15 results
Desiring to Try: Reply to Adams
- Alfred R. Mele
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- Journal:
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy / Volume 24 / Issue 4 / December 1994
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 January 2020, pp. 627-636
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The Intention/Volition Debate1
- Frederick Adams, Alfred R. Mele
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- Journal:
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy / Volume 22 / Issue 3 / September 1992
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 January 2020, pp. 323-337
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People intend to do things, try to do things, and do things. Do they also will to do things? More precisely, if people will to do things and their willing bears upon what they do, is willing, or volition, something distinct from intending and trying? This question is central to the intention/volition debate, a debate about the ingredients of the best theory of the nature and explanation of human action. A variety of competing conceptions of volition, intention, and trying have been advanced in the literature; it would be impossible to examine each thoroughly in a single paper. We can show, however, that the major functional roles ascribed to volition are nicely filled by a triad composed of intention, trying, and information feedback. Sections I and II below develop an account of the connection between intention and trying. Section III examines leading arguments for the existence of volitions and decomposes volitions into members of the triad just identified.
Chapter 9 - Exercising Self-Control
- Edited by José Luis Bermúdez, Texas A & M University
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- Book:
- Self-Control, Decision Theory, and Rationality
- Published online:
- 29 November 2018
- Print publication:
- 06 December 2018, pp 204-217
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Two Libertarian Theories: or Why Event-causal Libertarians Should Prefer My Daring Libertarian View to Robert Kane's View
- Alfred R. Mele
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- Journal:
- Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements / Volume 80 / July 2017
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 16 May 2017, pp. 49-68
- Print publication:
- July 2017
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Libertarianism about free will is the conjunction of two theses: the existence of free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism, and at least some human beings sometimes exercise free will (or act freely, for short).1 Some libertarian views feature agent causation, others maintain that free actions are uncaused, and yet others – event-causal libertarian views – reject all views of these two kinds and appeal to indeterministic causation by events and states.2 This article explores the relative merits of two different views of this third kind. One is Robert Kane's prominent view, and the other is the ‘daring libertarian’ view that I floated in Free Will and Luck.3 (I labeled the view ‘daring’ to distinguish it from a more modest libertarian view that I floated a decade earlier.)4 I say ‘floated’ because I am not a libertarian. I do not endorse incompatibilism; instead, I am agnostic about it. But if I were a libertarian, I would embrace my daring libertarian view (or DLV, for short). This article's thesis is that event-causal libertarians should prefer DLV to Kane's ‘dual or multiple efforts’ view.5
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
- Published online:
- 05 August 2015
- Print publication:
- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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4 - Agnostic Autonomism Revisited
- Edited by James Stacey Taylor, Louisiana State University
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- Book:
- Personal Autonomy
- Published online:
- 03 December 2009
- Print publication:
- 10 January 2005, pp 109-123
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Summary
Autonomy, as I understand it, is associated with a family of freedom concepts: free will, free choice, free action, and the like. In much of the philosophical literature discussed in this chapter, issues are framed in terms of freedom rather than autonomy, but we are talking about (aspects of) the same thing. Libertarians argue that determinism precludes autonomy by, for example, precluding an agent's being ultimately responsible for anything. Some compatibilist believers in autonomy argue that libertarians rely on indeterminism in a way that deprives us of autonomy-level control over our decisions. Theorists who contend that no human being is autonomous can benefit from arguments on both sides, alleging that libertarians decisively reveal the ordinary person's notion of autonomy, an incompatibilist notion, and that compatibilist critics of libertarianism show that the notion is incoherent or unsatis-fiable. Is there a way to use the resources both of libertarianism and of compatibilism in defending the following thesis: The claim that there are autonomous human beings is more credible than the claim that there are none?
I believe that the answer is “yes.” I defended that answer in Autonomous Agents. Part of my strategy was to develop an account of an ideally self-controlled agent (where self-control is understood as the contrary of akrasia [roughly, weakness of will]), to argue that even such an agent may fall short of autonomy, and to ask what may be added to ideal self-control to yield autonomy. I offered two answers, one for compatibilists and another for libertarians. I then argued that a certain disjunctive thesis involving both answers (identified in Section 4 below) is more credible than the thesis that there are no autonomous human beings.
11 - Outcomes of Internal Conflicts in the Sphere of Akrasia and Self-Control
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- By Alfred R. Mele, Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University, Tallahassee
- Edited by Peter Baumann, University of Aberdeen, Monika Betzler, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
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- Practical Conflicts
- Published online:
- 02 December 2009
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- 26 January 2004, pp 262-278
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Summary
Practical conflicts include conflicts in agents who judge, from the perspective of their own values, desires, beliefs, and the like, that one prospective course of action is superior to another but are tempted by what they judge to be the inferior course of action. A man who wants a late-night snack, even though he judges it best, from the identified perspective, to abide by his recent New Year's resolution against eating such snacks until he has lost ten pounds, is the locus of a practical conflict. So is a woman who judges it best (in the same way) to run a mile this morning but is tempted to spend the entire morning working in her office instead. The topic of this essay is practical outcomes of conflicts of this kind. My concern, more specifically, is with outcomes of two general kinds: akratic (from the classical Greek term akrasia: want of self-control) and enkratic (from enkrateia: self-control) actions.
