Neil Levy presents a new theory of freedom and responsibility. He defends a particular account of consciousness--the global workspace view--and argues that consciousness plays an especially important role in action. There are good reasons to think that the naïve assumption, that consciousness is needed for moral responsibility, is in fact true.

The extended mind thesis is the claim that mental states extend beyond the skulls of the agents whose states they are. This seemingly obscure and bizarre claim has far-reaching implications for neuroethics, I argue. In the first half of this article, I sketch the extended mind thesis and defend it against criticisms. In the second half, I turn to its neuroethical implications. I argue that the extended mind thesis entails the falsity of the claim that interventions into the brain are (...) especially problematic just because they are internal interventions, but that many objections to such interventions rely, at least in part, on this claim. Further, I argue that the thesis alters the focus of neuroethics, away from the question of whether we ought to allow interventions into the mind, and toward the question of which interventions we ought to allow and under what conditions. The extended mind thesis dramatically expands the scope of neuroethics: because interventions into the environment of agents can count as interventions into their minds, decisions concerning such interventions become questions for neuroethics. (shrink)

The self-deceived are usually held to be moral responsible for their state. I argue that this attribution of responsibility makes sense only against the background of the traditional conception of self-deception, a conception that is now widely rejected. In its place, a new conception of self-deception has been articulated, which requires neither intentional action by self-deceived agents, nor that they possess contradictory beliefs. This new conception has neither need nor place for attributions of moral responsibility to the self-deceived in paradigmatic (...) cases. Accordingly, we should take the final step toward abandoning the traditional conception, and drop the automatic attribution of responsibility. Self-deception is simply a kind of mistake, and has no more necessary connection to culpability than have other intellectual errors. (shrink)

Introduction HLA Hart: A biographical sketch Jurisprudence is the theoretical study of a practical subject. Its object is to achieve a systematic and ...

This is a controversial work of applied legal theory, addressing urgent contemporary questions about law and the state, about the character of the UK as a state, and about the juridical character of the European Union.

The thesis that propositions of law are intrinsically arguable is opposed by the antithesis that the Rule of Law is valued for the sake of legal certainty. The synthesis considers the insights of theories of rhetoric and proceduralist theories of practical reason, then locates the problem of indeterminacy of law in the context of the challengeable character of governmental action under free governments. This is not incompatible with, but required by the Rule of Law, which is misstated as securing legal (...) certainty. Defeasible certainty is the most that is desirable or achievable. (shrink)

It is widely held that some kinds of deception into sex (e.g., lying about what pets one likes) do not undermine the moral force of consent while other kinds of deception do (e.g., impersonating the consenter’s partner). Tom Dougherty argues against this: whenever someone is deceived into sex by the concealment of a “deal breaker” fact, the normative situation is the same as there being no consent at all. Here it is argued that this conclusion is unwarranted. Dougherty’s negative arguments (...) against alternative theories of the deceptive undermining of consent are flawed, and his two positive arguments are unjustified. (shrink)

Since Bruno Latour's discussion of a Sakhalin island map used by La Pérouse as part of a global network of “immutable mobiles,” the commensurability of European and non-European knowledge has become an important issue for historians of science. But recent studies have challenged these dichotomous categories as reductive and inadequate for understanding the fluid nature of identities, their relational origins, and their historically constituted character. Itineraries of knowledge transfer, traced in the wake of objects and individuals, offer a powerful heuristic (...) alternative, bypassing artificial epistemological divides and avoiding the limited scale of national or monolingual frames. Approaches that place undue emphasis either on the omnipotence of the imperial center or the centrality of the colonial periphery see only half the picture. Instead, practices of knowledge collection, codification, elaboration, and dissemination—in European, indigenous, and mixed or hybrid contexts—can be better understood by following their moveable parts, with a keen sensitivity toward non-normative epistemologies and more profound temporal frameworks. -/- . (shrink)

