“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millenia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very (...) closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. (Clearly, there will also be epistemic conditions on responsibility as well, such as being aware—or failing that, being culpably unaware—of relevant alternatives to one's action and of the alternatives' moral significance.) But the significance of free will is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility. Free will also appears to be a condition on desert for one's accomplishments (why sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy); on the autonomy and dignity of persons; and on the value we accord to love and friendship. (See Kane 1996, 81ff. and Clarke 2003, Ch.1.). (shrink)

All organised bodies are composed of parts, similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner, bear no analogy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substances considered as mere physical agents. To whatever degree we might imagine our knowledge of the properties of the several ingredients of a (...) living body to be extended and perfected, it is certain that no mere summing up of the separate actions of those elements will ever amount to the action of the living body itself. (shrink)

The objective probability of every physical event is fixed by prior physical events and laws alone. (This thesis is sometimes expressed in terms of explanation: In tracing the causal history of any physical event, one need not advert to any non-physical events or laws. To the extent that there is any explanation available for a physical event, there is a complete explanation available couched entirely in physical vocabulary. We prefer the probability formulation, as it should be acceptable to any physicalist, (...) though some reject the explanation formulation.) (3) Causal Exclusion. (shrink)

In what follows, I will contend that the commonsense view of ourselves as fundamental causal agents - for which some have used the term “unmoved movers" but which I think might more accurately be expressed as “not wholly moved movers” - is theoretically understandable, internally consistent, and consistent with what we have thus far come to know about the nature and workings of the natural world. In the section that follows, I try to show how the concept of ‘agent’ causation (...) can be understood as a distinct species (from ‘event’ causation) of the primitive idea, which I’ll term “causal production”, underlying realist or non-Humean conceptions of event causation. In section III, I respond to a number of contemporary objections to the theory of agent causation. Sections IV-V are devoted to showing that the theory is compatible with ordinary reasons explanations of action, which then places me in a position to respond, in the final section, to the contention that we could never know, in principle, whether the agency theory actually describes a significant portion of human activity. (shrink)

An expansive, yet succinct, analysis of the Philosophy of Religion – from metaphysics through theology. Organized into two sections, the text first examines truths concerning what is possible and what is necessary. These chapters lay the foundation for the book’s second part – the search for a metaphysical framework that permits the possibility of an ultimate explanation that is correct and complete. A cutting-edge scholarly work which engages with the traditional metaphysician’s quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most (...) general features of the world we inhabit Develops an original view concerning the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, or truths concerning what is possible or necessary Applies this framework to a re-examination of the cosmological argument for theism Defends a novel version of the Leibnizian cosmological argument. (shrink)

Many philosophers are persuaded by familiar arguments that free will is incompatible with causal determinism. Yet, notoriously, past attempts to articulate how the right type of indeterminism might secure the capacity for autonomous action have generally been regarded as either demonstrably inadequate or irremediably obscure. This volume gathers together the most significant recent discussions concerning the prospects for devising a satisfactory indeterministic account of freedom of action. These essays give greater precision to traditional formulations of the problems associated with indeterministic (...) accounts and to the range of theoretical avenues for pursuing resolutions. The first four essays set out different challenges (from both compatibilists and those skeptical of the possibility of free will) to the adequacy of standard indeterministic theories. The next seven essays meet one or more of these challenges. Each of the fundamental types of approach--simple indeterminism, causal indeterminism, and agent causation--is represented in these novel and sophisticated proposals. The collection finishes with two essays that debate whether compatibilism entails that freedom of choice is a comparatively rare phenomenon within an individual's life. Eloquently presenting some of the most compelling and accessible arguments surrounding this central philosophical issue, Agents, Causes, and Events makes a valuable contribution to courses in free will/action theory and metaphysics. (shrink)

This provocative book refurbishes the traditional account of freedom of will as reasons-guided "agent" causation, situating its account within a general metaphysics. O'Connor's discussion of the general concept of causation and of ontological reductionism v. emergence will specially interest metaphysicians and philosophers of mind.