Strict akratic action may be defined as free, sane, intentional action that the agent consciously believes at the time of action to be inferior to another course of action that is open to her then, inferior from the perspective of her own values, desires, beliefs, and the like. The belief against which an agent acts in strict akratic action may be termed a decisive belief.
2 - Philosophy of Action
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- By Alfred R. Mele, William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University
- Edited by Kirk Ludwig, University of Florida
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- Donald Davidson
- Published online:
- 02 December 2009
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- 21 July 2003, pp 64-84
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Summary
The basic subject matter of the philosophy of action is a pair of questions: (1) What are actions? (2) How are actions to be explained? The questions call, respectively, for a theory of the nature of action and a theory of the explanation of actions. Donald Davidson has articulated and defended influential answers to both questions. Those answers are the primary focus of this chapter.
ACTIONS AND INDIVIDUATION
Actions, as Davidson understands them, are analogous to money and sunburns in one noteworthy respect. The piece of paper with which I just purchased a drink is a genuine U. S. dollar bill partly in virtue of its having been produced (in the right way) by the U. S. Treasury Department. The burn on my back is a sunburn partly in virtue of its having been produced by exposure to the sun's rays. A duplicate bill produced with plates and paper stolen from the Treasury Department is a counterfeit dollar bill, not a genuine one. A burn that looks and feels just like the one on my back is not a sunburn if it was produced by exposure to a heat lamp rather than to the sun. Similarly, on Davidson's view of action, a certain event is my buying a drink – an action – partly in virtue of its having been appropriately produced by reasons that I had for buying one, reasons being understood as complexes of beliefs and desires (Davidson 1980 [1963]; 1980a [1971]; 1980a [1973]; 1987b).
X - Emotion and Desire in Self-Deception
- Edited by Anthony Hatzimoysis, University of Manchester
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- Book:
- Philosophy and the Emotions
- Published online:
- 06 January 2010
- Print publication:
- 21 July 2003, pp 163-180
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According to a traditional view of self-deception, the phenomenon is an intrapersonal analogue of stereotypical interpersonal deception. In the latter case, deceivers intentionally deceive others into believing something, p, and there is a time at which the deceivers believe that p is false while their victims falsely believe that p is true. If self-deception is properly understood on this model, selfdeceivers intentionally deceive themselves into believing something, p, and there is a time at which they believe that p is false while also believing that p is true.
Elsewhere (most recently in Mele, 2001), I have criticized the traditional conception of self-deception and defended an alternative, deflationary view according to which self-deception does not entail any of the following: intentionally deceiving oneself; intending (or trying) to deceive oneself, or to make it easier for oneself to believe something; concurrently believing each of two contradictory propositions. Indeed, I have argued that garden-variety instances of selfdeception do not include any of these things. On my view, to put it simply, people enter self-deception in acquiring a belief that p if and only if p is false and they acquire the belief in a suitably biased way. Obviously, this shoulders me with the burden of showing what suitable bias amounts to, and I have had a lot to say about that. The suitability at issue is a matter of kind of bias, degree of bias, and the nondeviance of causal connections between biasing processes (or events) and the acquisition of the belief that p.
In Mele, 2001 (pp. 106–12), I suggested a test for relevant bias. I called it ‘the impartial observer test,’ and I argued that its appropriateness is underwritten by…
X. Emotion and Desire in Self-Deception
- Alfred R. Mele
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- Journal:
- Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements / Volume 52 / March 2003
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 08 January 2010, pp. 163-179
- Print publication:
- March 2003
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According to a traditional view of self-deception, the phenomenon is an intrapersonal analogue of stereotypical interpersonal deception. In the latter case, deceivers intentionally deceive others into believing something, p, and there is a time at which the deceivers believe that p is false while their victims falsely believe that p is true. If self-deception is properly understood on this model, self-deceivers intentionally deceive themselves into believing something, p, and there is a time at which they believe that p is false while also believing that p is true.