I begin with the view that the usual property‐based epiphenomenalist challenges to anomalous monism are unconvincing in light of Davidson's reluctance to analyze causation in terms of properties. I argue, however, that the challenges against Davidson do hold in the weaker sense that although mental events have causal efficacy the identification of an agent's reasons does not causally explain behaviour. I then show that in light of Davidson's commitment to psychophysical supervenience this does not constitute a serious problem for anomalous (...) monism. (shrink)

Moral discourse is propositionally clothed, that is, it exhibits those features – such as the ability of its sentences to intelligibly embed in conditionals and other unasserted contexts – that have been taken by some philosophers to be constitutive of discourses that express propositions. If there is nothing more to a mental state being a belief than it being characteristically expressed by sentences that are propositionally clothed then the version of expressivism which accepts that moral discourse is propositionally clothed (‘quasi-realism’) (...) is self-refuting. Fortunately for quasi-realists, this view of belief, which I label ‘minimalism’, is false. I present three arguments against it and dismiss two possible defences (the first drawn from the work of Wright, the second given by Harcourt). The conclusion is that the issue between expressivists and their opponents cannot be settled by the mere fact that moral discourse wears propositional clothing. (shrink)

I argue that Frank Jackson's knowledge argument cannot succeed in showing that qualia are epiphenomenal. The reason for this is that there is, given the structure of the argument, an irreconcilable tension between his support for the claim that qualia are non-physical and his conclusion that they are epiphenomenal. The source of the tension is that his argument for the non-physical character of qualia is plausible only on the assumption that they have causal efficacy, while his argument for the epiphenomenal (...) character of qualia is plausible only on the assumption that they are non-physical. Since these two arguments cannot be combined coherently, the most Jackson's argument can establish is that qualia are non-physical. (shrink)

Frankfurt-style cases are widely taken to show that agents do not need alternative possibilities to be morally responsible for their actions. Many philosophers take these cases to constitute a powerful argument for compatibilism: if we do not need alternative possibilities for moral responsibility, it is hard to see what the attraction of indeterminism might be. I defend the claim that even though Frankfurt-style cases establish that agents can be responsible for their actions despite lacking alternatives, agents can only be responsible (...) if they possess certain powers, and possession of these powers is - arguably - incompatible with determinism. Because this is the case, Frankfurt-style cases fail to advance the debate between compatibilism and incompatibilism. (shrink)

Is there a 'constitutional moment' in contemporary Europe? What if anything is the constitution of the European Union; what kind of polity is the Union? The suggestion offered is that there is a legally constituted order, and that a suitable term to apply to it is a 'commonwealth', comprising a commonwealth of 'post-sovereign' states. Is it a democratic commonwealth, and can it be? Is there sufficiently a demos or 'people' for democracy to be possible? If not democratic, what is it? (...) Monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy, or a 'mixed constitution'? Argued: there is a mixed constitution containing a reasonable element of democratic rule. The value of democracy is then explored in terms of individualistic versus holistic evaluation and instrumental versus intrinsic value. Subsidiarity can be considered in a similar light, suggestively in terms of forms of democracy appropriate to different levels of self-government. The conclusion is that there is no absolute democratic deficit in the European commonwealth. (shrink)

If we are to understand why psychoanalysis extends ordinary psychology in the precise ways that it does, we must take account of the existence of, and the interplay between, two distinct kinds of explanatory concern: functional and idiographic. The form and content of psychoanalytic explanation and its unusual methodology can, at least in part, be viewed as emerging out of Freud's attempt to reconcile these two types of explanatory concern. We must also acknowledge the role of the background theoretical context (...) that shapes Freud's functional thinking about the mind. A neglect of the role of the background theory in shaping the extension of ordinary psychology leaves us with puzzles about the nature and direction of the psychoanalytic extension and gives rise to an unbelievable history of psychoanalysis. (shrink)