As good a definition as any of a _philosophical_ conundrum is a problem all of whose possible solutions are unsatisfactory. The problem of understanding the springs of action for morally responsible agents is commonly recognized to be such a problem. The origin, nature, and explanation of freely-willed actions puzzle us today as they did the ancients Greeks, and for much the same reasons. However, one can carry this ‘perennial-puzzle’ sentiment too far. The unsatisfactory nature of philosophical theories is a more (...) or less matter, and some of them have admitted of improvement over time. This, at any rate, is what we self-selecting metaphysicians tend to suppose, and I will pursue that high calling by suggesting a few improvements to a theory of metaphysical freedom, or freedom of the will. (shrink)

We explain the thesis that human mental states are ontologically emergent aspects of a fundamentally biological organism. We then explore the consequences of this thesis for the identity of a human person over time. As these consequences are not obviously independent of one's general ontology of objects and their properties, we consider four such accounts: transcendent universals, kind-Aristotelianism, immanent universals, and tropes. We suggest there are reasons for emergentists to favor the latter two accounts. We then argue that within such (...) ontologies, emergentism about properties pushes one to the stronger claim that there are emergent individuals, though not individuals which are dual to person's bodies—substance emergentism, but not substance dualism. (shrink)

One familiar affirmative answer to this question holds that these facts suffice to entail that Descartes' picture of the human mind must be mistaken. On Descartes' view, our mind or soul (the only essential part of ourselves) has no spatial location. Yet it directly interacts with but one physical object, the brain of that body with which it is, 'as it were, intermingled,' so as to 'form one unit.' The radical disparity posited between a nonspatial mind, whose intentional and conscious (...) properties are had by no physical object, and a spatial body, all of whose properties are had by no mind, has prompted some to conclude that, pace Descartes, causal interaction between the two is impossible. Jaegwon Kim has recently given a new twist to this old line of thought.(1) In the present essay, I will use Kim's argument as a springboard for motivating my own favored picture of the metaphysics of mind and body and then discussing how an often vilified account of freedom of the will may be realized within it. (shrink)

This essay will canvass recent philosophical accounts of human agency that deploy a notion of “self” (or “agent”) causation. Some of these accounts try to explicate this notion, whereas others only hint at its nature in contrast with the causality exhibited by impersonal physical systems. In these latter theories, the authors’ main argumentative burden is that the apparent fundamental differences between persona and impersonal causal activity strongly suggest mind-body dualism. I begin by noting two distinct, yet not commonly distinguished, philosophical (...) motivations for pursuing an agent-causal account of human agency. In the course of discussing the account developed by some philosophers in response to these consideration, I reconsider both the linkage of agent causation with mind-body dualism and its sharp cleavage from impersonal (or “event”) causation. (shrink)

Timothy O'Hagan - The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 546-547 Book Review The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau Patrick Riley, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xii + 453. Cloth, $69.95. Paper, $24.95. The book contains fifteen essays, three written by the editor. Of the fourteen authors, twelve are men, thirteen are anglophone, ten are based in the United States. (...) There are two excellent reprinted papers by deceased authors: G. A. Kelly's "General overview" and Shklar's "Rousseau's images of authority." Both are well worth re-reading. The rest are all new. The dominant genre of the collection is that kind of intellectual history which addresses "influences," both the predecessors who are thought to have influenced Rousseau, and the influence he may have had on subsequent intellectual and political developments. Some.. (shrink)

It is a commonplace of philosophy that the notion of free will is a hard nut to crack. A simple, compelling argument can be made to show that behavior for which an agent is morally responsible cannot be the outcome of prior determining causal factors.1 Yet the smug satisfaction with which we incompatibilists are prone to trot out this argument has a tendency to turn to embarrassment when we're asked to explain just how it is that morally responsible action might (...) obtain under the assumption of indeterminism. Despair over the prospect of giving a satisfactory answer to this question has led some contemporary philosophers to a position rarely, if ever, held in the history of philosophy: free, responsible action is an incoherent concept.2. (shrink)

A good deal of attention has been given in recent philosophy of religion to the question of whether we can sensibly attribute to God a form of knowledge which the 16th-century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina termed "middle knowledge". Interest in the doctrine has been spurred by a recognition of its intimate connection to certain conceptions of providence, prophecy, and response to petitionary prayer. According to defenders of the doctrine, which I will call "Molinism", the objects of middle knowledge are (...) all the true counterfactuals of the form, 'If C were to occur, then S would freely do A', where C specifies a particular set of circumstances. (Such propositions are usually referred to as "counterfactuals of freedom" - hereafter "CFs".)' I will try to assess the current status of two distinct questions: (1) Are there true CFs? and (2) Could God know true CFs if there are any? Obviously, Molinism must answer both questions affirmatively. Most of the discussion has focused on the first question. I hope to show that this approach has been a dialectical mistake on the part of critics of Molinism, for the difficulties of giving an affirmative answer to question (2) are, I believe, far easier to state clearly and convincingly. (shrink)

