self-esteem because they do not attribute substantive philosophical (...) knowledge to themselves but still believe that they have epistemic right to defend substantive philosophical beliefs. In the fourth section, we analyse the attitude of philosophers who have a low level of epistemic self-esteem in relation to substantive philosophical beliefs and make no attempt to defend those beliefs. We argue that when faced with philosophical disagreement philosophers either have to deny that the dissenting philosophers are their epistemic peers or have to admit that doing philosophy is less meaningful than it seemed before. In this second case, philosophical activity and performance should not contribute to the philosophers’ overall epistemic self-esteem to any significant extent. (shrink)

Ferenc Huoranszki argues for two main claims in the ninth chapter of Freedom of the Will: A Conditional Analysis (Huoranszki 2011). First, Huoranszki tries to show that libertarian restrictivism is false because self-determination in the libertarian sense is not necessary for our responsibility, even if motives, reasons or psychological characteristics can influence us relatively strongly to choose one or the other alternative. second, Huoranszki rejects the so-called manipulation argument.1 this is an argument for the conclusion that unless physical indeterminism is (...) true, nobody can be morally responsible because our behavior is never independent enough of our environment. Therefore, according to Huoranszki, neither libertarian self-determination nor physical indeterminism is required for moral responsibility. in my view, Huoranszki’s counterarguments do not defeat libertarian restrictivism. How- ever, they can force philosophers who defend this theory to modify or refine it. i analyze Huoranszki’s arguments against libertarian self-determination in the first part of my paper. in the second part, I briefly argue for one supervenience argument inspired by a similar objection made earlier (bács 2012). According to this modified argument, Huoranszki’s theory about abilities and responsibility would entail that if physical determinism is true then we are responsible for our ordinary actions only because we are able to do miraculous acts as well. if this objection is correct, Huoranszki’s compatibilism is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Preface to the Special Issue on Free Will and Epistemology written by Robert Lockie.

This article defends indirect libertarianism against those arguments which attempt to show that blameworthiness cannot be traced back to earlier blameworthy acts in most cases. More precisely, I fo...