We begin with a brief explanation of our proof-theoretic criterion of paradoxicality—its motivation, its methods, and its results so far. It is a proof-theoretic account of paradoxicality that can be given in addition to, or alongside, the more familiar semantic account of Kripke. It is a question for further research whether the two accounts agree in general on what is to count as a paradox. It is also a question for further research whether and, if so, how the so-called Ekman (...) problem bears on the investigations here of the intensional paradoxes. Possible exceptions to the proof-theoretic criterion are Prior’s Theorem and Russell’s Paradox of Propositions—the two best-known ‘intensional’ paradoxes. We have not yet addressed them. We do so here. The results are encouraging. §1 studies Prior’s Theorem. In the literature on the paradoxes of intensionality, it does not enjoy rigorous formal proof of a Gentzenian kind—the kind that lends itself to proof-theoretic analysis of recondite features that might escape the attention of logicians using non-Gentzenian systems of logic. We make good that lack, both to render the criterion applicable to the formal proof, and to see whether the criterion gets it right. Prior’s Theorem is a theorem in an unfree, classical, quantified propositional logic. But if one were to insist that the logic employed be free, then Prior’s Theorem would not be a theorem at all. Its proof would have an undischarged assumption—the ‘existential presupposition’ that the proposition $$\forall p(Qp\!\rightarrow \!\lnot p)$$ ∀ p ( Q p → ¬ p ) exists. Call this proposition $$\vartheta $$ ϑ. §2 focuses on $$\vartheta $$ ϑ. We analyse a Priorean reductio of $$\vartheta $$ ϑ along with the possibilitate $$\Diamond \forall q(Qq\!\leftrightarrow \!(\vartheta \!\leftrightarrow \! q))$$ ◊ ∀ q ( Q q ↔ ( ϑ ↔ q ) ). The attempted reductio of this premise-pair, which is constructive, cannot be brought into normal form. The criterion says we have not straightforward inconsistency, but rather genuine paradoxicality. §3 turns to problems engendered by the proposition $$\exists p(Qp\wedge \lnot p)$$ ∃ p ( Q p ∧ ¬ p ) (call it $$\eta $$ η ) for the similar possibilitate $$\Diamond \forall q(Qq\!\leftrightarrow \!(\eta \!\leftrightarrow \! q))$$ ◊ ∀ q ( Q q ↔ ( η ↔ q ) ). The attempted disproof of this premise-pair—again, a constructive one—cannot succeed. It cannot be brought into normal form. The criterion says the premise-pair is a genuine paradox. In §4 we show how Russell’s Paradox of Propositions, like the Priorean intensional paradoxes, is to be classified as a genuine paradox by the proof-theoretic criterion of paradoxicality. (shrink)

In his book, "Water into Wine," Robert Larmer argues that miracles can occur as divine interventions in the world without involving any change or suspension of the laws of nature. They may do this by the direct creation or destruction of some of the basic ’stuff’ of the universe, while it continues to conform to the unaltered laws. This paper, on the contrary, claims that conservation is essential to the concept of the ’stuff’ as being basic, and that changes in (...) its total quantity therefore undermine the laws of nature just as seriously as any other conflicting evidence. (shrink)

This Article addresses the question of what limits, if any, freedom of speech would place on holding authors liable for the reputational damage they cause with fiction. By “freedom of speech” I am not referring to the First Amendment but rather to one conception of the moral idea underlying it. According to this conception, the limits that freedom of speech places on the scope of authors’ liability for causing false and defamatory beliefs are whatever limits are necessary to adequately protect (...) our interests as potential authors and audiences, and whose costs are acceptable in terms of other interests. To apply this conception, it will be necessary to identify our interests as potential authors of and audiences for fiction about real people, and to assess how these interests would be affected by different limits. Ultimately, I will argue that freedom of speech is consistent with holding authors liable for reputational damage caused by their violations of fiction’s “veracity rules” and for reputational damage caused by mistakes that their target audience would be expected to make. But liability for beliefs that are traceable to mistakes that only an author’s incidental audience would be expected to make is, I will argue, prohibitedby freedom of speech, so long as the costs of that protection remain acceptable. (shrink)