A Companion to the Philosophy of Action offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and problems central to the philosophy of action. The first volume to survey the entire field of philosophy of action (the central issues and processes relating to human actions). Brings together specially commissioned chapters from international experts. Discusses a range of ideas and doctrines, including rationality, free will and determinism, virtuous action, criminal responsibility, Attribution Theory, and rational agency in evolutionary perspective. Individual chapters also cover prominent (...) historic figures from Plato to Ricoeur. Can be approached as a complete narrative, but also serves as a work of reference. Offers rich insights into an area of philosophical thought that has attracted thinkers since the time of the ancient Greeks. (shrink)

Timothy O'Hagan investigates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's writings concerning the formation of humanity, of the individual and of the citizen, in his three master works, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men , The Emile , and The Social Contract . He explores Rousseau's reflections on developmental psychology, the nature of the political order, relations between the sexes, language and religion. O'Hagan gives Rousseau's arguments a close and sympathetic reading. He writes as a philosopher, not a historian, yet he (...) never loses sight of the cultural context of Rousseau's work. (shrink)

I propose a theory of freedom of choice on which it is a variable quality of individual conscious choices that has several dimensions that admit of degrees, even though - as many theorists have traditionally supposed - it also has as a necessary condition the possession of a capacity that is all or nothing. I argue that the proposed account better fits the phenomenology of ostensibly free actions, as well as empirical findings in the human sciences.

In its restless metamorphosis, the environmental movement captures ideas and transforms them into principles, guidelines and points of leverage. Sustainability is one such idea, now being reinterpreted in the aftermath of the 1992 Rio Conference. So too is the precautionary principle. Like sustainability, the precautionary principle is neither a well defined principle nor a stable concept. It has become the repository for a jumble of adventurous beliefs that challenge the status quo of political power, ideology and civil rights. Neither concept (...) has much coherence other than it is captured by the spirit that is challenging the authority of science, the hegemony of cost-benefit analysis, the powerlessness of victims of environmental abuse, and the unimplemented ethics of intrinsic natural rights and inter-generational equity. It is because the mood of the times needs an organising idea that the precautionary principle is getting a fair wind. However, unless its advocates sharpen up their understanding of the term, the precautionary principle may not establish the influence it deserves. Its future looks promising but it is not assured. (shrink)

Reid takes it to be part of our commonsense view of ourselves that "we" -- "qua" enduring substances, not merely "qua" subjects of efficacious mental states -- are often the immediate causes of our own volitions. Only if this conviction is veridical, Reid thinks, may we be properly held to be responsible for our actions (indeed, may we truly be said to "act" at all). This paper offers an interpretation of Reid's account of such agency (taking account of Rowe's recent (...) commentary), with particular attention to the issue of the causation of and responsibility for an agent's "causing" of his volition. (shrink)

This essay will canvass recent philosophical discussion of accounts of human (free) agency that deploy a notion of agent causation . Historically, many accounts have only hinted at the nature of agent causation by way of contrast with the causality exhibited by impersonal physical systems. Likewise, the numerous criticisms of agent causal theories have tended to be highly general, often amounting to no more that the bare assertion that the idea of agent causation is obscure or mysterious. But in the (...) past decade, detailed accounts of agent causation have been offered (chiefly by Randolph Clarke and Timothy O’Connor), and they have occasioned more specific objections in turn. These recent accounts and objections to them will be my primary focus in what follows. But first I will identify two distinct motivations that have been advanced for adopting an agent causal approach to human agency and the ontological and metaphysical commitments common to any version of this approach. (shrink)

One striking oddity about Democritus and Epicurus is that, even though Epicurus' theory of perception is largely the same as that of Democritus, Democritus and his followers draw skeptical conclusions from this theory of perception, whereas Epicurus declares that all perceptions are true or real. I believe that the dispute between Democritus and Epicurus stems from a question over what sort of ontological status should be assigned to sensible qualities. In this paper, I address three questions: 1) Why were Democritus (...) and his followers skeptical? 2) How did Epicurus modify Democritus' metaphysics in order to avoid these skeptical conclusions? and 3) How successful was he? -/- 1) I argue that Democritus allows only the intrinsic properties of atoms into his ontology, and then runs into skeptical difficulties because of the relativity of perception. 2) I propose that Epicurus modifies Democritus' ontology by allowing dispositional and relational properties as real properties of bodies. Sensible qualities are conceptualized as dispositional properties of bodies to cause certain experiences in percipients. 3) I argue that Epicurus does not run into the same problems as Democritus. Finally, I consider how my interpretation of Epicurus' ontology helps to make sense of his claim that all perceptions are alethes--'true' or 'real.'. (shrink)

Timothy O'Hagan investigates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's writings concerning the formation of humanity, of the individual and of the citizen in his three master works: the _Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men_, _Emile _and the _Social Contract_. He explores Rousseau's reflections on the sexes, language and religion. O'Hagan gives Rousseau's arguments a close and sympathetic reading. He writes as a philosopher, not a historian, yet he never loses sight of the cultural context of Rousseau's work.