Ultimate Responsibility and Dumb Luck*
- Alfred R. Mele
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- Journal:
- Social Philosophy and Policy / Volume 16 / Issue 2 / Summer 1999
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 January 2009, pp. 274-293
- Print publication:
- Summer 1999
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My topic lies on conceptual terrain that is quite familiar to philosophers. For others, a bit of background may be in order. In light of what has filtered down from quantum mechanics, few philosophers today believe that the universe is causally deterministic (or “deterministic,” for short). That is, to use Peter van Inwagen's succinct definition of “determinism,” few philosophers believe that “there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future.” Even so, partly for obvious historical reasons, philosophers continue to argue about whether free will and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism. Compatibilists argue for compatibility, and incompatibilists argue against it. Some incompatibilists maintain that free will and moral responsibility are illusions. But most are libertarians, libertarianism being the conjunction of incompatibilism and the thesis that at least some human beings are possessed of free will and moral responsibility.
Ultimate Responsibility and Dumb Luck
- Edited by Ellen Frankel Paul, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Fred D. Miller, Jr, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Jeffrey Paul, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
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- Book:
- Responsibility
- Published online:
- 06 January 2010
- Print publication:
- 28 June 1999, pp 274-293
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Summary
introduction
My topic lies on conceptual terrain that is quite familiar to philosophers. For others, a bit of background may be in order. In light of what has filtered down from quantum mechanics, few philosophers today believe that the universe is causally deterministic (or “deterministic” for short). That is, to use Peter van Inwagen's succinct definition of “determinism” few philosophers believe that “there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future.” Even so, partly for obvious historical reasons, philosophers continue to argue about whether free will and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism. Compatibilists argue for compatibility, and incompatibilists argue against it. Some incompatibilists maintain that free will and moral responsibility are illusions. But most are libertarians, libertarianism being the conjunction of incompatibilism and the thesis that at least some human beings are possessed of free will and moral responsibility.
People sometimes wonder why philosophers who believe that determinism is false care about the compatibility question. Those who read on will find a partial answer that has a lot to do with luck. For introductory purposes, the sphere of luck (good or bad) for a person may be understood as the sphere of things having the following two properties: the person does not control them; even so, they affect his or her life.
There is in the literature on free will and moral responsibility a notion of ultimate responsibility that, by definition, requires the falsity of determinism.
Real self-deception
- Alfred R. Mele
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- Journal:
- Behavioral and Brain Sciences / Volume 20 / Issue 1 / March 1997
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 March 1997, pp. 91-102
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Self-deception is made unnecessarily puzzling by the assumption that it is an intrapersonal analog of ordinary interpersonal deception. In paradigmatic cases, interpersonal deception is intentional and involves some time at which the deceiver disbelieves what the deceived believes. The assumption that self-deception is intentional and that the self-deceiver believes that some proposition is true while also believing that it is false produces interesting conceptual puzzles, but it also produces a fundamentally mistaken view of the dynamics of self-deception. This target article challenges the assumption and presents an alternative view of the nature and etiology of self-deception. Drawing upon empirical studies of cognitive biases, it resolves familiar “paradoxes” about the dynamics of self- deception and the condition of being self-deceived. Conceptually sufficient conditions for self-deception are offered and putative empirical demonstrations of a kind of self-deception in which a subject believes that a proposition is true while also believing that it is false are criticized. Self-deception is neither irresolvably paradoxical nor mysterious, and it is explicable without the assistance of mental exotica. The key to understanding its dynamics is a proper appreciation of our capacity for acquiring and retaining motivationally biased beliefs.
Understanding and explaining real self-deception
- Alfred R. Mele
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- Journal:
- Behavioral and Brain Sciences / Volume 20 / Issue 1 / March 1997
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 March 1997, pp. 127-134
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This response addresses seven main issues: (1) alleged evidence that in some instances of self-deception an individual simultaneously possesses “contradictory beliefs”; (2) whether garden-variety self-deception is intentional; (3) whether conditions that I claimed to be conceptually sufficient for self-deception are so; (4) significant similarities and differences between self-deception and interpersonal deception; (5) how instances of self-deception are to be explained, and the roles of motivation in explaining them; (6) differences among various kinds of self- deception; (7) whether a proper conception of self-deception implies that definitive ascriptions of self-deception to individuals are impossible.
Aristotle on the Proximate Efficient Cause of Action
- Alfred R. Mele
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- Journal:
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume / Volume 10 / 1984
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 January 2020, pp. 133-155
- Print publication:
- 1984
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In this paper I shall attempt to locate and articulate Aristotle's answer to a foundational question in the theory of action - viz., ‘what is the proximate (efficient) cause of action?’ This task is certainly of historical importance, since one cannot hope to understand Aristotle's interesting and influential theory of action without understanding his views on the proximate efficient cause of action. But the present project is not, I should think, of historical interest alone; for it has recently been argued by a leading figure in the study of action, Myles Brand, that What [proximately] initiates action?’ is the fundamental question in action theory, and we shall see that Aristotle has the makings of a very plausible answer.