Philosophers who advocate the possibility of spectrum inversion often conclude that the qualitative content of experiential states pose a serious problem for functionalism. I argue that in order for the inversion hypothesis to support this conclusion one needs to show that it generalizes to all species of qualia. By examining features of touch, taste, and olfactory sensations, I show there is good reason to resist this generalization, in which case appeals to the possibility of spectral inversion are considerably less effective (...) than they may initially appear. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the contribution of practitioner research towards bodies of knowledge and practice change. A practitioner or group of practitioners may carry out inquiry in order to better understand their own practice and client groups and to assess or improve service effectiveness. There is also increased interest in the place of ethical review (typically encapsulated within requirements to submit to a formal ethics committee) and broader processes of research governance. Drawing on the field of social work this (...) paper seeks to explore how practitioner research should respond to calls for ethical review and greater formal consideration of research projects. We adopt a four-fold discussion. First, we explore the meaning of practitioner research and sketch its progress and the ethical implications thereof within social work; second, we trace the factors accounting for growing interest in ethics review and committees; third, we outline issues raised by practitioner research vis-à-vis ethical review, the role of ethics committees, and processes of research governance. Finally, we suggest how procedures and practices can ensure that ethical principles are considered whilst also fostering practitioner research developments. (shrink)

The identity theory, advocated as a solution to the mind-body problem by materialists such as Feigl and Smart, has been criticized for implying the existence of irreducible properties. After summarizing the relevant theses of materialism, I consider several versions of the irreducible properties objection, and argue that they are all unsuccessful.

Hausman has argued that Mill in the Logic demands verification of qualified, inexact statements if they are to be considered lawlike. This puts Mill in line with a reasonable interpretation of what modern microeconomists are about, but requires the additional hypothesis that Mill abandoned his earlier stress on modal truth in his 1836 essay on the method of economics. The paper maintains that neither textual nor contextual evidence supports this hypothesis. Moreover, it is superfluous if one attends carefully to how (...) Mill conceived economic science, which occupied a peculiar, somewhat isolated place in his own views on the deductive method and on verification. (shrink)

Thomas Huxley is often identified as the originator of the doctrineknown as ``epiphenomenalism,'' but there appears to be littleappreciation for the details of Huxley's theory. In particular,conflicting interpretations show that there is uncertainty about twoaspects of his position: whether mental states are completelywithout causal powers or simply have no influence on the behavior theyare typically taken to explain, and whether conscious epiphenomena arethemselves physical states of the brain or immaterial items. I clarifythese issues and show that Huxley's brand of epiphenomenalism (...) is in factdifferent from the forms usually attributed to him. (shrink)

Putnam raises two objections against the token-identity theory in his _Dewey Lectures. (1) Token-physicalism invokes a mysterious or _sui generis concept of identity between mental and physical event tokens; (2) The theory suffers from explanatory failure because it cannot individuate mental events using physical criteria. I argue that the first claim is false, since Davidson adopts the same criterion of identity Quine employs for ordinary objects which invokes a concept of identity we understand clearly enough. I then show that Putnam's (...) second complaint is an extravagant demand that needs not be answered and is at odds with his own direct realism. (shrink)

give just two examples, the Paradox of the Stone is racy’. (1987, p. 106) said to show the impossibility of omnipotence, while an array of arguments try to show the incom-.

The foremost task of educational philosophy is to deal with questions about the process of education and to formulate means and ends to the educational experience. In the development of such formulations, the educational philosopher must make extensive analyses of such relevant concepts and factors as democracy, intellectual freedom, individual experience, social control, and instructional method. This is particularly true in regard to the philosophy of social and ethical education. Two questions of social and ethical significance have, in particular, claimed (...) the attention of educational philosophers. These are: what rules of conduct should be taught in the schools and how should these rules be taught? It is with these questions that the present writing essentially deals. (shrink)