What can a philosophical analysis of the concept of interpretation contribute to legal theory? In his recent book,Interpretation and Legal Theory, Andrei Marmor proposes a complex and ambitious analysis as groundwork for his positivist assault on “interpretive” theories of law and of language. I argue (i) that the crucial element in Marmor's analysis of interpretation is his treatment of Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on following rules, and (ii) that a less ambitious analysis of interpretation than Marmor's can take better advantage of (...) those insights about rules. I explore some implications of such an analysis for the role of interpretation in legal reasoning. (shrink)

This book is of interest to those working at the intersection of contemporary debates in philosophy, ethics, politics and cultural studies.

In this paper, I examine some main threads of the identification stage of Scotus's project in the fourth chapter of De Primo, where he tries to show that a first efficient cause must have the attributes of simplicity, intellect, will, and infinity. Many philosophers are favorably disposed towards one or another argument such as Scotus's (e.g., the cosmological argument from contingency) purporting to show that there is an absolutely first efficient cause. How far can Scotus take us from this starting (...) point towards the ultimate aim of establishing the existence of a being more recognizably identifiable as God? (shrink)

Many philosophers judge that typical agent-causal accounts of freedom improperly sacrifice the possibility of rational explanation of the action for the sake of securing control, while others judge that the reverse shortcoming plagues typical event causal accounts. (Of course, many philosophers make both these judgments.) After briefly rehearsing the reasons for these verdicts on the two traditional strategies, we undertake an extended examination of Randolph Clarke's recent attempt to meet the challenge by proposing an original, "integrated agent-causal" account of human (...) free action. We argue that Clarke's account fails. In a final section, we sketch a more promising route to integration. (shrink)

In what follows, I shall presuppose the ecumenical core of the causal powers metaphysics. The argument of this paper concerns what may appear at first to be a wholly unrelated matter, the metaphysics of free will. However, an adequate account of freedom requires, in my judgment, a notion of a distinctive variety of causal power, one which tradition dubs ‘agent-causal power’. I will first develop this notion and clarify its relationship to other notions. I will then respond to a number (...) of objections either to the possibility of a power so explicated or to its sufficiency for grounding an adequate account of human freedom. (shrink)

The author argues that philosophers' attempts to use philosophy of language to solve problems of jurisprudence have often failed- the most dramatic failure being that of Jeremy Bentham. H.L.A.Hart made some related mistakes in his creative use of philosophy of language, yet his focus on language still yields some very significant insights for jurisprudence: the context principle (that the correct application of linguistic expressions typically depends on context in ways that are important for jurisprudence), the diversity principle (that grounds of (...) correct application of legal language may be diverse), and the importance of vagueness. (shrink)

In this classic, exciting, and thoughtful text, Metaphysics , Peter van Inwagen examines three profound questions: What are the most general features of the world? Why is there a world? and What is the place of human beings in the world? Metaphysics introduces to readers the curious notion that is metaphysics, how it is conceived both historically and currently. The author's work can serve either as a textbook in a university course on metaphysics or as an introduction to metaphysical thinking (...) for the interested reader. This second edition, revised though not fundamentally changed, includes the basis of the first edition with a new chapter on the nature of time. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion of theistic arguments mainly focus on their first (existence) stage, which argues for the existence of something having some very general, if suggestive, feature. I shall instead consider only the second (identification) stage of one such argument, the cosmologic al argument from contingency. Taking for granted the existence of an absolutely necessary being, I develop an extended line of argument that supports the..

Timothy O'Hagan explores some of the apparent paradoxes in the writings of Rousseau.

Twentieth-century analytic philosophy was dominated by positivist antimetaphysics and neo-Humean deflationary metaphysics, and the nature of explanation was reconceived in order to fit these agendas. Unsurprisingly, the explanatory value of theist was widely discredited. I argue that the long-overdue revival of moralized, broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics and an improved perspective on modal knowledge dramatically changes the landscape. In this enriched context, there is no sharp divide between physics and metaphysics, and the natural end of the theoretician’s quest for a unified explanation (...) of the universe is God, an absolutely necessary, transcendent, and personal source of all contingent reality. (shrink)

Fyodor Dostoevsky understood this practical dimension well, and it is embodied in his literary treatment of the problem of evil in his masterpiece, The Brothers' Karamazov.1 In what follows, I will interpret the powerful existential repudiation of Christianity based on the facts of human suffering voiced by the antagonist, Ivan. After noting some similarities of Ivan’s case to that given by the French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus in his novel, The Plague, I then turn to Dostoevsky’s response, expressed through the (...) final discourse of the Elder Zossima. My goal here is solely to interpret and to set in a clearer focus the way Dostoevsky approaches the problem of evil. At the end, I briefly note some outstanding issues facing his strategy for resolving it. (shrink)

Timothy O’Connor and Philip Woodward defend a version of a compositional theory, according to which an incarnate deity has two natures, each of which is a distinct component of its being. They then extend this model to permit multiple incarnations. Finally, they consider an objection to this model based on the theological idea that Christ’s work is necessary for ushering in a united community of all divine-image-bearing creatures. In response, they speculate that no such all-encompassing community would be possible, (...) given the vast differences between such creatures. Accordingly, they speculate that each incarnation could help to bring about a unified community of the relevant sort of divine-image-bearing creatures, and that each of these communities would, in its own way, participate in the common goal of union with God. (shrink)

This paper lays the groundwork for formulating an approach to literature which pushes Foucault’s thought in directions which he perhaps envisaged, but never pursued. However, one of the major obstacles to formulating a Foucauldian philosophy of literature is the fact that Foucault’s thought itself turned away from literature in the late 1960s. Why does literature apparently disappear from Foucault’s writings after 1969? And why does Foucault’s own re-writing of his theoretical biography elide this earlier interest in literature? In order to (...) answer these questions we will have to find out what role literature played in his early thought. What is at stake here, is not just a better understanding of Foucault’s thought, but more importantly, the possibility of reviving one of the potential lines of flight which that thought cut short as a result of its own endless turning. Hence, my ultimate aim will be to address the question of what can be reclaimed today from Foucault’s abandoned engagement with literature. (shrink)

No community fully achieves the ideal of the rule of law. Puzzles about the content of the ideal seem to make it necessarily unattainable (and, therefore, an incoherent ideal). Legal systems necessarily contain vague laws. They typically allow for change in the law, they typically provide for unreviewable official decisions, and they never regulate every aspect of the life of a community. It may seem that the ideal can never be achieved because of these features of legal practice. But I (...) ask what counts as a ‘deficit’ in the rule of law, and I argue that none of these features of legal practice necessarily amounts to a deficit. I conclude that communities fail to achieve the rule of law only because of official infidelity to law, and the failure of lawmakers to pursue the ideal (or their decision not to pursue it). The rule of law is not necessarily unattainable. (shrink)

I Introduction The question of this paper is, what would it be to act with freedom of the will? What kind of control is inchoately in view when we speak, pretheoretically, of being ‘self- determining’ beings, of ‘freely making choices in view of consciously considered reasons’ (pro and con) - of its being ‘up to us’ how we shall act? My question here is not whether we have (or have any reason to think we have) such freedom, or what is (...) the most robust account of our freedom compatible with late twentieth-century science. Many contemporary philosophers are all too ready to settle for a deflationary account of freedom and declare victory, with some brief remarks reminding us that we were created a little lower than the angels. I am not so sanguine about the ability of such accounts to leave reasonably intact our judgments about human autonomy, dignity, and responsibility. But, as I’ve said, that’s not my concern here. Instead, I want to revisit the question of what exactly ‘self-determination’, on our ordinary conception, comes to. (shrink)

Nervous systems are formidably complex networks of nonlinear interacting components that self organise and continually adapt to enable flexible behaviour. Robust and reliable function is therefore non-trivial to achieve and requires a number of dynamic mechanisms and design principles that are the subject of current research in neuroscience. A striking feature of these principles is that they resemble engineering solutions, albeit at a greater level of complexity and layered organisation than any artificial system. I will draw on these observations to (...) argue that biological robustness in the nervous system remains a deep scientific puzzle, but not one that demands radically new concepts. (shrink)

I begin by considering an argument for why there would not be justice in a community of wise Epicureans: justice only exists where there is an agreement "neither to harm nor be harmed," and such an agreement would be superfluous in a community of wise Epicureans, since they would have no vain desires which would lead them to wish to harm one another. I argue that, if the 'justice contract' prohibits only direct harm of one person by another, then it (...) would be superfluous among Epicureans. However, Lucretius and Hermarchus make it clear that people enter into communities in order to protect themselves from harm from animals and from starvation, and that regulations needed in order for the community to protect the members from these dangers also fall under the purview of justice. Given this more expansive reading of the content of the 'justice contract,' such agreements would be needed in any community, even ones which had only wise Epicureans as members. (shrink)